Chapter 1: Where Our Hero Stops Worrying and Learns to Love Inanities

As a much needed burst of optimism, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT! In keeping with the self-congratulatory tone that we’ve already set, here are some of my most recent thoughts and some vitals for the SoK. I think this will be a regular contribution. Feel free to add/subtract.

Numbers
Number of Couches Slept on/Number of States (or Districts) in which they lie: 4/3
Miles Logged: 950
Fathers seen on Father’s Day: 4
Fathers hugged on Father’s Day: 2
Hot Dog vendors surveyed in my statistical analysis of downtown dogs: 1
Times SoK intellectual property was hijacked by the Liberal Media: 1 (new issue of the Onion, new American motto: U.S. Fever—Catch It!)

Status Report
Bird: Wet
Cigarette Habit: Excessive
Hair: Semi-ruly
Stubble: Shorn
Shirts: Pressed, Medium Starch
Socks: Not matching

Preferences
I prefer drinking water from Styrofoam cups to drinking from plastic cups, I’m currently more into Malkmus lyrics over guitar work; I prefer a thinner Michael Moore and a heavier Jamie Priestly. I’ve gotten over my disdain for diet soft drinks.

I currently dislike bacteria, dentists, when albums are referred to as ‘uneven’ and when basketball players referred to as ‘long’. I currently love Mike and Slang’s posts, Mormon basketball protégés, hyphens, run-on sentences, non-sequiturs, and full-figured women. Preach.

My Postmodern Porno Princess

I was "surfing the internet" yesterday when I came across a wonderful picture of Paris Hilton standing at some sort of outdoor shop buying a porno.

Yawn. Paris Hilton. Surfing the internet. Get over yourself. Is there any subject matter as utterly exhausted in blogs as Paris Hilton? And I'm guessing this in some way relates to her now infamous nightvision sex romp with Rick Solomon?

Yes. Its true. This post deals with Paris and her porno tape. But wait....please.....hear me out. This is bigger than Paris. This is bigger than her cellphone going off in one of the most marvelous exhibitions of coitus interruptus ever captured. This is almost as big as Rick Solomon's endowment.

This is a story about how i fell BACK in love with Paris Hilton.

Who can forget those heady days of a bleary eyed Paris getting trashed with little Leo DiCaprio and a peckerheaded Eddie Furlong? Not me, and while subsequent years of Paris saturation through all media fronts may have somewhat diminished the initial intrigue of witnessing a multimillion dollar heiress stumble like a broken homecoming queen out of clubs while still maintaining an aura of glamour, I remained a Paris fan.

Even when (okay especially when) the Paris and Rick tape clogged search engines worldwide, I remained a fan. I even named my fantasy basketball name ParisHiltonSteadicam the day the footage first leaked to the internet (we deal with a 20 character limit when naming teams, people. It constrains creativity and renders spaces between words gaudy and excessive).

Even when she dated Damian's lookalike from Sum 41 I remained a Paris fan.

Until I saw the Simple Life.

Why did you have to ruin all those beautiful years by opening your mouth and speaking, Paris? Why?????

Grappling with the sheer absurdity of the "character" of Paris Hilton for the first time as she careened and cavorted with a much less attractive Paris doppelganger (Nicole Ritchie), my interest in all things Paris suddenly cooled. The show sucked. Then the Simple Life 2 came on and sucked even harder.

Paris was dead to me.....

And then yesterday I saw a picture that changed everything.

There she was, all Von Dutch and Tinkerbell, fake tan and bottle blonde as ever and yet something was different. Was that a....could it be that......YES!

SHE WAS HOLDING A RETAIL COPY OF THE PORN SHE STARRED IN!

Suddenly my world changed. I became dizzy. I drank a glass of water. I may have scratched myself, I'm not quite sure.

Here was Paris purchasing the mass-produced and slickly packaged byproduct of a drunken romp she participated in roughly five years ago. Here was a gleaming and unparalleled example of self-reflexivity and postmodern action in society! Here were the wheels of capitalism and free enterprise taken to the gaudiest of extremes and consummated through a 35 dollar purchase (most likely on daddy's Amex Black).

My inner geek shrieked with glee. It should be noted that no intellectual theory has captured my interest and attention the way postmodernism has. Unfortunately, no intellectual theory had ever really captured my attention prior to this.

Indeed, one special day of boomers in Providence in the winter of 2002 was not spent frolicking in fields but rather in a heated discussion with Damian over the consequences of the label of postmodernism upon our generation's own perception of its surroundings. Oh yeah, and that ugly building in downtown Provy also looked like a stack of Cracklin' Oat Bran that day.

Likewise, my first trip to Vegas witnessed a very drunk Kevin and myself identifying Las Vegas's primary virtue in the fact that it comprised the first truly postmodern city in our society.

I feel my fascination with postmodernism lies in the fact that it truly is a tangible concept experienced every single day by every one of us in all of our interactions. As Adrian maintains, our generation is unable to relate to each other most times on any level other than by resorting to our hardwired kneejerk tendency to spit back and forth the shared cipher and lexicon of common phrases and quotes from our favorite tv shows and movies.

That being the case, for better or worse, I am hyperaware of postmodernism around me. Wait, is the fact that I'm hyperaware postmodern too? Or is that Postpostmodern? Or something else? My head will explode soon.

All i do know is that the new visual representation of my favorite inellectual theory is comprised of Paris Hilton clutching her own porno, and for that I love her all over again.

The Ball: A Rollin'; The Times: A Changin'

With a fantastically geniune (genuinely fantastic at very least) by are own Bartelby Da Scrivna (or whatever), we're now having fun. See below.

But first, as with all great things, we need a theme song. I'm thinking the attitude of a balls-out "Suicide is Painless" to the visual track of Perfect Strangers. Here are the lyrics. I played the song into Mike's celly, do check it out. See the comments page for guitar chords. Seriously.

The Summer of Kevin
With blank head
With an elevator curl
With a blank check
And an axxxidental perm

Writing post cards
Placing long distance calls
Makin’ money
Breaking all kinds of walls

Manifestos
Of ignorance and vice
Alibis
Blacking out our night

It was the Summer of Kevin

I hope you come along today
On our happy holiday
And won’t you come and sing with me
We’ll wrestle to the ground

It was the Summer of Kevin
Sha Na Na Na

jihad

last thursday i watched the draft from work, which was disappointing since instead of being surrounded by a mike(3 picks, none of them good) and eric (who wont have a pick again until kevin mchale gives up the coogi), i was surrounded by the liberal media elite, who were watching a mets game.
in any case, post draft i was feeling the desire to drink a beer, burn a bit of shrubbery, and google andre iguodala. instead i recieved a telephone call from a certain iranian seniors reporter with whom many of you may be aquainted.
she evidently had two or three cosmos in her and was demanding an audience.

feeling as though her presence would not be conducive to my previously discussed plans, i asked her for a rain check and told her i was going home.
which is when she said (forgive me mr. ashcroft) fine, im iranian and i know where you live. i'll blow up your house.
which is when i said okay you can come over.

but i still harbored hopes of a quiet evening, so i hedged and said okay, lets meet for a drink but after that im going home, and she said deal.
so we met and had a drink (two if you count the shot of tequila that came with my tecate), but she was having none of my plan.
Our conversation went something like this:

me: im going home
her: okay im coming too
me: no way
her: yes way
me: i told you you werent allowed to get attached to me
her: i dont care what you told me
me: your coming over is just gonna make things worse
her: i dont care, i want to come over
and on and on.

at some point i decided that there was no way she was coming over--i just wasn't going to lose the argument.
im not sure why it became so important an argument to win, but it somehow became like a life or death struggle. i felt like i was standing up for my constitutional right to privacy aginst the forces of a girl who thought that just because i slept with her she was as entitled to my time as i was.
more than likely i was just being contrary.
did i mention that her mom died the week before?
and that she got fired the week before that?
wow, i really am a terrible person.

anyway back to the story. the argument continued into the streets.
i tried to walk away. she followed me home. so i walked towards the projects. i reasoned that her instinct for self-preservation would kick in and override her instinct to get laid. it didn't. she kept following. by now it was like 330, and i was contemplating walking IN to the projects, but then my own self-preservation instinct kicked in.
we had one more argument, on D, in front of a gang of puerto rican crack dealers who must have thought it was hilarious.

me: go the fuck home!
her: no
me: dont you have any self-respect?
her: no
me: jesus you are fucking nuts.

the story ends with her getting in a cab. i should have felt guilty i guess, but i was kind of elated instead. i slept like a baby.

did i mention that i have a mustache?

the gym

went to the gym. for 10 minutes. cant move my arms now.

weekend updates and olsens

within the last two days, i've fasted, ate, watched a documentary about arnold swarzenegger flexing his mind and various other body parts, watched a documentary about michael moore flexing his mind and various cheeseburgers (i presume) and heard that mary kate olsen was in rehab for anorexia.

In her response to the idea of fasting as a legitimate way to conduct a detox program, says Merryl Bear,program coordinator for the National Eating Disorder Information Centre at Toronto General Hospital says, "'The first behavioural step towards developing an eating disorder is restricting one's eating.''

now, if you were a hot teenage multi-millionaire, would you have any interest in an elitist troll with questionable personal hygiene and moderate sociopathic tendancies? probably not. but if you met him in rehab when your guard was down, well, that would work fine.

"So Ashley..."
"...actually it's Mary-Kate"
"Whatever. We have a lot in common."
"We do? What's been the hardest for you?"
"I usually like to drink a lot of beer and have at least one cheesesteak or fried food product a day, you?"
"I don't like what i see in the mirror."

On the same topic, i have two dogs from the same litter. Twins, you could say. One's much heavier than the other, because he steals food out of the other's bowl. If the Olsens would just do what my parents did, everything might be all right. Just move their bowls to different sides of the room, and put some gravy over Winston's kibble to make him eat it fast. Not hard. Not hard at all.

Booze, Cigarettes, Fasting and Colonics

...Is this thing on? Anyone? Just checking.