My Mind on Shuffle

Because I don't have much original to say the last couple of days, let's have another installment of my reaction to Mr. Klosterman.  Again, all of the portions in italics are directly reproduced from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Klosterman, Chuck, published by Scribner, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, 2003.  Buy it.

5. You meet your soul mate.  However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear–for the rest of your life–sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains.  When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains.  If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains.  When you hear a commercial jingle on tv, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).  Would you swallow the pill?

Now, I like Alice in Chains as much as the next guy born between 1975 and 1982, which is to say I find them vastly inferior to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and really most alternative bands not called Hole.  Needless to say, this is no way to go through life.  If this person were really my soul mate, I believe that she would volunteer for the Crescent wrenching.  I would, of course, try to "take one for the team", as it were, and down the pill, but she would do something drastic to prevent this from happening (perhaps even beaning me with a Crescent wrench as a preventative measure).  From there on, I would continue to enjoy a wide variety of music and every three years would be wracked with guilt as she has her collarbone reset.  Eventually she would come to regret her choice, resenting me for putting her in such a situation.  We would both seek sanctuary outside of our relationship, only to find all other companionship lacking.  Still, we would finally split up, only to have the three year anniversary come around again.  She would be accosted once more by a wrench-wielding maniac and discover that her suffering is indepedent of our relationship.  Her new partner would not be able to handle the pressure of handling this bizarre situation.  We would eventually reunite and live out our days in constant fear of plumbers.  The ironic twist to the story?  We would discover a bizarre appreciation for the musical stylings of Alice in Chains and ultimately play one of their songs at our wedding.

6. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR."  This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure.  However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room.  They get to watch your dreams along with you.  And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR.  Would you still do this?

For some people, this wouldn't be too challenging.  A lot of people remember their dreams vividly.  I am not one of these people.  I rarely, if ever, remember my dreams, and when I do only in the vaguest sense.  For this reason, I believe the dream VCR would be a fascinating glimpse into my subconscious.  I wish I could just remember my dreams better, so what could be better than being able to watch them play out?  Despite this, there's simply no way I could possibly agree to this condition.  Why?  Here's the deal: I find watching movies with incidental sex scenes in the company of others fairly uncomfortable.  Could I watch such a movie in the prescence of my friends and family if it starred myself?  Sorry, I'm just a little too repressed for that.

In addition to the previously stated goals to perform a Blaine-esque stunt, popularize the terms slurpee and big gulp as euphimisms and to appear on a VH1 countdown show, I have a wide variety of life goals.  Because every one knows it's important to have goals:

• To have a statue of me erected in a public place.  This may or may not involve having my corpse bronzed (cause cremation's for pussies).
• To have a building named after me.
• To own a European car (Yugos need not apply).
• To be pulled on-stage by basically any band alive and touring only to discover an inexplicable and heretofore undiscovered talent for beat-boxing.
• To date women with the following traits: Named Amber, Heather, Samantha; attended an Ivy League university; has an accent; has been/is a cheerleader, dancer and/or Olympian; foreign.
• To discover a cure for Herpes (I and II).
• To foil someone's evil plan.
• To receive a championship ring (specific sport unimportant).
• To be a member of a Real World cast, specifically appearing as the boring roommate who becomes overly ludicrous when intoxicated.
• To receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
• To receive a Senatorial Censure.
• To appear in the Olympics as Skip of the Men's Curling Team.
• To receive a Nobel Prize (field unimportant).
• To publish a manifesto with a level of influence falling somewhere between Marx and the Unabomber.
• To produce/direct/write an adult movie that receives shocking Oscar nominations for its "innovative plot structure and compelling characterizations".
• To celebrate my 123rd birthday.
• To receive an honorary degree from a historically black university.
• To have a biopic made about my life.
• To have a Behind The Music episode.

I know I have more, and perhaps I'll weigh in with them at a later date.  Until then, keep dreaming, kids.

In general, I'm not a huge fan of reality shows.  Sure there was that one year when I was living alone in South Bend and I watched far too much American Idol and The Bachelor (starring NFL quarterback, Jesse Palmer, cause no one needs more help finding women than professional athletes).  Looking back on this now I am more than a little embarassed.  I find most reality shows to be soul-crushingly vapid (except The Real World, that show kicks ass).  I have no problem, however, admitting my love for VH1's "pop-culture commentary shows/countdowns".  You may know these better as I Love the 80's, I Love the 80's Strikes Back, I Love the 80's 3D, etc. or 100 Greatest Albums of All Time, 100 Most Metal Moments, 100 Hottest Celebrity Bods, etc.  These shows are probably most notable for employing people who would otherwise be relegated to obscure stand-up careers, bit parts on sit-coms or writing silly little articles on the internet.*

ANYWAY… This weekend I caught the tail end of the 20 Greatest Reality TV Moments.  In the top five was a moment featuring the show Cheaters.  Since I learned of its existence, I've thought this show was questionable in both its premise and execution.  Premise: Random Dude/Dudette believes that his/her significant other is cheating and wants them exposed as a lying sack of shit (on national television, of course).  Execution: cameras follow suspected "cheater" around and basically play P.I. until the denoument: the confrontation.  This usually involves lots of screaming, crying and bleeping.  Between the lying "cheater", the vindictive "cheatee", and the rubber-necking viewer, it's hard to tell which is the lowest segment of humanity, but I'm pretty sure it can be found somewhere in there.  Ok, now that you're familiar with what we're working with here, back to the story.

The moment from Cheaters that made VH1's countdown placed somewhere in the top five.  Presumably, the relatively low ranking is due to the fact that this show runs on one of those pathetic networks like UPN and about four people ever actually tune into watch.  It certainly wasn't for the severity of the moment.  This show's highest (lowest?) moment came when the host, in the midst of the confrontation (on a boat no less) was STABBED.  That's right, f-ing stabbed in the gut!! by the "cheater". 

If of course, thought this was awesome.  This is a dude whose entire job is to ruin people's lives.  At least on shows like Jerry Springer they have people in a controlled situation so when "My Man Cheated With His Step-Sister and My Mother" turns into a huge conflagration, it's in a (relatively) controlled environment and they try to talk things out.  You know, like civilized trailer-trash.  Cheaters though basically amounts to this host jumping out and yelling "Gotcha!".  Let's face it: A) it's amazing it didn't happen on the very first show, B) he had it coming.

Amazingly, this was not the end of the series.  This dude, after being stabbed, went back out there to film more shows.  All in the name of justice…or entertainment…or something.

*It is a life goal of mine to someday appear on I Love the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century: 2006 making snide comments about David Blaine and Britney Spears's lack of parenting skills (with a touch of modern-post-modern self-flagellation for even having knowledge of such subjects, obviously).

I recently posted that I'm working on bringing the terms "slurpee" and "big gulp" into the sexual euphimism lexicon.  Well I've been watching season one of The Shield (awesome show by the way, I clearly suck for only learning this now.  Thanks Netflix!  I'll endorse you later, I promise).  At one point, a character makes reference to another character "getting a slurpee".  YES!!  I know this show came out in like 2001, but I'll gladly take retroactive credit.  It's totally catching on people.  Tell your friends.

Recently I pimped Chuck Klosterman's book, Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs.  I mention this again because in the middle of this book, he puts forth a 23 question interview/survey that he purports to ask "everybody [he] meet[s] to decide if [he] can really love them".  I found these questions fascinating and hilarious.  So I'm going to post them here, along with my responses.  Feel free to add your own answers/thoughts/etc.  And just so no one decides they want to sue me, all of the portions in italics are directly reproduced from the above mentioned book, published by Scribner, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, 2003.  Once again, it's a brilliant book and I suggest you all go out and buy it immediately.  Ok, here we go…

1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician.  Let us assume he can do five simple tricks–he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein.  These are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five.  HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic.  It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space.  He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.  Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

As far as I can tell, there's several ways to look at this.  Einstein is clearly the winner in terms of scope of accomplishments, societal impact, mental abilities, etc.  However, I find it hard to believe that Einstein is the only person in the grand scope of our world who could come up with Relativity and all that stuff.  Once you really start researching, it turns out most scientific ideas have actually been discovered three or four times by people who aren't paying attention to what the rest of the world is working on.  And the assumption here is that this magician is the only truely magical person.  Ever.  (Let's discount the argument that if he exists, maybe another could as well.  I take this dude as a singularity).  So in terms of how remarkable are this person's particular powers, magic versus being really really smart, I guess I'd have to go with the magic.  At the very least he kicks the crap out of that douche David Blaine.

2. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope.  He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile.  And let us assume that–for some reason–every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes.  You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.  Would you attempt to do this?

In a word (or two): fuck no.  And not cause I'm some bleeding heart hippy either.  Because A) that's gross, I've never even hit a squirrel with my car, now I'm going to kick a horse to death? and B) now that Mandela's free, quick, name me one political prisoner.  Yeah, exactly.  I've recently been more interested in global events, particularly the suffering in Africa, so I researched some aid groups (by which I of course mean that I checked out their websites).  I wasn't too impressed by AI.  I'm sure it's a worthy cause and all, but it just didn't really blow my hair back, ya know?  I think the real purpose of this question is to cause liberals' heads to explode.  Because the kind of people who really care about things like AI are the same sort of people who think being a vegan is cool.

3. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table.  In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler's skull.  You have to select one of these items for your home.  If you select the turtle, you can't give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state.  If you select Hitler's skull, you are required to display it in a semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so.  Display of the skull must be apolitical.  Which option do you select?

Too easy.  Hitler's skull hands down.  Turtles are dirty, and unless this turtle also happens to be between the ages of 13 and 19, genetically abnormal and trained in the martial arts, I'm not interested.  Plus where do I come up with $999 if the little bastard croaks.  And besides, with the apolitical bit, I don't think that "look, this is Hitler's skull" automatically equates to "hey, I hate Jews" for most people.  Right?

4.  Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called "super gorilla".  Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and–most notably–a vague sense of self-awareness.  Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football.  The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end.  ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be "borderline unblockable" and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays).  Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.  You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

No.  I fucking hate the Raiders.