It takes a community paper to raise a child

This isn't an error, per se, but it is a fine example of the kind of wacky stuff that would only fly in a tiny community paper. Here's a letter to the editor of the Athol Daily News:

The last line slays me. I promise you, my future children: I will never say the words, "You're grounded! Go to your room and write a letter to the local paper!"

Permalink: 10:19 AM | Comments (1)

They really do need that proofreader

In the further adventures of Small-Town Newspaper Screw-Ups, here's an in-house ad for a proofreader that ran in a little paper called The Gardner News:

The numerous grammatical errors are glaring, but here's one that should have been even more obvious among the staff: They spelled the publisher's last name wrong.

From the same paper comes this perplexing page, with obits on the top and an in-house promo ad on the bottom. Look at the guy in the ad. Familiar?

Some sort of subversive advertising message, perhaps? Read our paper... or die!

Permalink: 08:30 AM | Comments (4)

The Hardy Boys were on the case

While working for the regional daily newspaper, I spent time in a lot of towns that were also covered by hyper-local community papers. I read them for two reasons, not necessarily in this order: 1) to see if they had something interesting that we didn’t; and 2) to look for mistakes. Small papers like this are rife with awesome errors -- the result, I assume, of inexperienced, small staffs. For that, I suppose I shouldn’t hold these things against them; it’d be like mocking a toddler every time it fell. But I’m a jerk: I hung on to a lot of these errors for my own amusement, sometimes even hanging them on the wall in my office. Now that I’m not competing against these papers anymore, it’s time to share.

The one above is from a teeny-tiny thing called the Athol Daily News. They have notoriously confusing front-page layouts -- headlines stretching over different stories, pictures that don’t match -- but this front page slayed me: New York’s most-wanted man, it turns out, is a 10-year-old boy, and they took his mugshot during math class! He “accepted money to kill woman”... because he reallllly needed it to buy a Nintendo Wii before all the kids at school thought he was a dork. (In fact, it’s a totally unrelated picture honoring some kid for being a good paperboy.)

More to come.

Permalink: 09:03 AM | Comments (1)

The correct answer was, "Tell her to see me after the show."

And the award for Best Banter Between The Audience And Colin Meloy, Lead Singer Of The Decemberists, During Tonight's Boston Performance goes to...

Guy in audience (yelling): "Mr. Meloy, I have a very serious problem!"

Colin: "I'm not a doctor, son."

Guy in audience: "My girlfriend loves you much more than me!"

Colin: (long, dramatic sigh)

Permalink: 10:35 PM | Comments (2)

"You prefer unemployment to employment," one of my co-workers said

We need stronger tape.

Some days are over, and for the better. They pass, slowly but steadily, like indigestion. Last week, when I had a cold, for example. Over. All of high school? Over. Also: Days of living in the suburbs and writing general assignment news for a daily newspaper? Over.

In 2002, after graduating college, I took a job at a tiny daily paper and began the arduous task of chronicling the boring times of boring places. Community news, it turns out, was just not my thing -- so much so that I published this rant while still at the paper. I couldn’t muster the courage to care about these small-town happenings, and so, in the efforts to build a bridge out of the world of local news, I began freelancing for anybody I could. Eventually, I got a job at a significantly larger daily newspaper, where the better pay and larger circulation made things a little easier to swallow.

That’s where I’ve been for the last two and a half years. It’s been a largely good experience: I wrote some stuff I was excited about, learned to work under the daily grind, and so on. But two things weighed on me: working at this paper, in central Mass., meant I was stuck living in the suburbs instead of a major city; and I was almost always bored with what I was covering. Also, I continued increasing my freelance load, and often had to work 12-hour days to fit it all in. (And that's why, in the last few months, this blog has hit dry spells.)

So today, a change: I quit the job. I’m officially unemployed. HappyScrappy headquarters will be moving to Boston later this month (hence the posts about apartment hunting), and I’ll be freelancing full time. Perhaps a job will become available -- memo to future employers: that’d be swell! -- or perhaps I’ll get an extended lesson in budget management. Either way, I’m excited. No more driving everywhere, no more suburbs, no more small-town school committee meetings. I don't want to live in another suburb until I've got five kids, and I've named them all George.

I expect to have more time for the blog, although please bear with me for the next few weeks as we pack up and move. Thanks.

Permalink: 10:12 AM | Comments (3)

Costing more than just your organ

I have a piece in today's Washington Post about the financial burden that living organ donors often endure. I began on this story after noticing a little bill popping up around the country, offering tax breaks for donors. It didn't make any sense to me, until I made a few calls and discovered -- to my surprise, although it's obvious in hindsight -- that giving an organ can be pretty costly. The recipient's insurance picks up the medical costs, but what about stuff like travel expenses and wages lost while recuperating? Then it becomes a fascinating debate: If you're going to start reimbursing donors for that stuff, why not pay for other things and see if it inspires more organ donations? What's the ethical line here?

Anyway. I suspect it'll go in circles for a long time. But considering the relentless demand for organs, I suspect that, sooner or later, someone in a position of power will propose something drastic. Then it'll get really interesting.

Permalink: 08:11 AM | Comments (2)

Pick up your muzzle at the front door

During our apartment search, we looked into a great two-bedroom place on Beacon Hill, an upscale neighborhood of Boston. I wasn’t sure I’d feel comfortable in the area -- the average income there would drop about $4 million on the day we’d move in -- but the place looked good and the location was inarguably nice and central. We had heard some strange things about the landlord, an elderly woman who lives on the top floor and watches people as they move in, but were willing to hop on the phone and check her out. (She couldn’t meet us in person, she said, because she’d been in bed for something like two months straight. She wasn’t afraid to talk about her bedsores, either.)

The tenants in her apartment live “elegant lifestyles,” she said, and they “work hard and deserve quiet.” Weekends are an especially restful time, she said, and there are no parties allowed. Ever.

This worried me. We’re not throwing keggers every Saturday, but we like having friends over, and I don’t want to feel uncomfortable every time someone laughs too loud. So, I tried feeling the situation out.

“What about dinner parties?” I said.

“Well, it’d depend on what kind of dinner party,” she said.

“Just some friends over for dinner. What do you think about that?”

“How many friends?”

“Some friends. What do you think is appropriate?”

“Well,” she said. “One couple is one thing. Four couples is another.”

Check please.

Permalink: 09:05 AM | Comments (0)

What is this all of a sudden, a literary blog?

At some point during my adolescence, my internal monolog quieted down. I don’t know when, exactly. It went from anxiously evaluating everything -- a bit like a play-by-play announcer, but more concerned -- to being discreet, or not there at all. I suppose that’s just part of growing up -- getting more confident, taking action by instinct -- but I remember recognizing this change and worrying, quite intently, if I had lost some part of myself. If that internal monolog was me, and it’s gone, then where’d I go? And who’s this other guy now performing my actions?

Imagine doing it in reverse. First you’re fluid, in the moment, then suddenly your actions require additional care and precision. You’d long, I suppose, for the days when your actions felt as though they were yours. That’s the set-up for Remainder, a novel by Tom McCarthy that I recently finished, and which I highly advise checking out. (Disclaimer: A Random House guy sent me a review copy, along with a letter that says, “I’m not even going to ask you to spread the word about it because I don’t think I need to. Frankly, I would defy you to read it and not talk about it.” And it’s true. I’d have written about this regardless of where I got the book from.)

The story is driven by a nameless narrator, a man who has suffered a serious accident and has had to relearn basic motor skills. It bothers him greatly, having to relearn movements, because he feels separate from his environment -- a man who must control his actions, surrounded by people who simply are their actions. The company responsible for the accident gives him a ton of money in a settlement, and the narrator begins spending it on things he thinks will allow him to recapture a sense of self. It’s a strange, sometimes maddeningly weird book, but remarkable for the way it captures and expresses this feeling of self-disconnectedness, and then acknowledges how difficult it is to express it. Hell, I don’t think I ever tried articulating the feeling I had while growing up. I don’t even know if what I wrote above makes sense.

One of my favorite scenes comes early in the book, when he’s watching a group of homeless people and “started thinking that these people, finally, were genuine. That they weren’t interlopers. That they really did possess the street, themselves, the moment that they were in.” So he approaches one of the homeless men, and tries talking to him about it:

“Well,” I said. “I want to know … Well, what I want to know is … Okay: when you’re sitting on your patch of street, sitting there wrapped up in your sleeping bag, with your dog curled up in your lap … You’re sitting there, and there are people going by—well, do you … What I really want to know…”

I stopped. It wasn’t coming out right. I took a deep breath and started again:

“Look,” I told him. “You know in films, when people do things—characters, the heroes, like Robert De Niro, say—when they do things, it’s always perfect. Anything at all. It could be opening a fridge, or lighting up a—no, say picking up a napkin, for example. The hero would pick it up, and give it a simple little flick, and tuck it in his collar or just fold it on his lap, and then it wouldn’t bother him again for the whole scene. And then his dialog will be just perfect too. You see what I mean? If you or I tried that, it would keep slipping out and falling.”

My homeless person picked his napkin up again. “You want me to tuck it in my shirt?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “That’s not the point. The point is that I wonder, I just wonder, whether you’re aware of this. When you sit on your corner.”

“I don’t use no napkins when I eat,” he said.

I imagine conversations like this happened a lot when the author tried explaining what his book was about. Apparently, and not surprisingly, he didn’t get very far until it was already published. According to the Random House rep, Remainder was originally released by a small press in Paris, which printed only 750 copies. A blogger eventually passed it along to a friend who works as a Random House sales rep, who got it into the hands of an editor. And here we are.

Permalink: 11:58 AM | Comments (2)

Table Scraps: the community slop edition

♣THANKS TO ALL who sent me links after yesterday's pathetic plea. I should stress that, while not all e-mails to me will result in a prize, you should never hesitate to send me notes or interesting links. I check my e-mail every four or five breaths; an empty inbox is a lonely Jason. So then, on with the first round of stuff I got yesterday (and rest assured, there'll be a round two):

♣THESE BOOBS WERE made for walking? Well, at least one boob -- which sprouted, nipple and all, on the bottom of some girl's foot. Something to ponder: Would this be more or less exciting to a guy with a foot fetish? (Thanks, Amber!)

♣AND WHILE WE'RE indulging in this sort of thing, let's not forget the quivering mound of love pudding. Or, you know, the breakfast of champions? (Thanks, Izzie!)

♣INSTEAD OF JUST bleeping out profanity on television and radio, everyone should just hire this guy. (Thanks, Francis!)

♣NOT THAT SHOCKING: If country size changed depending on its percentage of things like military spending and toy imports, the globe would look very different. Quite shocking: Australia doesn't bloat in the "alcohol consumption" category. You know I love you, Australians, but you know how to down 'em. In fact, here's a pic of me in a bar with some Australians, who had spontaneously burst into dance. (Pic mine. Maps: Thanks, Lori!)

♣EVER SEE SIGNS in museums that warn you not to touch the art, and you wonder who ever would? Talk to John. (Thanks, John!)

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this. (Thanks, Kate!)

Permalink: 01:21 PM | Comments (1)

Get free stuff! Read on...

In the interest of killing two birds with one stone, I declare:

1. Remember a full year ago, when I announced with little fanfare that my friend and I had created a comic and were shopping it around? Turns out, selling a comic to publishers is really hard. I knew that, but had chosen to ignore it. I've since decided to put it up online so people can read it, but haven't quite had the time yet. Meanwhile, though, I've got a bunch of copies lying around, and they might as well be in someone's hands. Like yours. So...

2. This blog hasn't gotten as much attention from me in the last few weeks as it should, for reasons I'll explain in a bit. But for now, I'm going to take the cheap way out: Send me a link to something funny, and I'll build a Table Scraps (or two) out of the submissions. And if that ain't making you twiddle your toes, check this: The first six people to e-mail me something legitimately funny will get a comic book. I'll mail one to you. Easy as peasy.

So go forth! Write my website! Unclutter my office! I'm so generous, I know.

Update: Got many a good link. Thanks to all who wrote. Consider this offer expired and moldy.

Permalink: 08:11 AM | Comments (0)

Rental home of ill repute

We're looking for a new apartment (more on this later), and last week saw one with a fireplace in the bedroom. "I don't know how often we'll be setting fires in the bedroom -- literally, at least," I said to the realtor, before realizing this was a kind of weird joke to be making with him.

My girlfriend snickered, and the realtor said, "It's ok. I've heard worse."

Oh man, does that sound bad. How many home-hunters make icky jokes when checking out bedrooms? I asked a friend of mine who's a realtor in Florida, and she said it hasn't happened to her. But, that's not to say she hasn't learned about her clients' sex lives. She writes:

I had a couple that spent forever looking at a $1.1 million house in Harbor Beach in Ft. Lauderdale. After they found it and bought it, two to three months later it came out the husband was cheating on her with a stripper younger than his kids. Needless to say, she got the house. Maybe a parting gift?

Sounds a little too generous for him.

Permalink: 12:25 PM | Comments (1)

The door is closed only because Samuel Jackson hasn't kicked it in yet

Ok, fine, so that joke's at least a half-year old. All the same: Snakes on a wall? I saw this in Cambridge a few hours ago. The reptilian equivalent of "Girls! Girls! Girls!" perhaps?

Permalink: 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

Lonelyboy15, or lonely boy who's 15?

Here's all you should know before watching this video diary: It's a 15-year-old boy with a crush on a girl named Sophia, and whose friend's name is Jacob. Ok:

I stumbled upon that video yesterday, and watched it a good five times. I laughed, I cried, I furrowed my brow. There are more twists than a M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie: Oh no, Sophia's with someone else! And that's... good! Wait, good!? Oh, but he's excited! Let him be excited. But, uh, he's excited because he doesn't understand what's going on. Oh, this is sad for a very different reason now.

I've since watched a few more of his video diary entries, and can't decide if this kid, Daxflame, is the male version of Lonelygirl15. First of all, he's 15. And he's lonely. And where Lonelygirl was so disarmingly poised and articulate, he's exceptionally the opposite. And the storylines are almost too perfect, like when, in anticipation of his school's "celebrity day," he dresses up as Superman and plans to woo Sophia, and then, to his horror, learns that he's dressed up on the wrong day. Surely, that must have happened in every sit-com since the 1960's.

Funny how Lonelygirl15 has changed the dynamic of the way we watch online vidoes. Previously, I don't think I'd have doubted this kid's story. Now, his geekyness seems too perfectly geeky -- his grown-up and mixed-up clothes! his clumsy jokes! -- and his life too full of well-worn conflict. But then again, I'm not sure which I'd rather be true: That somewhere in the world, a kid like this exists and is willing to bare himself to the world; or that this kid is a young, brilliant actor who has created a fantastic character, and is getting a lot of attention for it.

Curse you, world of ambiguous content! Curse you and the tubes you rode in on.

Permalink: 02:59 PM | Comments (2)

Table scraps:

♣SO YOU'RE STANDING on the subway platform, unable to avoid looking at the large advertisements that are plastered everywhere. Then you think to yourself, What the people in these advertisements are missing is cold sores.

♣FOOD: IT'S NOT just for eating.

♣I GET FIDGETY when I'm on the phone, and so I tend to play a mindless video game that doesn't require me to actually pay attention. Throughout much of high school, it was Super Mario 3. Currently, it's this pool game.

♣FINALLY, THE SCOURGE of corks stuck inside bottles has come to an end! Turns out, removing the cork is pretty easy.

♣THERE WILL BE no sexy time in the library: Sports Illustrated apparently isn't sending its swimsuit issue to its library subscribers. Perhaps they don't want to be involved in another one of these? (I posted that Daily Show clip a while ago, but here's something new I just found: raw footage of the Jones-Monday interview.)

♣SOMEONE IS PUTTING porn in the mystery and romance sections of a Pennsylvania Borders. What a mystery... and for some, perhaps, romance! Let it also be noted that this is happening in a place called Dickson City.

♣YOU KNOW A Craigslist post is going to be good when it's headlined, "You Might Be Fucking My Roommate, But..."

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 11:01 AM | Comments (2)

This'll fry even CTU's satellites

I haven't seen last night's "24" yet, because Jack Bauer and I were busy doing... well, why don't you just see for yourself.

Permalink: 09:33 AM | Comments (3)

Paris Hilton's sex tape would probably break even

Oh, if only we could go around suing anybody who depresses our libidos. From the AP:

BERLIN - Three teenagers may be on the hook for a hefty fine if a court decides that their festive firecrackers outside an eastern German farm scared the libido right out of an ostrich named Gustav.

Can you imagine? The entire Christian right movement would go bankrupt immediately. God only knows how many libidos James Dobson has scared away. Although, this would significant alter the endings of those “most embarrassing moment” stories in Seventeen-like girly tween mags. Remember those? Are they even still around? I had the flu but he came over anyway. We started making out, and then I threw up in his mouth. Now they call me Barfy Betty -- and my piggybank is broke!

Permalink: 12:34 PM | Comments (0)