Category: Thoughts

“The Wire”

Via BuzzSugar and of course MeeVee, I suggest that everyone read this incredible profile of David Simon in The New Yorker, which explains the motivation behind his shows, and mentions that his next project might take him from Baltimore to New Orleans.

Great anecdote: “Once, a man pressed a package of heroin into the hands of Andre Royo, the actor who plays the sympathetic junkie and police informant Bubbles, saying, “Man, you need a fix more than I do.” Royo refers to that moment as his “street Oscar.””

I Am Not A Crook

Phil Nugent:

By now, it’s clear that “We don’t torture” is going to be George Bush’s equivalent to “I am not a crook” or “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”–an embarrassingly transparent, obviously untrue statement that the speaker never would have even made in the first place if he hadn’t been obligated to deny something that everybody had already figured out was the case….
At some point, every politician is put in the position of having to flatly deny that he’s doing what he’s doing, but few of us have made that the automatic life choice that Bush has.

People Really Do Form Emotional Attachments With All The Wrong Things

If you haven’t already heard of it, “Meerkat Manor” is a nature show about a family of meerkats, narrated as though it were a prime-time soap opera. It’s hilarious and touching, a half-hour long, and suitable for families. However, it also involves a lot of casual, unmarried sex (I guess meerkats don’t have religions or souls). Anyway, the matriarch of the clan died protecting her cubs from a cobra, and people are really sad about it.

The NY Times has an obituary, of sorts: “What the outpouring of sentiment that has followed says about the present character of American emotional life is disillusioning. Thousands have outlined the particularities of their sadness on Internet message boards, some claiming they haven’t cried so much since they lost a parent.”

Let me remind you: this is a wild animal living its natural life in its natural habitat which has been eaten by a natural predator.

Does God Love Racist Mascots?

Friday, the ALCS begins with the Indians/Sox matchup. I hope the Sox win, and not just because they’re my team: The Indians have a racist mascot.

On the other hand, the Indians are more favored by God, because God sent a plague of flies to bother the Yankees and it broke their concentration and let the Indians win Game 2 of that series.

Does that mean that God loves racist mascots?

The Tales That Ads Tell

Someone just bought a $10,000 motorcycle, barely rode it at all, and now wants to sell it. What went wrong? Abortive midlife crisis? Illness? Divorce? An ultimatum of divorce related to the motorcycle? Or did they win it in a raffle and decide not to keep it? Is it a shop trying to unload excess inventory without having to announce a sale?

Then there’s this guy who bought an $8000 bike, spent $10,000 on chrome, and needs to sell because he has a baby. Location? Lynn, Lynn, city of sin. It’s almost surprising the ad doesn’t begin with “Accidentally had a baby, now have to get married and sell bike.” I love that he says “Over $10,000 INVESTED!” Sorry, I think you should be using a different word. One like like “WASTED!”