Archive for 'The Offical Record' Category
THEY HATE OUR FREEDOM.
16 September 2006A friend of mine is really into the so-called “9/11 truth movement,” which posits that there is a big government conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks, and that it wasn’t really done by Muslim terrorists. Naturally, I was skeptical. He asked me what the terrorists motivation was for the attacks. I began to answer confidently: “They […]
JESUS CHRIST, THAT’S A GOOD TRICK.
11 May 2006On Monday, I woke up and by early afternoon, I was on the 1 train, which I took to the last stop, 242nd Street, where I transferred to the Bronx 9 bus to 262nd Street. I then walked north into Yonkers in Westchester county for about half a mile. Then, I turned around and walked […]
CHIVALRY TODAY.
3 May 2006I sent an email commenting on a remark that was on the second episode of the podcast “Chivalry Today”. On the following episode of the show, the host spent about twenty minutes–more than half of the show–discussing my email! To download the podcast go to chivalrytoday.com and download episode #3, or just get it directly […]
SCIENCE FRICTION.
30 January 2006Suppose, twenty years ago, in the mid-eighties you read a science-fiction book in which the following things started happening. First, there’s an incredibly warm spring. Then, a record-setting, oppressively hot summer, that seems to stretch all the way into December. Then an unbelievably mild winter. During this time, because of the heat, the hurricane season […]
IS THE AD COUNCIL ENCOURAGING ONLINE PREDATORS?
12 January 2006I just saw a very bad advertisement on TV. There’s a cute girl, about 14 or 15 talking. At first we only hear the man’s voice, but as the commercial goes on, you begin to see the guy talking, who turns out to be a good looking guy in his mid-twenties. Man: Meeting a teen […]
TIME TRAVEL.
27 December 2005So, the original Star Trek series ended in 1969. And Star Trek: The Next Generation started in 1987, 18 years later. And now it is very nearly 2006, 19 years later still. In other words, the amount of time in between the end of the original Star Trek series and the beginning of Star Trek: […]
WHY THE RIGHT KEEPS TALKING ABOUT CHRISTMAS.
23 December 2005If you’ve been watching Fox News, you know that conservative pundits have been spending the last few weeks promoting boycotts against companies that say “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Why are they making such a big deal about this? Do you think they really get offended when someone says “Happy Holidays”? […]
WHEN YOU DIE (A POEM).
14 December 2005When you dieAnd I’m speaking to every single person in this room When you dieAnd when you get to Hell And you’re bent over And your pants are down And the Devil comes over And sticks you with his Pitchfork In your ass: What do you think that’s going to feel like?What is that going […]
MY 500TH POST.
14 December 2005This is my 500th post. What a shame it’s such a lame one.
UNPATRIOTIC
18 November 2005Why is the Bush administration attacking the United States Congress while the nation is at war? I think it must be very demoralizing to the troops to make misleading attacks on the United States government, as the administration is doing. If you ask me, “what we’re hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements […]
INVICTUS
7 October 2005When in court for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta on April 20, 2005, American terrorist bomber Eric Rudolph stated, “By the grace of God, I am still here — a little bloodied, but emphatically unbowed.” (see http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/15/schuster.column/). This is an obvious reference to the poem, Invictus (Latin for “unconquered”) by William Ernest […]
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
15 July 2005“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.” -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) From A.Word.A.Day.
FAIR AND BALANCED.
13 July 2005I don’t usually check out Fox News, but I was thinking about this whole Karl Rove thing in the news, and wanted to see their take on it. So I checked out foxnews.com, and one of the headlines is “Karl Rove Should Get a Medal.” This was under the heading, “John Gibson’s My Word,” but […]
VOTE FOR JESS.
27 May 2005Won’t you take a minute to vote for my friend Jessica Delfino for Best Musical Comedy Act in the 2005 Emerging Comics of New York Awards? Cick here, and also vote for some of the other great New York emerging comics while you’re there, if you like.
BOOK REVIEW: ELECTRIC UNIVERSE * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
16 April 2005Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity by David Bodanis is a nice mix of both science and history and biography, and I liked it. It is impossible to overstate the importance of harnessing electricity in influencing the history of the world, and yet I have seldom seen electricity discussed from an historical perspective, […]
THEATER REVIEW: THE MARIJUANALOGUES * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
18 March 2005This show is funny and cute and clever with just the right blend of outrage and self-effacing humor, though some of the jokes do fall a little flat. It’s worth seeing before it closes on March 27.
BOOK REVIEW: WHERE THE RIGHT WENT WRONG * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
18 March 2005I’d never been a fan of anything Patrick Buchanan had to say. But his latest book, Where the Right Went Wrong : How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency was gripping and insightful. We’ve all heard the criticisms of the Iraq war from the liberal point of view. But Buchanan very […]
WE HAVE LEARNED NOTHING.
13 March 2005I remember when I was in high school, and we learned that in Victorian times, standards of beauty were so insane, and women were so obsessed with their apearance and so screwed up in their heads and so subjugated by men, that they would have their lowest ribs removed, so that they could have a […]
MOVIE REVIEW: CRAZY LEGS CONTI: ZEN AND THE ART OF COMPETITIVE EATING * * * (3 stars out of 4).
13 March 2005This funny and smart documentary about competitive eating contests maintains just the right mix of reverence and whimsy for the sport. We follow narrator Crazy Legs Conti, holder of a world record for eating the most number of oysters in a single sitting, as he pursues his dream of qualifying for the Fourth of July […]
VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, INCREDIBLY BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.
21 December 2004I went to the Sprint store on 77th and Broadway a couple weeks ago because my cell phone wasn’t working. It turned out to be a hardware problem, and I’d bought the insurance, so they said they’d replace my phone for me, and for me to come back in two to three business days, and […]
SATURDAY NIGHT NOT-LIVE
24 November 2004What’s with Saturday Night Live jumping on the bandwagon of people making fun of Ashlee Simpson getting caught lipsynching on their show? Let’s not forget that SNL was totally complicit with Simpson’s attempt. There’s no way that she could have had that pre-recorded audio track go out over the air without the knowledge and even […]
THEATER REVIEW: DAVE GORMAN’S GOOGLEWHACK ADVENTURE * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 November 2004So a “googlewhack” is a search made by combining two words so that you get a google search result that yields exactly one result (“Results 1 – 1 of 1”). Dave Gorman decided not only to find some googlewhacks, but to visit them in person. The result is an adventure that took him around the […]
THEATER REVIEW: RODE HARD AND PUT AWAY WET. * * * * (4 stars out of 4).
12 November 2004This satire of musical theater, presented as a series of short sketches about various shallow, over-privileged women, is the best show I’ve seen in a long while. It’s funny and touching and extremely well-presented. It’s also only $5 at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater, which also gets you in to see The Sunshine Gang at […]
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE CONTINUES.
5 November 2004I’m thinking back on all the second terms of US Presidents in my lifetime. Clinton was impeached. Reagan was caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal. Nixon resigned from office in disgrace. I wouldn’t want to read too much into that, though.
THE AMERICAN DREAM.
16 October 2004I just bought a building in Greenwich Village! It’s currently being used as three residential apartments plus a retail store. I’m going to leave the store in place, and convert the residential apartments into a townhouse for myself. I’m putting in an elevator, and I’m staying in my old place until that’s in. So, between […]