What...the...f**k? Ri Ri, I am so sick and tired of liking your music. Now look, that first series of songs about ponning replays and robbing "Tainted Love" samples were not in my book of favorites. Then you became a good girl gone fembot and all of a sudden I am all over your life. I do not approve of your new clothing style, though. Not that it isn't fresh, but it looks very familiar doesn't it? I still have no idea why I like "Umbrella", "Please Don't Stop the Music", this new one "U Make Me Sick" (because deep down you really do) and omg "Disturbia"...why is "Disturbia" my ringtone? Why when you sing "it's like the darkness is the light" I consider that some chapter from the book of Nietzche and not some terrible movie starring your ex boytoy Shia LeBoop? Why when you walked out on stage to perform last night at the American Music Awards with a blinged out patch over your eye, I held your one eye with more reverence than Slick Rick? Why when you beat my pretend girlfriend Alicia Keys in awards, I silently cheered for you? Why when you took my pretend boyfriend Chris Brown from me Jolie-Aniston style, I was cool with it? Who do you think you are? I can't wait to meet you and when I do I will unplug you like the robot that you are like that episode of The Jetsons when they accidentally unplugged Rosie and she couldn't vacuum their pod. I don't even know if that was a real episode but let's pretend that it is, because I'm unplugging you Ri-tard. I hate you I hate you I hate you. Eep opp ork ah ah. That means I love you.
This is getting to be a bit much. First it started with Instant Messenger away messages, then it carried into MySpace, then Facebook, then Blackberries, iPhones, Smart phones, Dumb phones, Twitter, Tweeter, Twatter. Passive aggressive ways of expressing something without actually saying it. It can be something as simple as a two word "Help me" message or it can be a complex Shakespearean quote from a sonnet or play we've never read that hints about betrayal, love, lust, hate, sorrow, depression - the things that Country music is made of. How many times can we read "A true friend stabs you in the front"? I'm sure Oscar Wilde is looking into posthumous royalties at this point. Therefore, I have broken down the biggest status offenders. Apologies if you fall into a particular category. I know I'm in there somewhere too.
In love girl/guy: This person is in love and is going to shout it from the heavans. "I <3 Ted!!" "There's only one girl for me and that's Lola!" These people generally leave messages like this until one of them cheats on the other, and suddenly Lola is a woman scorned. Which brings us to...
Woman/Man scorned: The messages of heartbreak. The begging for "don't jump!" responses to their "I'm gonna jump" messages. Ted has turned to drinking after that mistake that left him Lola-less so he just doesn't even log on. Sad though, because all of those messages from Lola were meant for him anyway. "I'm Deep" Guy: "Bill is..." Bill chose not to add on to that. Bill just is... Bill is an existentialist now. Bill would like to think about what makes him Bill. Bill wants the world to understand that he isn't one dimensional. There are many layers to Bill, and one day they will all be discovered. For now, Bill just is... Tomorrow "Bill is getting shitfaced at Pat's BBQ for 4th of July. America: FUCK YEAH!!!"
The "Dramz" of Friendship: "Marla is sick of drama." "Tanya only chills with dudes because bitches are shady." "Sometimes friends are better off as enemies." Passive aggressive announcements that you hate all of your friends. You must hate them all or hate none of them because the responses "Me?" almost always yield a "No. Not you." So which friend are they really sick of? Drama of course. Not DJ Drama. Just, Drama. Not Johnny Drama. Just...Drama.
Party Girl: This girl (or guy) wants somebody or anybody to know that they're out on the town and the other person isn't. They're "OUT!!! Don't wait up bitches!" or "Chillin with my people. You should too!" You are not invited to their party, but they're letting you know they're having one. Alone in their room, wearing feeties and watching Family Guy. Good times.
Invitation in the status: "I'm at the Fly's Eye in Red Hook. Come through!!!!" You will never come and they know that. No self-respecting person in the history of this planet will show up to something they were invited to through a status message. "Hey, I read in your status that you were here." Never happen.
The Cliff Hanger: "I can't believe Marjorie was kicked off Top Model!!!" "They poisoned Supreme Allah on Oz!" "It's about time Ross and Rachel hooked up!!" Some of us have TiVo and DVR and we don't hurry to our television sets at 8pm to stay tuned. Understand that and high five yourself quietly (sans status) if you're happy that Serena and Dan broke up.
"Leave Me Alone" Guy: If he really wanted to be left alone, he wouldn't be logged on. Plain and simple.
Okay I have no idea how old this kid is (especially with hormones in milk and meat making 10 yr olds look 30), but this young man better be the star of his high school or college dorm or cubicle. I mean, I don't care where, but I adore this guy. This song could've easily been added to Thr33 Ringz. Okay I'm reaching, but doesn't he do a good job?
There's nothing like thinking you've found parking and being laughed at by one of these sick bastards posted above. Fire hydrants are the bain of my existence. I hate everything about them. They think they're so cute in the summertime with children opening them up and running through them. Oh whatever. This little asshole right here was cleverly placed near Washington Square Park while I was trying to find parking on a rainy afternoon. Not only did it trick me, but there was another one just like it five feet away. WHAT FOR?? With all of the traffic in New York, no fire truck is going to get there in time anyway, so why senselessly add 16 hydrants on a city block? Stop keeping the parking garages in business. They overcharge. Damnit I need a SmartCar.
I don't live in a dangerous area per se. I mean on that "Who's a perv in your hood" site there are some local ones (my next door neighbor being one) and the city to my left is where Lean on Me was filmed. Other than that it's all gravy save a few cheap dime store hoods. The town is small, so a call to the cops would have one there in under five minutes. There are some cops scattered around the town at various bagel and donut establishments. Nothing stereotypical at all.
There is, however, one cop who patrols what I consider to be the bowels of any police beat worldwide. On the outskirts of my town is a large park. In the middle of the park is a softball field with one of those weird buildings in parks that serve no real purpose and look kind of creepy. This building was once a Meals-On-Wheels delivery hub, but now I'm not so sure. Officer Bad Beat sits in that parking lot. It's the same cop every day.
He looks like he could be one of the Lively children - he's not as pretty as Blake, nowhere nearly as ugly as Jason, so let's say he looks like Robin Lively. He sits in the park parking lot facing a strip mall that has changed stores more than the lineup of Menudo. He frequently looks down to jot notes. Maybe he's pretending to look busy. Or...maybe he's a writer working on his novel and this is his day job. If so, then I commend him.
I always wondered if he really did anything at all for the law. Well, the other day I found my answer. driving along the road BBC (Bad Beat Cop) patrols, I saw a car pulled over about 50 feet from the BBC Headquarters. I looked in the police car. He just pulled over the poor teenager for driving too fast or poor senior citizen for driving too slow. I couldn't tell if it was the cop of the Lively kin. I figured it had to be. So as I passed the building that once held Meals-On-Wheels, who is sitting in the lot jotting invisible notes - Bad Beat Cop. So he really does nothing at all. I'm looking forward to his novel, though. It can't possibly be about law enforcement.
I think it was around my Freshman year of high school when it all began. My grandfather (R.I.P.) was upgrading his beeper and offered me his old one. It was a black pager with the display on top and a big red button to check pages. When I received a beep it was this loud siren like I was being summoned to operate on someone's spleen or head to Broadway and 145th to finally catch that drug dealer we've been after. Either that or Big Sancho had several hundred kilos coming in from the shipyard and if I wanted in, I had to be there pronto.
Whatever it was, my beeper made me official. I changed the case to some ugly maroon looking one and then my clip fell off. That was the worst because you meant NOTHING without a clip coming out of your jeans pocket. I had no real desire to call back anyone that was paging me. I mean, the beep was the important part of it all, really. So then I upgraded to that slide out beeper with the display on the side. It was always fun to secretly check your pages in high school at your locker and be disappointed when you had none because hello, anyone who would actually page you was in class just like you were.
My friends and I would enjoy paging each other from payphones - stuff like 7734 2 06 (Go to hell), 14 (hi), 553l8008 (boobless). Then of course your man of the moment would send 143 (I love you) and you'd send it back. We all understood how exciting it was to get a page, not necessarily a phone call. I didn't actually get a cellphone until around '99. I had some lame one that would only call home...and like, the police. I also had an 800# to call home, so I was fine with payphones. My first cellphone was a Nokia. Not like the Zack Morris brick, but it was up there. Same cellphone number ever since, and Verizon was still my carrier. Then that damn two-way page me song came out. I was back on the beeper's d**k. I got the two-way to the left and LOVED it. Pre-historic Blackberry I say. It was LOVELY. I had my cellphone but meh. What's a cellphone when you have TWO-WAY.
So then the two-way fell off, obviously. I wasn't important enough for that brick BlueBerry that Hov had or even a brick BlackBerry for that matter. I wasn't an investment banker or in IT. I was just out of college about to take on some corporate American gigs before I realized I was meant to starve with my pen and my ipod. Then in '05 I bought a Sidekick 2. I bypassed the first generation and went for the cuter younger brother. That Sidekick 2 and I were in l-o-v-e. Wow. Unreal. So then the Sidekick 2 fell off and I went for the 3. We casually dated. I got too comfortable really even though he wasn't right for me. I bought a Blackberry Curve and then returned it for the SK3 again. Comfort. Settling. I finally switched my cellphone to a Blackberry and then my SK3 was dead to me. I originally had the BlackBerry World phone, but where the hell do I go? The furthest out of the country I travel to is the Bronx and it had no camera (ew); back to the Curve I went. So here I stand. In love with my Blackberry Curve just as this fucking Storm is about to hit and destroy the village of love I have built around my precious Curve.
I am about 15 years deep in the mobile technology game, starting with my beeper. I weathered the cellphone storm, complete with cute ringtones and that God awful stick-on bling. I had a charm hanging from that brain radiating antenna until I remembered that I am a grown-ass woman and shouldn't have a bedazzled bee dangling from my ear unless it is about to sting me in the skull. I have come to realize something, though. I have never really wanted to talk on a mobile phone at all. I like to type and text and type and text and type some more. Voice is so secondary. No wonder I stare at my phones and could care less, but put me in front of a keypad and I'm a hooker at Hunt's Point. It's my obsession with the Keys that makes me pathetic...and I don't mean Alicia (but she's up there too).
Before he was the feverishly crass Ari Gold on Entourage, Piven was making an example of himself in many flicks including Cameron Crowe's Singles. Piven is proof that with age comes sexification. Yum. Here...not so yum. But this scene is funny.
...You become a Gold Member at Starbucks. Now look, there comes a time in every coffee addict's life when they must realize that spending $25 a year to receive 10% off every coffee purchase is actually a reasonable investment. The Starbucks barista (actually it was a guy, does that make him a baristo?) advised that if I spend $5 a week on coffee then the card will pay for itself in a year. Ha! I spend $5 a day on coffee, son! I already have the Gold Member card for Barnes and Noble, which works well for me since I buy magazines every other day and the occasional book that I may or may not read, but looks cute in my purse. I mean seriously, though. What a great way to keep my addictions going? My vices include coffee, leatherbound notebooks, and magazines (I'd include music, but that's for people who pretend to like music). Now I have two cards that fulfill my vices in every way. So I guess I am a Gold Member...not to be confused with Goldmember.
There's a certain level of dignity that automatically gets lost when one eats a sandwich. It's no one's fault, really. We all eat them. But when eating a sandwich - especially a packed one - there's a series of facial expressions that look like someone, male or female, is actually giving birth under the table at which they are sitting. The grimace and the opening of the mouth like they're writhing in pain, following by the stuffed cheeks like they're storing ham for the winter. It's all so disturbing, and somehow we are actually enjoying what we're eating. And for God's sake people, do NOT take photos of yourself attempting to eat a sandwich, and don't take pictures of your sandwich. We don't need photographic proof of your clogged arteries.
Now look, there are some instances where these photos can be funny. I mean I have friends who take pics of their food and them eating it all the time. It's endearing sometimes. But fellas, showing how much you can fit in your mouth makes you look more like one of Adebisi's bitches in Oz than making you look like a seasoned competitive eater. On that note, I'd like to discuss "Sandwich Guy."
Throughout my working from home existence, along with the completion of my thesis, I began to frequent local cafes to sit and absorb the free Wi-Fi outside of home (Shout out to Panera! I see you pimpin'!) I've discovered the fundamental difference between cafes and delis. Delis attempt to kill you with sandwiches the size of your head and cups full of coffee grinds. Cafes attempt to make you poor - with overpriced coffee and little expensive sandwiches. Oversized/Overpriced? You pick your team. I've yet to experience a deli with free Wi-Fi (or a deli employee that owns a computer) so the cafe wins. People from all walks of life congregate here to look interesting at lunch, write a novel that will never get published, or in some rare instances, just want to have lunch in a friendly setting. Then along comes Sandwich Guy.
Sandwich Guy comes here once a week because he passes it on some sort of truck route - delivering bread, installing cable, fixing a faucet, landscaping a yard. He really wanted the deli, but the deli is too far and he's hungry NOW. He walks into the cafe with his rugged, brawny, physique. Sometimes he's kinda hot, other times he looks like a deranged lumberjack from the sticks looking for some bodies to burn in the furnace of his log cabin.
Sandwich Guy walks up to the counter and glares at the menu. He stares at the cashier girl boobs first and then meets her eyes and asks for the "italian" sandwich. See, the "italian" sandwich at the cafe is there for the husbands of the women who frequent the cafe. It's a false representation of manhood because it's half packed with cold cuts but served on sliced bread. Real men use rolls. Husbands feel a sense of security as they eat their italian sandwich with their penis resting in their wife's purse. Sandwich Guy wants NONE of that. He orders the italian sandwich but then demands it on a roll. A big old italian roll. He means business.
He doesn't want soup or salad and he's never heard of flavored coffee. He just wants his big ass loaf of cholesterol. He feels a sense of accomplishment for turning his bridal shower sandwich into a "hoagie," a "sub," an edible model of the size of his genitals. He's very proud.
Sandwich Guy brings his big sandwich to a booth and shoves it in his mouth at the speed of light. The time it took for the high school student to make the sandwich is doubled since the cafe kids don't know how to use a "slicer." Their pre-packaged free-range turkey gets delicately placed on the loaf of bread. This isn't a hash house, and now Sandwich Guy lost most of his lunch break because of it. He swallows the sandwich whole and while there are still pieces hanging out of his mouth, he looks at YOU and smiles. You feel bad...like, awwwww Sandwich Guy just wanted a quick bite before installing DSL. Then he notices YOUR DSL's and turns this into a cruising for sex mission. You shake your head because it isn't that kind of a party and you pack up your laptop and move to the back of the cafe. He nods as you walk away...Marie from the deli is wayyyy hotter and she probably makes a better cup of coffee anyway.
So we all made the pilgrimage from MySpace to Facebook because apparently Facebook involved "real" social networking and was so super safe because we had to use our "real names" (like we somehow couldn't put John Smith as our name). That and those Lil Green Patch Kids.
Anyway, as of late, Facebook has been recruiting some creepy ass people ever since you could join without a school email address (sorry but it's true!) The social networking aspect has been replaced by people using their status bar as Twitter and prematurely revealing sitcom endings, name dropping (if you're in the industry you know the "Chillin with Fif" statuses), and leaving melodramatic quotes like "What's getting stabbed in the back without the tetanus?" And these people are your acquaintances.
My problem lately is similar to the issues I had on MySpace. It involves strangers hitting you up like they know you and having some retarded reason for acting like they do.
"Hey my name is Chad Baxter. I enjoy long walks on the beach and date rape. We have no mutual Facebook friends, and I'm hoping you don't realize that my default pic is of Jesse Metcalf, because I have no idea who he is; I Google imaged "shirtless guys" and found him first. I don't speak any English, but have translation software on my Dell. I weigh 500 pounds and it's all in my neck. I'm hoping you find me sensitive and sexy so we can meet in an Arby's parking lot and I can make a statistic out of you. It'll be a good time."
"Sup I'm Mandy Peterkin. I'm 14 and have no business friend requesting you. I know chances are you'll never add me, because it's morally wrong. I'm not your mom's friend's youngest daughter nor am I your best friend's cousin. I'm a latchkey kid who got a computer for my birthday and I am trying to find people to talk to until I meet a nice teenager on here named Chad Baxter who convinces me to meet him at Arby's."
"Hey my name is Tracy. I don't have a last name...I used the spacebar for the last name portion on Facebook and got away with it. I also have no business friend requesting you and this picture of me is from six years ago when I did some internet modeling to pay for my nail degree. Since then I've had 6 children and my stomach skin could be wrapped around rhode island as insulation. I don't even know if you're male or female, but I'm hoping you find me attractive because my husband Phil is cheating on me with some guy at the office named Carl. I won't find out it's Carl until his office's holiday party when I run up on his secretary Dana and start a cat fight while Phil gets it on with Carl in the coat check and blames it on the non-alcoholic eggnog. Then I tell Phil how I've been having Facebook relations with some guy named Chad Baxter and he doesn't care if I cook because he loves going to Arby's."
"I'm Pikal Refai, but all my friends call me Bill. I'm looking for a wife and am hoping you have cataracts and can't see that I am twice your age. I grow my mustache extra bushy to hide my hairlip, but it's barely visible. I like you very much - not because you are pretty or smart or successful, but because you have a pulse. You may also remember me from that email I sent you asking if I can store my money in your bank account because I closed my account in Dubai and had nowhere else to store my millions. That's millions in rupee, so you could walk away with $15 if you marry me. Think about it."
"Wuss poppin' I'm Swagga Bastid and even though Facebook has no music player, I'm here to tell you that my remix of 'Swagga Like Us' called 'Swagga Like Bastid' is that fire and you should check it out on z-share until even z-share disables the link. I'm really hot on the blogs - well my blog...actually my MySpace blog. Anyway, I'm gonna be doing an open mic so maybe you can come and tell your friends. By the way I have a YouTube channel and I say that like no one else does."
"Hey bitch my name is Joey Balmundi but everyone calls me Soprano. I'm 16 but my fake ID says I'm 42 and I'm throwin' this little party at the Limelight this weekend through my new promotion company Balmundi Ballerz Entertainment. Make sure you bring you and the rest of your sluts with you. Find me at the bar and I will give you a complimentary jaeger bomb. I won't realize that the Limelight closed down six years ago until I get to the club that night, so maybe you can give me a ride back to Jersey so my mom doesn't catch me."
It's Sunday afternoon and there's nothing on television but repeats of Step By Step and the umpteen MTV True Life series. While the idea of watching Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers collectively raise a family of assholes was tempting, True Life: I Have a Yeast Infection sadly won this TV competition. Okay that wasn't the real True Life, but if MTV hasn't made this one then they probably should have.
Anyway, this one was some collection of True Lives that all involved disorders. There was the one with the people with Tourrette's - including that twitching comedian from NJ and the girl with too much eye liner who starred in her school play. You'll be happy to know that twitching comedian has started dating (they even televised him making out with some poor paid actress/MTV intern). The girl cut off all her hair and got shouted out by Jordin Sparks at an American Idol concert. Progress, people.
Then there was the True Life: I'm Fat or whatever it was really called. There's 600 pound people blaming everything from their thyroid to McDonald's for their size and televising their gastric bypass surgeries. The updates are of these people being thin with like lots and lots of skin hanging. You had your stomach rerouted to your rectum and you can't holler at a tummy tuck? Am I missing something?
The next one involved people from Staten Island. No dis, but that IS a disorder - spoken from a Jersey native. I'm better than you.
And finally, my real reason for this entire blog - the OCD kids. These were the people who turned the lights on and off six times or used exactly ten sheets of toilet paper. MTV put these people on (inter)national television to discuss how tragic their lives are and it led me to identify some OCD people that you may or may not know:
Lip gloss girl She carries her lip gloss in that little jeans pocket. She puts it on every six minutes. If she runs out, she scours the streets looking for lip gloss from fellow girls and gay men. There are five layers of gloss on her thin lips. She has streak marks on her face like she's been drinking Mountainberry Punch Kool-Aid. And she runs her tongue across her teeth every 30 seconds like she just got her braces off. DO NOT confuse OCD lip gloss girl with fresh to death my lip gloss is poppin' girl. Those are two different girls. OCD lip gloss girl looks like her lips have collagen injections...sponsored by MAC.
Water with lemon guy Since we're in a recession, it's understandable to drink the free tap water at restaurants. If you live in NJ, you are playing Russian Roulette with tap water (especially when you have to chew it), but NY tap water is way different - and better. So ok, that's fine. You like tap water. Water with lemon guy is the guy who asks for his lemon wedge to squeeze into his free water. If the waiter forgets, he starts making demands like his chicken was served raw. "I want my lemon wedge!" he says. "You forgot my lemons!" Water with lemon guy needs to understand that if the tap water is unbearable to drink without lemon, then you probably shouldn't be drinking it at all. Spring for the coke, buddy. It probably has more health benefits than a glass of Agent Orange with lemon zest. Just a thought.
"Did I drop something?" I must admit, I am her sometimes. Especially when I carry a bag that doesn't close. This person, though, stops short on city streets to double check dropping something they weren't even carrying. If you're standing behind them and walking fast, then the sudden halt may leave you inside of their colon. And while society is pretty much f*cked, do you really think if you dropped your bowling ball that someone won't tell you? Let's disregard the fact that you yourself would know. Just keep in mind that if you think you might've dropped something, there's a herd of cattle behind you ready to stampede you and you will probably be trampled on and killed over a tube of chapstick.
"Is my hair still plastered?" You have more product in your hair than a girl from Staten Island (or a guy from Staten Island for that matter). It's taken two bottles of gel and a can of mousse to create that Roman warrior helmet on your skull. My question for you is...after spending two hours creating your man-hat, do you really think that a hair will fly out of place? There is no point in patting around your head every five minutes like you left your pick at home. Your hair looks like Annie Lennox's...not Questlove's.
Cellphone check 1-2-1-2 Awkward silence? Check the cellphone. A cellphone rings in Brooklyn and you're in Queens? Check the cellphone. Someone else checks their cellphone? Check the cellphone. Beggar approaches you looking for cash or crack? Check the cellphone. Let's not get into cameraphone guy, who takes a picture of a dead bird and then reviews all of his "walking down the street" photos like they're Justin Bua paintings. See you think you've taken that black and white photo of John Lennon in the New York cutoff shirt, but you're more like the creepy guy from American Beauty following around a plastic shopping bag.
