Department Of Things That Creep Me Way The Fuck Out

In the Woodland Hills Whole Foods they have these baby-sized carts with a cute little flag attached that says "Customer In Training".

"We are not metaphors."
"I know", I say. "But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me."
A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me.
"That's the oddest pickup line I've ever heard."

-Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

I saw your face in a crowded place and I don't know what to do

I'm so into the thing the Wiltern does between bands, where they display the text messages people send them, anonymously and no matter what they say. I like the double anonymity of compliments. "You have a nice ass." Apparently someone in the theater thinks someone else has a nice ass. Good to know. Or maybe it's a secret message, planned in advance with a friend in another part of the theater, a signal to storm the building or release the giant manatees or something. Or maybe it's just someone who wanted to see if their text would actually make it onto the screen.

I also like how some dude texted "Ariza for Curry????!" and so me and presumably a whole bunch of other people were convinced for like three hours that the Lakers had traded Trevor Ariza for Stephen Curry. Good practical joke, dude! But he'll never meet any of the people he fooled...

Also, I like Wilco's new album and they kick some ass live :)

cause when she's on her back she had the knowledge to get her into college

If the Kindle becomes too popular I'll be sad because it'll mean I can't have five-minute crushes on girls based on what book they're reading on the subway.

and an astronaut could have seen the hunger in my eyes from space

THINGS TO WHICH I'VE BEEN UP

Working for Grassroots Campaigns again. Overturning Proposition 8, not that it matters what or who we're raising money for. Struck as always by how desperate people can be to ignore someone who's smiling and talking to them. Struck by how when you're trying to get someone's credit card out, "oh, we're totally reputable, it would be terrible business for us to lose anyone's credit card #, we've only had one incidence of theft in a million donations" gets you nothing, whereas confident, meaningless "I'll give you a receipt" is money.

Just finished reading Raymond Chandler, who writes the best similes of anybody ever. "I felt like an amputated leg." May accidentally reread Haruki Murakami's entire overuevovuerhoweveryouspellit in 48-hour binge.

Going to see Wilco tomorrow, super-amped. Their new album is excellent.

Finally learned how to ride a bike! Trying and failing to learn how to ride a bike has been kind of a DZ summer tradition throughout my teenage years, and I would have failed again if I hadn't read what some random guy on the internet had to say.* **

Writing some stuff, maybe even good stuff. Playing a lot of guitar. Strange lonely middle-of-the-night feeling.

Ready for a tornado to come through, ready for an earthquake to smash everything up.

*The first time this sentence has ever been true about anything.

**If there are any random people trying to learn how to ride a bike who read this, the key is to balance with the wheel, not by leaning your body. You want to steer in the direction you're falling.

is our children learning?

It came to pass that George W. Bush, our esteemed former president, was challenged to a yak race by the Emperor. A fate more dangerous than it sounds, for the Emperor was known to be cold and cruel in the face of defeat; none who had bested the Emperor in previous yak races remained alive. The choice of yak was therefore a matter of enormous importance: since the yaks were sacrificed after the race, choosing a fat, slow yak meant the loss of choice meat, while choosing a leaner, quicker beast meant a risk of imminent demise.

The Emperor's two viziers had a burning hate for Mr. Bush, whose roving hands had at the Emperor's coronation ceremony perused the breasts of the wives of each. They therefore conceived a foul plot: to underestimate him, and by doing so, provoke the Emperor's defeat at Mr. Bush's hands, and Mr. Bush's resulting death.

The more bold of the two went before the Emperor, and spoke thusly:

"The yaks of this Bush fellow are snailfeet to a one. Should your highness send out a yak of only three legs, your eventual victory will be no less certain and all the more wondrous and satisfying."

The trusting Emperor pondered this counsel and nodded his bearded head with vigor. "It is agreed." Sniggering silently, the vizier could almost see it: the underestimated Mr. Bush, selecting too fast a yak, and being beheaded underneath the murderous noon sun, without even the honor of a last pretzel dinner.

The day of the race came, and all the men and women of the nation came into the stadium, to watch the proceedings. Imagine their surprise, when the Emperor's yak strode out with only three legs.

Imagine their still further surprise, when Mr. Bush strode out riding a yak with only two legs. For Mr. Bush had caught wind of the treacherous underestimation from the wife of the less-bold vizier, and contrived to send a yak even slower than the viziers had imagined.

The outcome of the race was a foregone conclusion, for while the three-legged yak of the Emperor had a gait that was stilted at best, it had at least the ability to locomote steadily without falling over, an advantage not shared by Mr. Bush's poor creature, which was forced to advance in a kind of painful hopping march.

And so George W. Bush survived the treachery of the viziers, for they had misunderestimated him yet again.

just smile all the time

if everyone in the world

wrote their autobiography today

how many people would make room for you?

"I went to the car park because I wished to live deliberately"

BLDGBLOG is fantastic. Can't recommend it enough. Rather than describe it, just going to link to a few posts.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/rentable-basement-maze.html

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/found-sound-city.html

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/pandemonium.html

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-went-to-car-park-because-i-wished-to.html

he hits snooze twice before he dies

I miss Cochabamba. A lot.

Pacific Palisades seems really sterile in comparison. Like nothing's at stake except who sees who with who at the Pinkberry.

Everyone in Cochabamba would move to Pacific Palisades if they could. Everyone aspires to have no worries for themselves and their kids except who sees who with who. It's noble really. Security. If I was born in Cochabamba I would feel the same way.

***

In a train station in China there was a sign for things you couldn't bring on the train. (assume all typos to be [sic].)

Please Refine From Bringing:

-Chikens, Cows

-Other Naturalistic Diseases

-Skeletons or Severed Body Parts

-Something Smells Terrible

I crack up every time I think about this, imagining the guy making the list. "Let's see... chickens, cows, skeletons... maaan, something smells TERRIBLE."

***

There is a lot of stuff I want to write but I keep thinking about the wrong things.

Particularly I miss my girlfriend. And my roommate's splintered bed.

Reading and writing suck, go outside in the sun and the air.

[[never really happy unless he's fucking or playing basketball]]

I can feel your anger. It gives you focus, it makes you stronger.

Not from the Onion.

The Senate's No. 2 Republican on Sunday refused to rule out a filibuster if President Barack Obama seeks a Supreme Court justice who decides cases based on "emotions or feelings". Sen. Jon Kyl made clear he would use the procedural delay if Obama follows through on his pledge to nominate someone who takes into account human suffering and employs empathy from the bench.

one of a kind, and a full house

THOUGHTS WHILE READING MICHAEL POLLAN IN THE JUNGLE

Would it be possible to genetically engineer a mosquito that only liked the blood of one particular person? Kind of like a modern day version of the Furies. Would it be legal? Would it be moral, if the person was an asshole?

Or how about a mosquito that only bites black people. Is that the future of racism? Hamas designs a racoon that only roots through the trash of Israelis. Israel counters with a special type of pigeon that´s genetically identical to the typical New York kind except it only shits on Palestinians. etc.

THOUGHTS DURING THE ONLY-SLIGHTLY-AWKWARD PURCHASE OF PHARMACEUTICAL OBJECTS WHICH HAVE PRESENTLY BECOME A HAPPY NECESSITY

Radiohead is for the sexually frustrated, eh?

fuck the pigs

just a box in a cage

!!!!

¨You see, on Pet Airways, your pets aren´t packages, they´re pawsengers!¨

***

DON´T FORGET

Each time pets move anywhere, from the Pet Lounge to the pet limo or from the pet limo to the plane, we track and record their progress, which means you can monitor your pet’s journey every step of the way online at Pet Airways Pet Tracker.

***

Job Responsibities:

Pet Attendants will be in charge of our pawsenger’s welfare, and be prepared to make informed decisions regarding pet comfort and safety while in transit.

Pet Attendants will also work with customers by email and phone to help in our customer service effort making sure all questions are answered and so that pet parents have a real person to talk to about their pets needs.

http://petairways.com/

if you say so

there is a joke most of the volunteers in China and Bolivia like a lot that is very hilarious! I will teach it to you. it is called

SHITFACED: A Joke In Three Parts

Part 1: We are going to get so shitfaced! Ha ha!
Part 2: We are so shitfaced! Ha ha!
Part 3: We were so shitfaced! Ha ha!

ha ha, right??

***

¨I wish I was a cloud. People would look at my bottom and say ´he looks like a rabbit´or ´he looks like a penis´ but I would be very far away.¨

Dreams I´ve Had In The Last Three Days

-I am watching, not a movie somehow based on the card game ¨Uno¨, but the sequel to that movie, named, appropriately, ¨Dos¨.

-I have the ability to make myself shorter, but if I do, the change is permanent; I can never regain the lost height. My legs are curled up in a little ball for a 40-hour plane ride to Hong Kong and I am very tempted. Also, I´m trying to fall asleep, but every time I almost drift off, I am awakened by an earnest young stewardess trying to serve me something called a ¨Meat Melon¨.

-I am informed by those wiser than me about such matters that in La Paz it is absolutely declasse to show yourself in public without sporting something called a ¨piano moustache¨; I am very concerned, because I have no idea what a piano moustache looks like, or if I will be able to grow one.

-I am having a heated argument with Avril Lavigne, which it is very important to both of us that we win. She is maintaining that when we fucked, the background music was that stupid song about I Don´t Like Your Girlfriend, whereas I, having no memory of our having fucked at all, am nevertheless adamant that if we had, it would have been to the far superior ¨Complicated¨.

you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

Here in Bolivia I'm teaching English to college kids. It's funny watching them balance wanting to learn and wanting to look cool. For example today I was trying to get them to say "th" instead of "f". I go into total clown mode when I'm teaching pronounciation; I'm up there jumping up and down and making faces, going "thhhhhhhhhhhh". They're all happy to repeat it en masse, but when I try to get them each to say it individually, I have to start by asking a few hot chicks first, otherwise the boys will be all noncommittal and lame. Obvs practice is the only way to get better. But none of them are willing to do it unless they see their friends will.

Meanwhile, re hot chicks: there's definitely this weird thing going on where either the hottest girls are smarter, or the hottest girls know more English, or the hottest girls are more self-confident. It's probably the third but it feels like the first.

Meanwhile I am a bad person for writing that paragraph. These are your students! Except, they're older than me. (That's its own weirdness - when I ask them to move closer so I can see them, or otherwise tell them to do stuff, I always half-expect them to be like "Fuck you talking about, 18-year-old boy." So far they haven't.) I dunno. It's a weird situation. I am what I am.

Meanwhile, the teacher whose class I sit in on uses the same type of listening exercises you used if you learned Spanish in high school, you know, with tape recorders and stuff, except in English, and they're nonsensical and sound slightly but unnervingly like porn dialogue. Today's:
"Hi. I'm Randy."
"Nice to meet you, Randy. What's your favorite job?"
"I'm a plumber. I work very long hours."
"How fantastic! I love meeting plumbers, especially large ones like you!"
etc. Probs written by people who don't speak English fluently and performed by college students laughing their asses off. I wonder if the Spanish stuff we listened to would make equally little sense to Spanish speakers.

bring down the government, they don't speak for us

It bothers me that speed limits are always divisible by five in both miles and kilometers per hour. I have dreams of wise, diligent bureeaucrats carefully testing how many kids are going to get run over at each given speed limit, and making detailed calculations about how much more fun it is to drive at 7mph than 6, and just happening to come up with 5's and 10's. But it's harder to believe that that would happen in two different unit systems.

Say Vings

It´s weird that we divide time zones by hour. If we did it according to sun position, every latitude would be its own time. But we don´t, because that would be confusing. So for instance it gets dark earlier in the day in Nevada than in L.A. But I would buy a watch that told me what time it ¨really¨was. Except, who defines what time it is? British chaps in Greenwich, right? I find it bizarre that the most accurate answer to a simple question like ¨what time is it?¨, even in Bolivia, depends on a council of British guys sitting around in Greenwich.

In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed that something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed.

-White Noise, Don DeLillo

IN DEFENSE OF HEADSCARVES



I was reading Persepolis on the plane to Bolivia, a graphic novel about a girl growing up in revolutionary Iran. Fantastic book all-around, and in particular I really liked the part on veils, for being against them for the right reasons. (Obvs despite the title of this section I´m not actually for headscarves, I just think the traditional argument against them is wrong, and am going to write a post about it for some reason.)



The traditional argument against veils, that they prevent women from ¨expressing themselves¨, doesn´t rub me right. ¨Expressing themselves¨ is mostly a shorthand for ¨showing off for guys¨, right? Sure, there´s some element where people see their clothes as a means of self-expression or whatever, but I don´t think that´s what´s really getting people worked up. When everyone´s dressed in baggy unrevealing clothing, everyone looks mostly the same, which makes it harder for hot girls to distinguish themselves from less-hot girls. Think of all the less-hot-than-average girls who ended up with husbands they wouldn´t have had if they couldn´t hide their lumpiness under a curtain. Seriously, think about them - they´re important, but it´s hard for them to speak up for themselves, because that´s kind of a tough argument to make: ¨the veil helped me screw above my level!¨ Veils help ugly people and hurt hot people, and it´s hard to self-identify in the ugly person constituency. PERSONAL NOTE: I am kind of vain, and rightly or wrongly consider myself slightly better-looking than average, and if the government made everyone wear big smocks and baggy sack-pants all the time, I would be slightly pissed that I could no longer reap the advantages of not being fat. But for every not-fat person, there´s an equal and opposite fat dude who would be helped out by a smock policy and he´s just as important.



HOWEVER. While I would be slightly pissed about not being able to show off as easily, what I would really be pissed off about would be having to wear a stupid uncomfortable smock all day. It would be harder to play guitar, frisbee would be out of the question, and I would suffer from an uncontrollable urge to speak in my terrible italian butcher´s accent. These annoyances would apply to both me and the hypothetical e-and-o fat dude. This type of stuff, and not zero-sum games like ¨expressing oneself¨, are the real reason to be against headscarves. Persepolis did a great job of showcasing these kinds of reasons - the hero is against the veil not so much because it Veils Her Inner Soul, but because it´s hot and itchy and uncomfortable and makes it harder for her to draw and makes her hair fall out.



***


Also I saw Obama´s speech in the Santa Cruz airport and it made me so happy. A nice change after all that bipartisanship moderation bullshit. http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/3387076/the-age-of-obama.thtml

what salvation must be like after a while

Finally figured out what this video is about. Maybe.

***

Went back to HW today at the behest of the Brown/steins, to sit in a big glass room talking to people about gap years. Could see people scurrying about through glass door, but room was unobtrusively placed enough to usually not be noticed. Fly on wall, in wall, really. High schoolers walking by with their high school books chatting with their high school friends going from high school class to high school class. It all seemed so big eight months ago!

And in a weird way, it still seemed big. Talking to old friends/looking at old buildings = kind of felt like old ZW. Weird bad not weird good. Straitjacketed.

After two.five hours of this went up to business office to get scholarship check. botoxed business people w/too much makeup being delighted at me. "ooh it must have been so exciting!" invoices and receipts and proofs of purchase. leeching stories into plastic eyes. was friendly and entertaining. walked out with 10K check in hand, shuddering violently. still can't sleep remembering. what it was was how interested she was, like, italicized levels of interest, "how did you enjoy it", "it must have been so wonderful". she didn't know me.

***

this is something all my closest friends have in common, I think: the ability to be blunt. not saying things they don't mean.

***

Leaving for Bolivia tomorrow. Have been really digging Steely Dan lately.

If I had my way
I would move to another lifetime
I'd quit my job
Ride the train through the misty night-time
I'd be ready when my feet touch ground
Wherever I would land
And if the folks will have me
Then they'll have me

Any world that I'm welcome to
Is better than the one I come from

I can hear your words
When you speak of what you are and have seen
I can see your hand
Reaching out through a shiny daydream
Where the days and nights are not the same
Captured happy in a picture frame
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there

Any world that I'm welcome to
Is better than the one I come from

I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me
I only know I must obey
This feeling I can't explain away

I think I'll go to the park
Watch the children playing
Perhaps I'll find in my head
What my heart is saying
A vision of a child returning
A kingdom where the sky is burning
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there...

Hope your year is going well, better pronoun luck next time.

Au Contraire, Just The Right Amount Of Information

I get a kick out of peeing in toilets right after they've put blue disinfectant stuff in them. Your kindergarten color wheel education was right, it really does turn green!

I Was Sorry None Of You Were Around To Appreciate The Fact That

...Pizza Hut offers circular pizzas with diameters of 9, 10, 11, and 12 inches, and Specially Offers square pizzas of the same area for the same price.

Thievery [from] Corporation

[I don't know the legal stuff here, but just in case, let's stipulate that this entire post is written from the point of view of a fictional character named Steve.]

I think Calvin Klein is bad for the world. I think that by making expensive clothes, they help make it easier for rich people to distinguish themselves from poor people, and make it easier for people who care about clothes to distinguish themselves from people who don't care about clothes. In a world without Calvin Klein, you'd be slightly less likely to have to wear annoying clothes to work.

Why I don't like Calvin Klein isn't the point, though. This is the point:

Assuming you think Calvin Klein is bad for the world, you not only morally can but morally should steal clothes from Calvin Klein.

The reason it's bad to steal music, and bad to steal toasters, and bad to steal food, is because paying people for toasters makes them make more toasters, and makes other people invent better toasters. You're helping to create an incentive for good stuff.

But if I go into Calvin Klein and pay for a tie, I'm giving them incentive to make more bad stuff. Which is bad. If I need a tie, or a fancy belt, I should steal it, so they don't make more ties and fancy belts.

I've talked this over with a bunch of people. A few agree with me. Most say something like "but stealing is wrong!!!!" which is the kind of thing I tend to dismiss, but my roommate Andrew helped me understand that it could mean something real. In order to exist, companies need heavy, healthy moral taboos against stealing. Otherwise you end up with Africa. So every time someone hears about shoplifting it makes them a little less likely to start a company/makes them more likely to do costly anti-theft stuff/makes the U.S. a little more like Africa.

Cool, I agree, that makes sense. But it only applies if/when you get caught.

So now we get into a side note: it turns out to be incredibly easy to shoplift without getting caught.

Over the last month and a half I've done a lot of shoplifting experiments. Mostly in Calvin Klein. Basically all you have to do is walk in, take stuff, and walk out, without looking obviously guilty. It turns out to be pretty tough to get caught - I had to actively try to look shifty-eyed to get any attention from the guards.

Shoplifting in big supermarket chains is actually even simpler. You can use them like buffets. In China the big supermarket chains have monopolies on clean bananas and mark them up huge. Solution: walk into supermarket. Eat banana. Leave supermarket.

(Side note: I wonder why all poor people don't do this. Is it because they're afraid of getting caught, or because they have moral scruples? I can afford to be kind of blase about eating a banana in a supermarket - so far no one's talked to me, but maybe they would if I looked dirtier. Also, given that I've been pretty privileged for the last ten years, I probably make certain assumptions about what bad shit wouldn't happen to me if I did get caught, the rule of law, a fair trial, presumption of innocence, that kind of thing, that your average poor person might not make, and sadly they're probably right in not making it.)

(Other side note: I think poor people not only can but should steal from supermarkets, because the money is worth so much more to them then it is to the supermarket.)

Anyway, bottom line, it's incredibly easy to steal without getting caught. (If you're worried about looking guilty, just pretend to text on your cell phone, which is what I told my roommate who wanted to try. No one will question anyone who is on their cell phone. It's like the one unbreakable rule of American society.) So you should all go out and steal your next suit. Or tell me why I'm wrong in the comments.

Update on the novel

Yesterday I hit the 10,000 word mark on my novel. Making it by far the longest thing I've ever written, but putting me not on pace to hit 50k when I said I'd hit 50K. It's interesting: sometimes I feel like I'm going great, and every word is brilliant, and sometimes I think everything I'm writing is crap, and am tempted to shut down the computer and go to bed. Maybe everything I write is crap. I actually think it's pretty good/am really excited about it, but it's hard to evaluate your own writing. I do know that the morning after, when I reread what I wrote at times when I thought I was writing crap and at times when I felt like I was really rolling, I can't tell the difference. So the key is to just keep writing.