White Hen Pantry

It was the year 2000. Cars were flying across the sky, then folded into briefcases and carried into work. Robots were sassy, and not yet empowered.

It was a heady time to be in college.



One night in the fall--Homecoming Weekend, whenever that was--I was drunk at a house party and decided I needed a Hostess Cupcake. I shared my craving with everyone in earshot and a couple friends joined me for the expedition to the White Hen Pantry around the corner.

Not three minutes later, I bit into the first of the two cupcakes in the package, standing a few steps back from the register, waiting for my friends to select something before we headed back.

Two young black men entered the store--we'll call them Shorty and Tallboy--and were immediately under constant surveillance by the Cashier behind the counter. I watched as Shorty and Tallboy headed down the next aisle and started stuffing items into their jackets. Tallboy stared down the Cashier and held up a fist.

It looked something like this, but not quite as erect:

The Cashier--also black--stared daggers at them and shook his head as if to say, "Not on my watch you don't." He picked up a cordless phone and dialed 911.

Tallboy did not like this reaction. He held his stare and then made a sudden move, as if to lash out at the Cashier, who flinched. Tallboy laughed.

"Ha! Look at the little bitch!"

Shorty began slowly dragging Tallboy toward the exit, pulling him by his jacket.

"Come on--let's go. Let's get out of here. Come on."

A box of Ding Dongs fell out of Tallboy's coat and everybody stared at it. Tallboy made another sudden move toward the Cashier, who again flinched.

"Awww---the little bitch is scared. Poor little bitch..."

Shorty tugged on Tallboy's jacket again, knocking a few smaller items out of it. He scooped them up and put them inside his own coat, then resumed pulling Tallboy along.

At this point, the two thieves were standing right in front of me. I'm not sure, in retrospect, why I never moved from my post. It was as if I were a scientist studying the mating rituals of animals inside a thick glass cage.

As Tallboy continued his one-note taunting/staring contest with the Cashier, Shorty gave one last tug on Tallboy's jacket and pulled him out the door with him. Problem was, this last effort actually removed Tallboy's jacket from his body and it fell on the floor of the store.

The Cashier raced around the counter and snatched the jacket off the ground.

"Ha! Got your coat!"

He immediately retreated behind the counter and continued waiting on hold for 911.

Tallboy returned and went straight behind the counter. As soon as he got a hand on his jacket, the dispatcher must have picked up and the Cashier shouted into the phone.

"White Hen! White Hen! Man behind counter!"

About five seconds later, as the two men struggled for possession of the jacket, a 120 pound black Evanston police officer rushed through the door, reached over the counter, grabbed Tallboy by the collar, somehow yanked him up over the counter with one hand, threw him on the ground, and stuck a gun in his face.

I swallowed my last bite of cupcake and stared, aghast, from a few feet away, as the Officer struggled to handcuff Tallboy with his only free hand, in disbelief that he had his gun drawn for no reason.

Unsurprisingly under the circumstances, Tallboy was able to struggle free and bolt out the door. The Officer immediately pursued and, a few seconds later, I heard what sounded like a little firecracker, followed by low grunt/exhalation.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

I walked outside and found Tallboy slumped against the wall of the White Hen, a bloody hole in his shoulder, a smear of blood indicating the path of his slide down the wall. He couldn't move. Or wouldn't. He just sat there, staring into space, saying "Ohhhhhhh..." every time he could muster the energy.

I went back inside to see what was up with my friends. More police officers arrived on the scene and came in for free coffee.


I found my two friends face down in the frozen foods section. They stood up and dusted off their hands.

"Did you see that?"
"Nope."
"No? What do you mean? You didn't see that?"
"As soon as we saw those guys come in, we hit the deck."
"What?!"

A police officer walked over.

"You guys want some coffee?"
"No, thanks--I don't drink coffee."

Another one walked over.

"You want some coffee? It's free."
"No. Can I have something else instead?"

He walked away without answering me. I followed him and overheard the following gem as he talked with a fellow officer:

"Man, he just got off suspension, too."
"For what?"
"Shooting himself in the foot."
"Haha..."

'Fucking trigger-happy motherfucker,' I thought to myself. I mean, Tallboy was a prick, no doubt--and a not-so-successful shoplifter--but he was unarmed and if the Officer hadn't been so keen on sticking his gun in the guy's face, maybe he could've actually cuffed him and nobody would have gotten shot.

"You want some coffee?"
"No!"
"Okay. So, you guys are going to have to come down to the station, answer some questions."
"When?"
"Now. They're sending a car over."

Long story long, they took us to the police station and left us all in some weird conference room for a couple hours. The three of us were all in an Action Movies class together, so the topic of that day's lecture was fresh in our minds--Is Rambo Gay?


The other two argued back and forth about it, rehashing the evidence presented in class, the tenets of the action genre, etc. I simply stared at my remaining cupcake, until the following slipped out:

"I ate one cupcake and a man got shot. What happens if I eat the other one?"
"Just eat it."
"No. I can't. Something bad might happen."
"I'll eat it."
"No!"

Some police officer eventually came and took us to wait in three separate rooms--"so you can't get your stories straight."

What the fuck? Not only were we clearly not part of some conspiracy, but you already left us in the same room FOR TWO HOURS!


The next two hours were even more mind-numbingly torturous. Every ten or fifteen minutes, somebody would come by and offer me coffee. The rest of the time I just stared at the wall, slowly becoming hungover.

Somebody finally came in and asked for my version of the events. I told him. He didn't believe me.

An hour later, his superior came in and asked for my story. I told him. He didn't believe me.

An hour later, HIS superior came in and asked for my story...you can see where this is going.

Finally, around 8am, the Assistant District Attorney came in, freshly showered and ready to go. I told him my story--the same one--and he either believed me or didn't give a shit. He said I could leave.

As I rode home in the back of a squad car, at 8:30am on Homecoming Sunday, disapproving old alumni stared at me from the sidewalks on their way to breakfast, clucking their tongues, wondering what sort of endearingly-youthful trouble I had gotten up to last night. I wanted to punch them.


Mostly, however, I was super pissed-off that, instead of being able to sleep after this whole ordeal, I had to immediately walk two miles back to campus and sit in an editing room for the next twelve hours or I would have to take an incomplete in one of my classes.

Over the course of the next TWO YEARS, I would occasionally get a phone call from a lawyer, asking me again for my story, then telling me I would have to come to the trial. They even said they would fly me back from Boston, which I found surprising.

It never happened. Tallboy pled guilty; to what, I'm not sure--being shot? Attempted shoplifting? Being an asshole? Excessive use of the word 'bitch?'

Needless to say, every time I see a Hostess Cupcake or enter a White Hen Pantry, certain strange memories creep into the ole noggin.

And I never ate the other cupcake, by the way, which is probably why you haven't been shot yet.

_

The Phoenix is...Plummeting?

Since I can never be sure how often my monthly Joaquin Phoenix fanzines get passed around and/or re-gifted, it's hard to tell how many of you have been keeping tabs on him recently.

For those of you in the dark, he recently retired from acting to become a professional musician. Even more recently, he was videotaped rapping at a club in Las Vegas.

I'm a firm believer that people should do whatever they want to do and devote themselves passionately to that cause, so, you know, I support his odd decision--as long as he is never allowed to play in a music venue that I could not also perform in with my merry band of kitchen-pot-banging retarded street urchins.

What recently struck me about this whole debacle, however, is how odd it is that he and Heath Ledger are both guilty of letting a movie role too-profoundly affect their lives. Heath was irretrievably sucked into the Joker monster; Joaquin now thinks he is the second coming of Johnny Cash.

I can hear his inner monologue now, as clearly as a whisper from the Lord:

"Hey--Cash was a nobody who just did it, man, just tried it, and it worked. And then he just just loaded himself up with amphetamines and whiskey and the music, adoration, pussy, and money just kept pourin' in...hmmmm...I could do that! That'd be way cooler than this shitty acting gig!"

Why is being a millionaire film actor lusted after by women across the globe not enough for successful male actors these days? Why do so many of them want to be musicians?

And why is should-be-double-Oscar-winner (2008) Casey Affleck shooting a movie about this whole Joaquin Phoenix affair? Is he in on the joke? Is he in on the madness? Does he really not realize that, either way, the movie will suck? Is he also guilty of trying to become someone else--his older brother--by directing a surprisingly-excellent movie?

I cringe for the end of this sordid affair. In the meantime, back to the March issue of Rock Me, J-Babe...

_

The Night A Girl Almost Died in My Arms

The year was 2002. I was 24 years old and living with my parents after an aborted move to Europe (didn't quite make it to the first trimester).

During this brief spell back in Chicago, before I moved out to Boston, I got sucked back into the local film industry I left not so ceremoniously a few months before. Because I am a whore.

Chief among the jobs I got during this period was a two-week stint as a production assistant on the elevated-train fight sequence in Spiderman 2.


The script wasn’t even finished yet; Tobey Maguire was rumored to be recovering from a grievous back injury on Seabiscuit, but director Sam Raimi knew he wanted this scene for his movie--knew exactly how he wanted it--and, like a child on Christmas Eve, just couldn’t wait.


My first few days of work consisted of hanging out in a CTA train shed and supplying a crew of rigging grips with suitcases full of White Castle sliders. Forever indebted to me, the rigging grips tried to add me to their crew as some sort of manservant, but the production manager nixed the idea.

Instead, I was put in charge of one of the nine elevated train platforms that make up the Loop in downtown Chicago. An older CTA train, which coincidentally looked like old New York subway cars, would do laps around the Loop while shooting from something like 14 cameras the rigging grips had mounted in every direction.

Each platform was run by two Production Assistants, who controlled about 10-15 extras. We were in contact with the Assistant Director via walkie talkie and one of us (me) had a megaphone. I would say things like this:

“Okay--jackets off! Come on everybody, we're all cold out here, but this will only take a minute. Now step forward along the track. The train will be here in 30 seconds. Remember--Spiderman is fighting Dr. Octopus on top of the second car. They’re shooting at a high frame rate this time, so please react at half-speed.”

Among my extras, who did little but sit around under the heat lamps bitching about the bitter November cold, were two girls that stood out from the pack. I spent most of my down time talking to them.

I call them girls because, as I later found out, they were seventeen. They drove in from Michigan every day--every day!--just to be low-paid extras out in the freezing Chicago cold for ten to twelve hours at a stretch.

Donna, the large, unattractive one, was naturally the most talkative and forward. Marie, her sexy, petite friend, was more the smile-and-stare type--a fox of few words.

After many days of standing out on the frigid El platform, chatting with them about god-knows-what, killing time, telling all the extras to stop complaining, and explaining to every single curious CTA passenger what was happening...I needed a night of drinking more than ever before.


Luckily, not long before the shooting finished up, the entire crew was invited to the private opening of a new dance club on Lake Street in Chicago. All we had to do to get in was say “Columbia Pictures” at the door. The production had used the as-yet-unopened space all week as a wardrobe/make-up/staging area for our extras (there were no principal actors in this scene--they would all be green-screened into the shots during post-production).

As usual, work would begin super early the next morning, but a sizable number of alcoholics turned out anyway; by the time I showed up with my friend Kevin, the party was in full swing.

The Spiderman crew was hanging out upstairs--up a metal spiral staircase--in a large booth behind a velvet curtain. They were all pretty drunk--especially Donna. She immediately began hitting on me in the sloppiest, least-strategically-intelligent manner.

I stared across the table at Marie, who was getting it both barrels from the 2nd Assistant Director, who had been loading her up with booze all night.

I didn't have much to say to the others there, so Kevin and I headed over to the upstairs bar, which was a zoological free-for-all. It probably took us twenty minutes to get a drink. We chatted a bit, probably talked about how sexy Marie was, and then mingled a bit more.

As soon as I finished that drink, I went downstairs to get another one at the calmer bar. When I turned around and took a sip, I saw Marie sauntering over, a smile on her face. She got right into it:

“My friend really likes you, you know.”
“I don’t care--I want you.”
“Well then we better get out of here or she’s not gonna like what she sees.”

At that, she grabbed my hand and dragged me away. I was barely even able to set my fresh drink down before we were out the door. It's amazing how strong a 90-pound girl can be sometimes--especially when you have absolutely no desire to resist.

Since I was living with my parents at the time, I had nowhere I could take this girl. I figured we could go to her place; then I remembered she lived in Michigan. Then I remembered I was too broke for a hotel. Then I remembered my car was illegally parked outside, in a red zone, with its flashers on this whole time.

Out of ideas and hoping she'd be game, I led her into the back of my car and we started making out. I remember her saying a few things along the lines of “Can’t we just go to your apartment?” but not really caring too much when I answered with a kiss and went from there.


The whole time we were out in my car, I was paranoid about three things:

1. A cop would come by to give me a ticket, see the steamy windows, ask us what we were doing, and find out Marie was only 17.

2. A tow truck would come by and tow us away while we were inside (a tow truck once tried to do this to me in college, while I was giving a girl a goodnight make-out in a street-sweeping zone--with the engine running!).

3. That a different girl I was extremely interested in (but not interested enough, I suppose) would come by after the concert she was at, as planned, notice my car parked right outside the door, with the flashers on, all steamed up and rocking, and start knocking on the window and shouting my name.

These distractions made it very difficult to focus on the task at hand, but I did my best.

What it turned out I SHOULD have been worried about, however, was something completely different. And way worse.

Not long after she got on top of me--firmly in the middle of things--she suddenly vomited over my shoulder and passed out.

Fortunately for me, I emerged fairly unscathed and discovered she had mostly vomited on the seat and a pile of her own clothes. Unable to wake her up, I cleaned Marie off as best I could with some paper towels I had in the back and set about trying to dress her lifeless body.

The sexy little top she had been wearing looked like a pile of knotted shoelaces covered in vomit, so I found a spare t-shirt in the back and put it on her with great difficulty. The skirt was a bit easier, but hardly a walk in the park. I can’t imagine how hard it is for morticians to put a goddamn SUIT on a corpse--they must have some really helpful tricks.



How now, brown cow? It's not like I could take her to my parents house...

I remembered hearing my friend Kevin leave the club earlier, talking to some random dudes as he walked past my car, and hoped he was still awake. I headed straight for his apartment in Wicker Park and called him up as I drove, feeling more like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction than I ever care to again.

“Kevin! Thank god you’re up. I need to talk to you about something. I'm coming over right now.”
“Okay...”

I parked across the street from his place, buzzed in, and went upstairs. I sat on the couch, folded my hands, took a deep breath, and looked at him gravely. Who knows what the hell he expected me to say, but here’s roughly what he got:

“So...Marie and I were having sex in the back of my car and then she threw up on me and passed out. She won’t wake up and I don’t know what to do. I can’t take her to my parents’ house and she lives in Michigan. Can I bring her up here?”
“Where is she right now?”
“She’s in the back of my car. Outside.”
“Jesus. Yeah, I guess...”
“I think I’ll need your help to get her in...”

Kevin and I went out to my car and, not sure of any other way to do it, I told him to get her legs and I took her arms. As we carried her across the street, I made moves for the back door to the building, but Kevin nixed that immediately.

“There’s a party on the first floor, where we played flip-cup that one night. They’re all out on the porch. They’d see us--we'll have to go in the front.”

And so it was that two nondescript white males in their twenties carried the lifeless body of a young woman down Damen Avenue at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Friday night.

We approached the front door to his building just as it opened.

A few guests were saying goodnight to the hosts of the party. One of them held the door open and they all stared at Marie with googly-eyes. I said the only thing you can say in that situation:

“She’s really drunk...”

We started up the stairs and Kevin dropped her. Then he dropped her again; I was glad he didn’t have the arms. I threw her over my shoulder and carried her up the three flights of stairs myself, probably relying on some sort of ‘lift-the-car-off-your-baby’ adrenaline boost, although the fact that she probably only weighed 90 pounds helped, too.

I didn’t want her to vomit all over one of Kevin’s couches, so I set Marie on the wooden floor between the dining room and the living room and we both stared at her, unsure of our next move. I realized there was vomit on the t-shirt she was wearing, so I took it off and gave her my clean sweater instead.

As I struggled to clothe her lifeless body once more, Kevin stared appreciatively at her fantastic breasts--a perverse reward for his efforts and discretion, I suppose.

Then he scared the shit out of me.

“Are you sure she’s alive?”
"No..."

My heart stopped. I hadn’t even thought of that! Holy shit!

As selfish as it is, my immediate fear was prison. I hadn’t bought her a drink all night and she was the one who propositioned me, but try proving that in court.

Something tells me the headline would’ve run something like this:

“Local man gets 17 year-old Michigan girl drunk, then rapes and kills her, gets life.”

I leaned down and held her wrist, searching desperately for a pulse. Nothing.

I got even more scared.

I held a few fingers up against her throat. Nothing.

Now I started to really really freak out. I leaned down and placed my ear in front of her mouth, my hand on her chest, looking for any sign of breathing. Nothing.

And then, suddenly, she breathed--a small sort-of 'back-from-the-dead' gasp that made me unprecedentedly grateful. Simple pleasures, right?

I heaved a sigh of relief, threw a blanket over her, grabbed one for myself, tried to stop my body from shaking, and crashed on the couch.


A couple hours later, my alarm went off and I hit the shower. I threw my dirty clothes back on and roused Marie from her slumber.

She awoke with a beatific smile, rose to her feet, stretched out an adorably-huge yawn, and wrapped her arms around me lovingly. She exhibited absolutely no hangover symptoms, no ‘I saw death two hours ago and it wasn’t pretty so I decided to come back’ symptoms, nothing.

She sighed and held me tight, spoke softly in my ear:

“Thank you so much for not taking advantage of me last night.”

Once again, my heart stopped.

“You know we had sex, right?”
“Yeah.”

I tried to wrap my brain around what exactly she was thanking me for then--“Thank you for not calling up all your friends and letting them run the train on me last night. It was really sweet of you.” “Thank you ever so much for not sewing my vagina shut / harvesting my organs as I slept last night.” But all I said was:

“We gotta go. I can’t be late.”

It was probably 4:30am. We walked over to my car in the nearly-freezing rain and headed downtown. The vomit marinade had done wonders for the interior.


As I tried with difficulty to navigate the dark, wet, and empty streets of Chicago--our production had almost every street around where I needed to go completely blocked off, which always makes it hard for the crew to actually GET to work--Marie happily mused on our future.

“I’d love to read some of your writing sometime. You should come out to Michigan and we can hang out. Oh, that’d be so awesome...”
“Yeah, yeah, sure...”

One image immediately plastered itself squarely on my brain--her dad on his front porch with a shot gun. I would no be going to Michigan.


Marie was somewhat concerned about her friend, Donna. Donna had seemed much more drunk than she was, so I was a bit worried, as well, but cared more about getting to work on time and putting this night from hell behind me.

We saw Donna coming out of the Dunkin Donuts around the corner. She was alive!

Her story was pretty funny itself. She got way out of control not long after we left, kept dropping glasses and shouting and being generally obnoxious. The 2nd A.D. took charge and escorted her out. On the way down the spiral staircase, she vomited all over people on the dance floor below.

The manager of the club got super pissed-off, obviously, and decided that this moment would be a good time to ID her. He got even more furious when he realized she was only seventeen and blamed 'Columbia Pictures' for letting her into his club. Idiot.

The 2nd A.D. threw Donna in a cab, took her to his hotel room, dumped her on the spare twin bed, and headed back out to a 4am bar with some of the hard-drinking production assistants.

When he didn’t show up for work the next morning, his boss called his hotel room and Donna answered.

“Yeah, he’s here. He’s sleeping.”

Five minutes later, a whiskey-soaked, unwashed 2nd A.D. showed up on set, scattered and dangerous.

The other production assistants, who had been smiling at me ever since I walked into the office, said that he was out for blood, that I had ‘stolen his girl.’

This dude was like 38 years old, overweight, unattractive, and, clearly, sleazy--he was the one buying Marie all the drinks, increasing his odds, I suppose. Sleazy and smelly maybe, but also my boss; I avoided him like the plague and headed out to my platform early.

Marie and Donna didn’t show up with the rest of my usual extras. I wondered what was up. About an hour into shooting, they both appeared across the platform from me and waved goodbye. During a break between shots, the PA from the other side came over and said Marie had left me a message:

“If you ever want to see your sweater again, come to Michigan.”

Cold.

I knew right then that I would never see her again, never see my sweater again, but also that it was probably for the best. I kept her number in my phone for years, occasionally debated giving her a call, but the image of that shotgun, and the memory of that narrow escape, prevented me from ever using it.

_

A Brilliant Idea?

Instead of speculative Exxon shareholders, greedy executives, and corrupt politicians splitting the $45.2 billion dollar profit ExxonMobil raked in last year, I think the company should be forced to donate $10,000 to 4.5 million struggling artists. Think of all the art that might result...

A cultural stimulus plan!



The side benefit of this plan--or the main benefit, depending on your point of view--is that every dollar will actually be spent and, therefore, pumped directly into our flagging economy, as opposed to being hoarded in offshore bank accounts or cast into the ether when used to fund bad investments. Think of the revenue boom the computer, camera, food, airline, and whisky industries would experience!

So, please petition your congressman and remember--anything's possible.

_

The Most Fascinating Time I've Ever Been Pulled Over

I was eighteen years old. I had just dropped off my older brother at a revolutionary war reenactment at Cantigny, and had to speed the thirty miles back to Skokie for a friend's birthday party.


I was driving a black 1992 Mercury Tracer LTS about 120 miles per hour, weaving between cars on the tollway like a downhill skier slaloms flags, blasting Simon & Garfunkel's collected works, singing at the top of my lungs, with all the windows down.

I was having a great time.

I'm not sure how long he was following me, but it was probably for much longer than he would have liked. When I finally saw him in my rearview mirror, I was understandably pissed-off, but not terrified or anything like that--I'd been through this many times before.

I pulled over to the left shoulder and waited.


When I saw a 6' 4" musclebound black state trooper dressed like Smokey the Bear (but with clothes on) heading toward me, my confidence dimmed somewhat--I think it was his unbelievably erect military posture that did the most damage. And the hat. I think that's why they wear them. Most of the rest of my confidence disappeared as soon as he spoke.

"You were drivin' like a ASSHOLE out there!"
"Sorry..."
"Why you drivin' so fast?!"
"Well, I'm late for a friend's birthday party."
"That's a piss-poor excuse for goin' 95 miles an hour."

I smiled to myself--he only got me at 95? Thank god...

"I know, but it is the truth..."
"Step out of the vehicle."

I do. He walks back to his patrol car, gets in, closes the door, rolls down the window, grabs a notepad.

"Who's the owner of the vehicle?"
"What?"
"WHO OWNS THE VEHICLE!"
"My dad, I guess."
"Name."
"John Smith."
"What's his phone number?"
"847.555.5555"

Then he set down the notepad and rolled up the window. Just before it closed, I said something I would never believe I would ever say, if I didn't know that I have already said it:

"Aren't you gonna give me a ticket?"

He rolled the window back down and smirked at me.

"Oh, you won't be drivin'-- your daddy's gonna get a call."

And with those parting words, he blasted off down the highway. I stood on the left shoulder, buffeted by the violent surges of redirected air from the left-lane speeders blowing past me, in sheer disbelief of what just happened, crunching the situation like a Cray supercomputer figuring out pi.

'So...huh? He's going to call my dad? That's his plan? That's his plan!!! WHAT?! He could have revoked my license! He could have given me a huge ticket! Speeding! Reckless driving! He hated me, and he let me get away? It makes no sense!'

I got back in my car and slammed on the gas, merged over into the left lane, and cruised at the speed limit for the rest of the ride to my friend's parent's house. I was late.


I realized my parents would still be on vacation for at least the next week or so and my strategy was therefore a simple one. I never answered the home phone and kept vigilant watch over the ancient answering machine. One day, there was a brief message from the state trooper, asking 'John Smith' to call him back.

I erased it. And I never heard anything about it ever again.

_

Psy-cho-somat-ic Plan-e-tary!

Isn't the Earth a magnificent place?

I agree. But, more importantly, it has come to my attention recently that not everybody I know here on Earth is aware of something I learned about long, long ago--before you were even an hallucination in your mother's mind--something called a psychosomatic pregnancy.

Well, that's what I always heard it called, anyway. Apparently its more correct term is 'pseudocyesis.'

But what does this mean?

I'll tell you what it means--it means the crazy part of a woman's brain (1-100%, depending) is able to convince her body that it is pregnant. Her belly and breasts swell, she lactates, she stops menstruating...it appears to be a typical, tried-and-true pregnancy.

Except she could very well be a virgin!

It was either the first or second time I heard this phrase (maybe it had come up already in Psychology 101?) that the concept became indelibly ingrained in my mind, courtesy of Allison Anders.


It was...1998 or 1999, and the 'hot young edgy director' of Gas Food Lodging was giving the well-paid ($10k?) opening speech to a student film festival at my college.

Allison Anders was a very atypical filmmaker who had gained a lot of traction in the independent film world in the early nineties. She had a 'great story'--abandoned by her father, raped at a young age, done drugs, wandered the Earth, been to jail (?), had a baby young, worked her way through community college and film school in Los Angeles...and immediately broke out on the scene as a unique voice; and had a lot to say.


Probably the only thing I remember from her speech is an anecdote she lingered on during the 'rundown of the hard times in her life' section of her speech (which was by far the biggest part). It involved her teenage psychosomatic pregnancy--with Paul McCartney as the father. The psych-out went as far as her going into labor...but never giving birth to anything!

Needless to say, many of the questions during the Q & A centered on this fantastic experience. Also needless to say, Ms. Anders underwent intense psychotherapy as a result of the faux pregnancy. It's safe to say this girl has an active imagination.

Her movies may not be my cup of tea--certainly not the awful Mi Vida Loca--and I don't think she's done anything in a while, but isn't it amazing to hear proof of how powerful the human mind is?


That being said, apparently we have nothing on dogs. Should they be in charge?

_

You Have Nothing to Fear

Except the egregious stupidity of those charged with your safety.

How the hell does a 14 year-old kid pass for a grown man, much less a police officer?

Oh, wait--my bad--he had a sweater vest stuffed with magazines and a hat; I get it now.

As dumb as everybody involved in this scenario is, I think the grand prize goes to whatever fucking bag of donuts was riding around in a small car with this kid for five hours and not only did not realize that he wasn't a cop, but also did not pick up on the fact that he was talking to a 14 year-old.

What were they talking about? Pussy? T-Pain? The relative merits and limitations of Obama's proposed economic stimulus package? Cafeteria nachos?

I can imagine their conversation, as the two representatives of "Chicago's Finest" lazily cruised through red lights without even blipping their siren:

"Dude, look at that fine-ass bitch over there."
"Man, I love pussy..."
"Me, too...wish I was old enough to actually see one live in person..."
"What was that? I couldn' hear you--I was just groovin' to this bomb-ass T-Pain jam, man. This guy is a fucking genius. He's like Einstein or the guy who invented macaroni and cheese and shit."
"Totally. Everybody at my high school digs that shit like Clifford the Dog, man... Best thing to come out of Tallahassee in a minute..."

[A drug dealer rolls his Cadillac to a stop across the street, leans out the window, shoots a five year-old kid in the face, and then shouts at the child's mother: "That's what you get, motherfucker! That's what you get!" and peels away. Our two heroes do not notice.]

"Man, this job sucks. You wanna hit up Dunkin?"
"Totally, man. I'm feelin' that donut shit for real."

But don't worry--and, more importantly, don't ask any questions as to how this supremely dangerous situation could possibly have occurred in the Chicago Police Department in 2009 and go unnoticed for an entire five-hour shift--the Deputy Superintendent Dan Dugan is looking into the matter in complete secrecy, lest the safety of his officers be in danger.

What, you mean more in danger than they already are by working in an environment far less secure than your average high school?

It seems as though this sort of incident was bound to happen at some point, though. If it wasn't one thing, it'd be another, and we're all lucky nobody got hurt. I mean, listen to how dumb Dan Dugan is; he can't even spend five minutes devising a coherent statement to vomit onto the understandably frothy-mouthed press:

"This individual has identified egregious breech in security," said Deputy Superintendent Dan Dugan. "Realistically, to open that up to a media scrutiny, while I can understand and appreciate it, I have probably as many questions if not more than you have relative to this. It would tend to exacerbate the security issue that has been identified and we would not want to exploit it for the safety of the officers that work in facilities throughout the city."

Did he borrow those $2 words from his daughter's junior-high grammar textbook, but not have the stones to ask her how best to use them?

Idiot...even Paul Blart would know better!

_

Wanted: Prime Minister* ---experience a plus---

Look at how beautiful Iceland is!
Wouldn't you love to live there?

There aren't too many jobs around these days, but if you are willing to rule the nation, you're in luck--cuz nobody else wants to!

Although it hasn't been released to the press at this time, an adorable little Icelandic mole informs me that--by an overwhelming majority vote--the people of Iceland are willing to sweeten the deal by offering the hand of the voluptuous virgin they were planning to sacrifice on Thor's birthday.

Criminals--this would be a great way to strike out a fresh existence.
(Yes, Barons of Wall Street--I'm talking to you...)

So...think about it!


*Will also consider a ruthless despot, but only if s/he promises to leave our handful of rich people alone.

_

Today

Today I liked Maureen Dowd.

Simple, efficient, ruthless, fair.

Too bad it doesn't matter.

I know it's defeatist to say that, but...it is sadly true. Whatever will happen, will happen. The assholes on top will always be the assholes on top. You know why? Because it takes an asshole to get on top; it's ingrained in the species.

Why do you think I chose to be a recluse? Well, a recluse with a lot of friends (a lot--trust me...at least like 3400...), who gets out a lot, and travels a lot...wait...what would be a better word for it?

I don't participate in anything that isn't worth my time, anything I cannot affect. I am eminently efficient, eminently cowardly.

_

Told You So

I knew this guy was trouble from the get.

_

Are You An Artist?

If you have had sex with 4 or more partners, then the answer is yes.

The craziest thing about this Guardian article (well, sanctioned blog entry) is not the outlandish assertions of the article itself, but the unbelievably numerous and varied user comments posted along with it. The article is about one page in length; the comments will last easily an entire lunch break.

I have never seen this many comments posted on anything; nor have I ever seen comments reveal a more fascinating cross-section of a nation/commonwealth.

Here are my favorites, with comments. Enjoy!

"I'm an artist , and have been in a monogomous(more or less) [sic] relationship for twenty years. Before that I had more than a hundred sexual partners, however. Just thought you'd like to know."

Posted by andrew birch on November 30, 2005 2:03 PM.

"More or less?" What does that mean, birch? 'Monogamous' is a pretty specific term...and how old are you, by the way? Regardless of your answer, well done!

"Morrissey is no contradiction. Any miserabilist who makes his name singing endlessly about the alienation and misanthropy of bedsit narcissism to the same tune shouldn't be having any sex and shouldn't be called 'creative'."

Posted by scrittipolitti on November 30, 2005 5:26 PM.

Wow. 'Miserabilist?' That's a great new word; but 'bedsit narcissism' is a phrase that blows it right out of the water. Were it socially acceptable, I would marry that phrase.

"I'm sure lawyers have more sex. They f*** everyone."

Posted by roy fox on November 30, 2005 5:58 PM.

The easy joke--but that doesn't mean it isn't also funny. Well done, roy fox! You somehow managed to overcome your tragic council-bedsit narcissism and drop the right joke at just the right moment. You can now begin the brief, steep, downhill portion of your life...Cheers!

"What do you do with a creative man who is incapable of kissing and sort of bites instead and who is a very selfish lover? Can we say that he is expressing his art through his love-making? I think I should get rid of him anyway. I'm stuck in a poor Middle-Eastern suburb and if I get too horny and search out a mate, I might be arrested. And they greatly mistrust creative types here..."

Posted by Khalas on November 30, 2005 7:52 PM.

Dear Khalas,

It appears as though you have the misfortune of dating a standard British male--or somebody trained by one. I recommend you immediately fake your own death and emerge in the Western world, friendless but free to embrace your horny-ass self. Trust me, it'll be worth it; there is nothing in the world worse than caged heat.

"I have no knowledge of his endeavours in the bedroom, but Joseph Beuys (along with Mr C, one of the most influential Shamen [sic] of the last century) maintained that all men are artists. I tend to agree with him on that one, even if his work tends towards bogosity. Which means of course this study should be filed alongside other bits of Bad Science; as well as reminding us that being creative, like having sex, is really nothing special."

Posted by Splinno on November 30, 2005 9:35 PM.

First off, for all you non-Bill-&-Teds out there, courtesy of dictionary.com:

bogosity
/boh-go's*-tee/ The degree to which something is "bogus" in the hackish sense of "bad". At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat.
Also, the potential field generated by a bogon flux; see quantum bogodynamics. See also bogon flux, bogon filter.
(2002-04-14) The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe

Wait? What were we talking about? Oh, yeah--wait--you agree with him, but also think it is 'bad science?' Wait--sex 'is really nothing special?' You are a detriment to the species, dear Splinno; please mutilate your own genitals before God strikes you dead.

"Im an 'artist' and have yet to embrace this so called 'sex' craze,

because i'm not a licentious fool.
This ideology is the residual effect of my christian upbringing....

Only joking.
Im 16...My age group epitamizes promiscuity.

Again, this is a lie...I'm an anomaly to the rule that at 16, an influx of salacious behaviour occurs.
Im fat, you see. and a pretentious little twat.

Posted by Liam Lonergan on November 30, 2005 10:29 PM.

Who said honesty was dead? As clearly as they avoid apostrophes like the plague, fat and pretentious British 16-year-old males simply do NOT have sex. If you want to argue with that, please meet me in the middle of the English Channel for a preliminary dance-off.

"I have a very long personal experiencie of live in the world of the mind out of the normal experiencie of life. i have been a ill person blackboard in myself.NOW is very different,the life smiles me,I have avery good work,a long number of friends,love for myself and the mines,my husband,my mother.my brothers... But my personal history can be helpful for another persons that sufer my last problem."

Posted by quim on December 1, 2005 4:21 AM.

Please down another pint before speaking to me, good Quim--I am having trouble understanding your fancy new Oxbridge speech.

"tonight, there's an opening in town...it's fairly unimportant....I'm goig to fuck everyone there and pass my mad genes on to the richest of those that I fuck and maybe, just maybe they'll buy damn painting."

Posted by schizoid on December 1, 2005 11:58 AM.

Schizoid, please--not again. The last time you tried to sell 'damn painting,' we ended up with an entire globe full of idiots who put everyone's money in derivatives and destroyed your life...wait--is this just a cycle? Are you the devil? God?

"Clearly either artists are not promiscuous or they are not promiscuous enough. As a non-artist I am having a hard time meeting my urge to be promiscuous without paying a lot of money. Now perhaps I should become an artist - since it seems then I could be promiscuous on the cheap. On the other hand I could aim to get rich so I can afford to be promiscuous. I have aimed at the second route since it seems to have the lower risk vs. return ratio"

Posted by Randy Newman on December 1, 2005 2:15 PM.

Randy Newman? Is that you? Now it all makes sense--you are forgiven your sins, my brother.

"I don't know that getting a lot (or too much?!) destroys one's soul. I fear that this is the consolation of the prudish, the shy or the sexually enchained.
I think hot boffing and true love can quite happily be kept in separate compartments.
In my case, Dr Jekyll leads an exemplary monogonous [sic] existence, while Mr Hyde regularly goes out and "paints faces and sheets", as someone here so smartly and tartly put it."

Posted by CheererUpper on December 1, 2005 2:29 PM.

Finally, a voice of wisdom among the riff-raff. I guess the two sides of the coin will simply never understand the other. 'Hot boffing,' indeed, Mr. Hyde!

The final word:

"Artistic types make better lovers than non-artistic types. And researchers are only just 'discovering' this? Well duh, folks. Throughout the ages, history's great lovers, the Don Juans and the Casanovas, have all been poets or painters or musicians. No one ever talks about what a great lover King Henry the 8th was, whereas women still go ga-ga over Byron. This isn't new or surprising; it's common sense. The balding troll in office isn't sensitive and attuned to the delicaties of love; the love-sick poet, composing his sonnets, is. The business minded has a cold and clammy touch, the creative mind is sensitive and caressing. It's like asking a woman to choose between Donald Trump and Syd Barrett, 'You're FIRED!' or 'You're a lilac desire.'"

Posted by Sara on December 15, 2005 3:59 AM.

As any douchebag worth his salt might say--- 'nuff said.
The Syd Barretts always win.


Eat your hearts out, squares!

_

What Women Want

So, unsurprisingly, the current #1 most emailed story on nytimes.com has nothing to do with the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, the situation in Guantanamo, the continenet of Africa, the chaos in the Euro currency system, the unadulterated greed of Western bankers and businessmen, or Obama's first days in office.

Surprisingly, it is NOT a fluff piece about George Bush spending more time with his pets now that he's retired from politics (as if he wasn't at home in Crawford 80% of the time anyway...).

No. The most emailed story is titled "What Do Women Want?"

Meredith Chivers--whose photo is unavailable anywhere and whom you'll notice does not have her doctorate, oddly--has been studying sex since the age of five and is currently doing it for pay, at a Canadian university. She is trying to find out what turns women on, what they crave...and is having a tough go of it.

So are three other women studying the question from slightly different approaches.

After reading all eight pages of this article, the one thing that is clear is that these women are clearly studying sex about 500,000 times more than they are having it. I know they're smart, but are they really the best women for the job?

The long and the short of the article is that while men were 100% accurate in judging whether or not they found something arousing, physically, women had no clue; their minds and their vaginas were complete strangers to one another.


Why is this? Why do they get aroused when they see monkeys mating but not admit it? Why do heterosexual women get more aroused when they see lesbians going at it than they do when they watch a man and a woman? Why would they rather see a woman than a man? Why do they lie about it?


As a man, I need no persuading that women are a mystery--but they are a beautiful mystery. Why try to explain it? Why waste your life and research dollars trying to reduce nature's most beloved nonsense to a science? Why not just kick off your clothes and get busy with some strange man you met in the elevator?

Especially when all anyone brimming with curiosity has to do is watch the Mel Gibson movie!
I won't spoil the ending for you, but just so you know, it's fabulous!!!



Actually, without even thinking about it, I might have hit on something there. Maybe all women want...Mel Gibson?

Let's see...it worked for Helen Hunt, Rene Russo, Pocahontas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jodie Foster, the chick from Braveheart (although she had her throat slit for it)...and the average woman drools over awful romantic comedies...maybe...that has something to do with the fantasies of the average woman? Or is it merely a symptom of the problem?

"Hey, God! Are you there? It's me, Charlie. I have another question for you..."

If he doesn't answer me, I'll just petition the government for $150,000 to insert scientific instruments into a hundred women's vaginas while they work their way through Mel Gibson's oeuvre. Might as well...


Question of the Day: What is it like to bring yourself to orgasm with your head in an MRI scanner?



Incidentally, if any women out there are looking for Mr. Right, I think I found him hiding in plain sight!

_

I Feel Better Now

An overwhelming feeling of contentment washed over me a few minutes ago.

I wish you could have been there to see it, as the experience was transcendental and will never be repeated.

There I was, laying on my couch, sipping a good bourbon, allowing heavenly soul music to softly tongue my ears, pondering the problems of the weaker sex, when a little birdie came and told me that everything would be okay.

All lonely women have to do is read this douchebag's book and everything will be explained, solved.

Hurrah! The world is finally a happy place--all it took was to first make a worthless, self-obsessed poser rich!

What a small sacrifice! Let's do it again, people of the globe! Me next!

_

I Enjoyed This

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/opinion/24collins.html?th&emc=th

Good question, good finish.

_

Thoughts on 'Frost/Nixon'

As much as I love to hate Ron Howard , I watched Frost/Nixon tonight and must admit I found it compelling.

The story was marvelously told and moved through difficult territory with surprising efficiency--with the glaring exception being the scene in which Richard Nixon shouted at David Frost over the phone, breaking down the similarities between both men, pumping up his adversary like a particularly inspiring coach.

Whose side is he on again?

The fact that later in the movie Nixon does not remember the phone call seems convenient. His arrogance and venomous bullying are so hard-wired that they escape even his own consciousness--I get it. It seems a ham-handed way to psyche the audience up for a heartwarming "good triumphs over evil" finish that at this point in the movie seems well-undeserved.

But what do I know? Maybe Mr. Howard got his audience right:

"We'd better see him sweat it out now, Marjorie; we'd better see a lot of shots of him doing his homework and being exhausted if this is going to turn out all right and not make me displeased with my experience at the cinema this evening..."

I would rather just see reality.



Also worth noting is that Kevin Bacon appears to be a fourteen year old boy wearing his father's suit in this movie--was that somehow an asset to his role? Or was it merely an innocent mistake that Mr. Howard will regret for the rest of his existence?

I'd love to ask him that hard question on camera. And make him sweat!


All that aside, however, I thought the boxing-match structure to the story was elegantly appropriate and a great pacing device for what could easily have been a sluggish story. An opening befitting a consummate professional.

I like it like my asshole friend likes his meat--well done.

_

Benjamin Gump Uncovered

You gotta watch this.

Eric Roth, you have been accused.

How shall thee plead?

_

What To Do With Texas

texas, oh texas, you are so dense
why don't you just surround yourself with that fence?
we don't need your tortillas
we don't need your greed
we don't need your ignorance
and we certainly don't need your seed

please do us all a favor and secede

_