I reported this story from my bedroom

There's an interesting piece in the New York Times today about a dean at M.I.T. who lied substantially on her resume. More interesting, though, is the little tag at the end of the story: "Christy McKerney contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass., and Sara Rimer from Boston."

Are there changing rules over there for how specific the identification needs to be? Typically when reporters' locations are noted in these tags, they're something like, "Bill Bobbins reported from Rome, and Andrea Aggis reported from Washington." But Cambridge and Boston are next to each other, divided by a river. The specifics of their location seem unnecessary, as if it read, "Christy McKerney contributed reporting from inside M.I.T., and Sara Rimer from the sidewalk next to it." Surely, Christy and Sara crossed the great divide between Boston and Cambridge during the reporting for this story. That is, unless they're really territorial, staring at each other from across the Charles River, notebooks as shields, pens held like daggers, daring one to cross to the other side.

Permalink: 09:22 AM | Comments (3)

Table Scraps:

♣EVER GO TO Denny's, order something off their very attractive menu, and then wonder why your food looks nothing like how it was advertised? You're not alone -- and Denny's isn't the only offender. (Pic to the right from the linked site.)

♣IN ACTION MOVIES, the hero can often fight multiple guys at once. What would that look like in real life? For one, a lot less choreographed.

♣I DON'T KNOW much about Roger Ebert, but here's two reasons to give him two thumbs up: He'll be attending his film festival despite his disfigurement, and he's not shy about telling his money-sucking publisher to screw off.

♣BREAST IMPLANTS MAKE you look... smarter? (via Heaneyland)

♣A COMBINATION I wouldn't have expected: Arkanoid and the news.

♣SOME RECENT MCSWEENEYS lists I thought were funny were about dwarfs, intelligent design, Ben & Jerry's, airport searches, family and goths.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S a picture that you have no reason to care about, but that I'll post anyway. A little while ago I finally met Steve Garfield, vlogger extraordinaire, and he was kind enough to take a picture and stick it on Flickr. Fun.

Permalink: 12:28 AM | Comments (3)

Class act II

Tonight I went to see Mike Daisey’s “Invincible Summer,” the show that was assaulted by a group that identified itself as a Christian organization but was, in fact, a high school choir from California. (I first blogged about it here.) The show was great: really funny, heartfelt, cleverly delivered. The high school group missed out -- and if that school was really interested in providing guidance and positive experiences for its students, it should know that the students were surely more hurt by being involved in an aggressive walk-out than they would have been by watching this great performance and hearing a few f-bombs. (There was another school group there, and they stayed.)

As you may have seen in the video of the incident, the walk-out occurs after Daisey tells a profane joke about Paris Hilton. I expected the Paris Hilton stuff to be toward the middle of a show that had already been laced with dirty jokes, as if the group had endured too much discomfort and couldn’t take it anymore, but was surprised to find it in the beginning. It was within the first few minutes, following an endearing story about his wedding and some funny (and by anyone’s puritanical standards, non-offensive) observations about New York City.

In other words, it didn’t take much to push a group like this over the edge. It’s as if they were looking for it, waiting for something outside their thin, moral guidelines. This strikes me as an increasingly common disposition, particularly among religious groups: There’s an eagerness to be offended, a line to draw at every road, to assert a position over things that don't forcing anyone to take sides. Mike managed to track down and talk with the guy who assaulted him, and gave this description on his blog:

I gradually opened him up by listening, and responding, the one-on-one version of what I do with an audience. We talked about many things, for almost an hour, and step by step, his story emerged.

He has three kids--one is 21, and two are 17--and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together--a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way--and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

That’s what I’d expect. It’s just amazing it’s that simple. If I wrote a book and included that guy as a main character, someone would complain that he's too flat, too fake. "Yeah, yeah," this someone would say. "He's so afraid of the world that he's made the world scarier. Next time, make your character a person, not an ironic statement." But, but...

After the show, Mike hangs around and talks with anyone who approaches him. I told him how much I admired the way he handled the walk-out, and that I bought tickets because I wanted, in whatever small way I could, for the experience to turn into a positive one for him. He was gracious and humble, and said the conversation with the assaulter brought him some level of closure. I hope it, and this whole episode, continues to bring him more than that.

Permalink: 11:47 PM | Comments (1)

Subconscious to me: "Get a life"

Last night, I dreamt I was at home -- or at what was supposed to be my home -- and found a dog sitting outside on the patio. It had tags, so I looked at them and found the owner’s name. Vicki something, I think. There was no number, though, so I went inside and started rifling through a large stack of disorganized phone books, trying to find the right one. It took a while. I was getting frustrated. Then the dog walked in, upright on two feet, and said, “That’s alright. I know the number.” He dialed it, spoke to his owner, arranged to be picked up, and walked back outside.

Quirky enough, I suppose, but here’s where it turns into a nightmare: After he left, the dream version of me thought to myself, “I’ve got to put this on the blog!”

Sad. So very, very sad.

Permalink: 08:42 AM | Comments (1)

Class act

In Cambridge, about 90 evangelical types got up in the middle of a one-man performance and exited, and one of them poured water on the actor's notes. He responds with amazing poise, first trying to talk with the protesters -- who of course have nothing to say -- and then going back to talk with his audience. I don't think I'd have been able to control my anger the way he did, but it was perfect: By not stooping to their level, their grotesqueness stood by itself, naked and ugly. Watch it, and then be sure to read his take on the event. (Via Universal Hub)

I've never heard of the guy, Mike Daisey, but I'm now determined to check out his show before it closes this month. For the way he handled this situation, and in the face of the sheer arrogance and righteousness of the protesters, I hope it brings him the sell-out crowds he deserves.

Permalink: 01:12 PM | Comments (1)

Bill O'Reilly left his heart in San Francisco

Someone in San Francisco is hurting, and bad. A guy was supposed to come over at 11, he didn’t, and it’s just the latest in a long pattern. He’s jerking her around, folks. Playing with her heart. And she’s pissed: “Leave my heart and soul alone... you dick!” she writes in a long, ranting post on San Fran’s Craigslist.

A reader (thanks, Meghan!) sent me the link because it contained this quirky line: “SEX...mmmm.The best.LOVE IT.Now barley.” She, like I, was intrigued by this sudden change of topic. Sex then, barley now. A night of passion, wake up in a field in Montana. These things happen, apparently.

But as I thought about it more, despite there being no good reason to think more about something like this, it reminded me of another copulation-to-crop switch that we all know and love: Bill O’Reilly's falafel in the sexual harassment suit he got slapped with. And perhaps -- just perhaps -- there's something deeper going on. A heart-and-soul kind of thing. Here are some quotes from the SF Craigslist posting paired with Bill’s quotes in the suit.

SF: "SEX...mmmm.The best.LOVE IT.Now barley."

Bill: "So anyway, I’d be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda kissing your neck from behind... and then I would take the other hand with the falafel thing"


SF: "At the beinning of our relationship,when your feelings became stonger....Did your think about what you were slowly doing to me? as you lied about your hook ups?"

Bill: "Nobody’s believe ‘em... they wouldn’t [tell] anyway, I can’t imagine any of them ever doing that cuz I always made friends with women before I bedded them down."


SF: "He becomes very angry if I ever mention anything to do with a certain person"

Bill: "The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever."

I think we’ve just made a love connection.

Permalink: 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

My bread needs a tissue

This morning, as I sometimes do, I decided to eschew breakfast and make a pb&j sandwich. I got the pb. I got the j. I got the knife. I got the plate. I took out two pieces of bread, placed them opposite each other on the plate, and then noticed something. Something that, in a crevice in the bread, looked like j.

On the opposite piece of bread, there was a j-smudge where the slice met the other slice’s j. It’s gooey and orange, and looks like marmalade. That’s fine if I put it on the bread, but not fine if I find it there already.

What could have happened here? Did someone at Trader Joe’s -- this was Trader Joe’s wheat bread -- blow his nose while making my loaf? Is this a normal byproduct of bread? Does anyone have an explanation for this?

Meanwhile, I changed plans and had yogurt this morning.

Permalink: 10:13 AM | Comments (2)

No lonely boy. Just Lonelyboy15.

A little while ago, I posted about Daxflame, a YouTuber that I thought could either be a legitimately lonely and awkward kid or a brilliant actor. I'm now convinced it's the latter.

He’s a fine specimen of adolescent dorkitude – clashing outfits, social awkwardness, simultaneous self-consciousness and complete lack of self awareness – and his video diaries are burnin’ up the YouTube charts like he’s the next Lonelygirl15. Each video he posts, in which he describes his painful quest to make friends and get through the school day, is watched about 50,000 times. (See: Dax goes to school dressed as Superman, Dax seeks a BFF, Dax continues to seek a BFF.) There may be good reason for it: The rumors on the Internets are that he’s a brilliant fake – and that his sister, a student at Berklee College of Music, plays a large role in the production. True? Let’s shake the tubes and see what comes out.

One of the first signs of Lonelygirl15’s fraudulence was her website: Someone had bought Lonelygirl15.com shortly before any videos of her were posted on YouTube. A similar thing is happening here: Daxflame.com has been purchased by Jeff Patrello, someone in McKinney, Texas. This same Jeff Patrello also owns DylanPatrello.com. (You can check the ownership at Whois.net.) Nothing is up at either site, but Dylan Patrello has plenty of MySpace presence: Her profile says she went to high school in McKinney, Texas, and is now a student/singer/songwriter at Berklee (and her stuff’s pretty good, if you like Tori Amos.) So, we’ve established that the two are connected via Jeff Patrello, whoever he is.

McKinney is about 30 miles from Dallas, where a guy named Shawn Patrello – an uncle? – runs a bunch of comedy organizations, including Funnybiz and Kidprov. A Dallas Morning News story posted on Kidprov’s site shows a picture of a little kid that looks a hell of a lot like a young Dax.

Someone’s been going around to message boards, anonymously linking (1, 2) Shawn Patrello to Dylan Patrello and Dax, and claiming that Dylan has had a major hand in shaping and promoting DaxFlame’s stuff. It’d make sense: If this is a little homegrown talent family, Dylan sings, Shawn improvs, and Dax gets help working out his comedy stylings on YouTube. So if Dax is indeed a fake, and Internet sleuths don’t know how to find him, Berklee might be a good place to start.

Permalink: 09:18 AM | Comments (8)

Drunk on running

These two guys were approaching the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday. I'm guessing they got on the course about a block before. I saw a bunch of runners dressed as Elvis, and many more with funny wigs. My favorite, though, was a sweaty, chubby guy wearing a t-shirt that said, "I have the Kenyans right where I want them."

"You have the Kenyans right where you want them!" I yelled. He turned around and nodded.

Permalink: 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

Let's just say he made regular deposits

I don't keep up with the blah-blahs of the World Bank or its president, Paul Wolfowitz, but a story atop today's Nytimes.com promised enough scandal to hold my attention. Paul, it seems, has a problem:

WASHINGTON, April 12 — Paul D. Wolfowitz’s tenure as president of the World Bank was thrown into turmoil on Thursday by the disclosure that he had helped arrange a pay raise for his companion at the time of her transfer from the bank to the State Department, where she remained on the bank payroll.

Maybe it's because I haven't been following this story, but the description of someone as "his companion" seemed unsatisfactory. What in the hell does it mean? Is this some gal he's boning? An old hiking buddy? A nurse that changes his adult diapers? A companion could be anything. The next graf isn't any more helpful, explaining that Paul " apologized for his role in the raise and transfer of Shaha Ali Riza, his companion." You have to get down to the 11th graf before the story partially explains itself: Paul and Shaha "had a personal relationship," it says. Still amazingly vague -- I have a personal relationship with my mailman, technically speaking -- but I get the point: Their relationship, at times, did not involve clothes. Ok. Got it.

This is a tricky thing for reporters, and I've had to navigate it myself: When it's clear two people are romantically involved, but neither of them have said to you that they're dating, and their relationship must be referenced in the story, what do you call them? Are they boyfriend and girlfriend? That seems silly, and presumptuous: Maybe they're not exclusive. Maybe they're only good for booty calls. You never know.

I surveyed some other media outlets to see how they first describe Paul and Shaha. Some results:

The Guardian: Shaha is "his romantic partner"

Associated Press: Shaha is "a close female friend"

Washington Post: Shaha is "a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved"

USA Today is similar: "a bank employee he was romantically involved with"

Los Angeles Times: Shaha is "his girlfriend"

Slate: Shaha is "his longtime companion"

Permalink: 09:04 AM | Comments (4)

If you love art, do you love you for art?

I've been doing regular art reviews for Boston's Weekly Dig, although I don't usually link them here because they're more relevant to a local audience. The piece running in this week's issue, however, is worth a mention, because it's not every day that I try writing something thoughtful about a guy masturbating to an image of himself. But hey, I gave it a shot. (Image from this page about the artist, which includes a clip of the video.)

Permalink: 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

He's got my vote

Along a stretch of Mass Ave. in Boston, signs, parking meters and even a mailbox or two are covered in the sticker you see above. “VOTE FOR TYPOE,” it says. They struck me as curious for two reasons: One, unlike stickers for bands or some HappyScrappy stickers you may or may not have seen around the city, this sticker doesn’t invite the viewer to do anything. In fact, if you wanted to vote for TYPOE, you wouldn’t know how. And two, I know a guy named Ty Poe. He’s in my college circle of friends. These aren’t his, he doesn’t live in Boston, and I bet there aren’t many other people named Ty Poe. So what the hell is going on?

After talking about this with some friends, I took to Google and, I think, cracked the case. The stickers are also in Miami (see bottom right), and there’s a graffiti artist in Miami named TYPOE. He’s pretty good, although be careful about looking at the collected work: On some pages, the graffiti guys stop painting walls and starts painting women’s bare breasts and butts -- as wise a change in canvas material as I’ve ever seen, although I suppose not as accessable to the general public.

More notable, though, is that TYPOE is apparently part of a graffiti crew called TCP; that also happens to be what’s on the flag the penguin in the sticker is holding. You can see the artist and crew’s name listed underneath all the stuff he does; here’s one that even includes both names on a graffiti’d wall, and here’s a softer side of TYPOE.

I’m still unclear about how these stickers got here, but I suppose it’s easy enough to assume: Maybe some of the TCP guys came up to Boston and had some stickers on hand. Maybe there's a national graffiti campaign I'm not aware of. Maybe he’s got a fanbase. Either way, it makes a lot more sense than my first theory, which was that the stickers were somehow related to ocean exploration.

Permalink: 03:52 PM | Comments (3)

Table scraps:

♣OBAMA IS FOND of riling up church crowds by saying, "If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics." So, uh, who exactly is Cousin Pookie?

♣SPACE IS FUN... if you're drunk, stoned, easily amused, bored at work, etc. (And speaking of pot, which the last link really isn't speaking about at all, Australia has some pretty funny anti-pot ads.)

♣SAID THE JOKER: "This emphasis on boners has given me an idea for a new adventure in crime!" It's just one of many unintentionally funny panels from old comic books.

♣IT'S A FUN evening, and you take an innocent picture with a guy, post it on the Internet, and then, well, the Internet does its thang. (Thanks, George!)

♣THINK JENNIFER ANNISTON is hot? Not after this. (Thanks, Misa!)

♣THIS TRAILER FOR a movie called "Hobo With a Shotgun" may be fake, but I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie, with different names and different actors, about 10 times already. (Thanks, Chris!)

♣AND THEN THERE'S this video about "The Dollar Store," my friend Jon's reading series in Chicago. If you're out there, go!

Permalink: 08:56 AM | Comments (2)

An open letter to Johnny Hart’s family

Family Hart,

I’m sorry to hear about Johnny’s death. Really. Johnny and I haven’t always agreed, and I would have cheered his retirement, but death is another thing entirely. And anyway, Johnny did some things very well: He knew how to draw simple cavemen, and, uh, he knew how to draw more simple cavemen. He was also a religious zealot who overstayed his welcome on the comics pages by about 30 years, but hey, technically speaking, I guess he was good at that, too. And surely there’s some Bible-loving grandma out there who buys her Akron Beacon-Journal every morning because of him. So, there’s that.

But listen. I’ve got to level with you here: The Associated Press said that instead of “B.C.” dying with Johnny, you’ll be taking over. The art won’t even change because you’ve got an extensive computer archive of his drawings, according to the story. Really now, this is madness. I know other comic strips have been passed along, but they all suck. Do you ever read and enjoy “Blondie” or “Family Circus”? Really? You do? Oh, well then. I guess my point is still proven.

I beg you: You need to let “B.C.” go the way of the caveman. Johnny hasn’t written an original joke since 1961, and the strip has shown it. Nobody’s being fooled. His strip is taking up valuable space in 1,300 newspapers -- space that could be occupied by new strips by young and enthusiastic writers, space that could begin wooing young readers to newspapers before they die off completely, space that Johnny has had more than his fair share of. If you take the strip over, you’ll surely feel an obligation to continue it as a honor to Johnny -- and in doing so, you’ll be afraid of making changes, afraid of taking it in a direction of might have disapproved, and therefore will continue to do what he did. Which is this:

Every day. Every damn day. Same set-up. Same joke. Same, same, same. Do you want to do this? This uninspired tribute? Because honestly, I’m telling you, we don’t want any more of it. We’re done. We’ve had our fill. Johnny had a good run, and it’s time to let that go. It’s time to let someone else have a try.

Thanks.

Permalink: 09:40 AM | Comments (5)

Pets Gone Wild!

Woe the city animal: Stuck in an apartment and surrounded by humans, far from anything even remotely resembling the great wide open. What’s a lonely mammal/rodent/reptile to do? Same as the lonely human, apparently: Craigslist. From an anonymous poster in Boston:

I have a very special red-eared slider who recently "became a man," as they say. He deserves everything his little heart desires so I'm kind of hoping someone out there has a female turtle that . . . you know, needs a little something extra. ... That being said, my turtle doesn't need any baby momma drama and since he's pretty young in turtle years, I doubt he's ready to commit to anything exclusive or long-term.

Also, if you have a male shitzu, someone in Cambridge has a female shitzu ready for action. If more of this stuff starts showing up on Craigslist, I may start to wonder who’s looking for a romantic rendezvous -- pet, or owner?

Permalink: 05:51 AM | Comments (1)

And in 10 years, Dan will think of a great Monica Lewinsky joke to tell you

Remember Arsenio Hall? Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy sure does. Here’s the lede of his Sox column today, about how much the team blew it yesterday in KC:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Worse than Ellen DeGeneres's first night hosting the Oscars. Worse than Arsenio Hall's first shot at late-night television. Worse than Patriots coach Clive Rush's first press conference, when he was nearly electrocuted.

That’d be fine as an out-of-nowhere reference -- Arsenio! Hah! Haven’t thought of him in a while! -- but it isn’t. Every few years, Dan trots out Arsenio as if he’s a contemporary example of The Worst Thing Ever. What did Arsenio do to you, Dan? Sleep with your wife? Go back in time and personally trade Babe Ruth? Leave the man alone already. He’s been off the air since 1994; kids in middle school today weren’t even born when he was telling us about the things that make us go “hmmmm.”

Here, thanks to LexisNexis, are some of Dan’s past swipes at Arsenio:

Sept. 8, 2001. Headline: “Pitching Pedro a Scheme That Must Be Tossed”. Swipe (in lede): “NEW YORK - In the all-time ranking of bad ideas, pitching Pedro last night was right up there with ‘The Arsenio Hall Show,’ New Coke, and the Bay of Pigs.”

November 5, 1998. Headline: “Taking measure - Doug vs. Drew”. Swipe (comparing Doug Flutie to Drew Bledsoe): “Doug was big back in the days when Larry Bird was big. Doug was big when Michael Dukakis was big (aren't they actually the same height?). Doug was big when Ted Danson had hair and Arsenio Hall had talent.”

May 2, 1996. Headline: “Of course, you know Nipper caused the Blizzard of '78”. Swipe (in talking about then-pitching coach Al Nipper): “There's more. Lots more. It turns out that one Al Nipper personally created New Coke, ‘Ishtar,’ Milli Vanilli, ‘Central Park West’ and the ‘Arsenio Hall Show.’

December 29, 1994. Headline: “Boston vs. Cleveland? Clash of cultures is no contest”. Swipe (while comparing the two cities): “Late Night Comedians - Us: Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. Them: Arsenio Hall. Whose guys are still on the air? Edge: Us.”

November 8, 1993. Headline: “This is bigger than all of us”. Swipe (in relation to Bill Parcells trying to help the Patriots): “There is no way he could have known. You can prepare for cold snowy winters, Red Sox collapses, nuclear attack and unwanted advances from Amway salesmen and Bob Packwood. You can prepare for famine, pestilence, death, destruction, Arsenio Hall, ESPN 2 and Bob Woolf.”

Permalink: 06:27 PM | Comments (3)

Why MapQuest is more powerful than spandex

You’re a superhero. Your name is Omnicron. You’ve got invulnerable armor and the power of telekinesis. And holy crap, you instead could really use a super-sense of direction because you’re about to miss your audition for the Sci Fi Channel’s “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?"

Omnicron (right) is Phil, my friend Kathryn’s brother. He’s up against two jalopies in an online vote, and the winner gets on the show. But to even get to this point, he had to go through a very un-superheroish ordeal. Here’s his epic tale, forwarded on to me by Kathryn. Read, laugh, cry, and then go vote and get this brave man on television!

So there I was in LA, the morning of my audition in front of the producers, and I realized I brought no deodorant. I was to be picked up at the hotel in about two hours, so I was already in costume; there was a 7-11 a few blocks away, so I went down and grabbed a thingy of "speed-stick". Then I started to head back to the hotel where I was supposed to get picked up to head to the audition.

The problem is, one of my real-life weaknesses is a pathetic sense of direction. Combine that with LA fog and streets build for the hills (I'm used to Florida's "grid" where roads always meet at 90 degrees) and I was one very lost man from the future!

So there I was in LA, a totally lost bald man with power armor and a cape trying to get directions back to his hotel: they would be there to pick me up in half an hour! The people in LA seemed to fit into two categories: those who have nothing nice to say, and those who have nothing English to say; my responses ranged from "I'm running dude!" to "I... I sorry... I no... English" and so I was on my own.

So I take out my cell-phone and call home to my girlfriend: "Boot up mapquest, I need directions!" She was unsurprised by this call, having heard it many times before. I give her my current address based of a nearby storefront. "Do you realize that you're a mile and a half from your hotel?" A mile and a half? I had wandered a mile and a half?

So there I was in LA, a very out-of-shape man trying to run a mile and a half uphill in twenty minutes wearing power armor and a cape. Somehow some inner reserve of strength, or perhaps some divine intervention kicked in. With the phone to my ear I was taking directions as if I were a car and running at automotive speeds... indeed, wearing that armor, someone might have perhaps mistaken me for a car... or at least a total lunatic.

Long story short, I made it with seconds to spare. I thank the Speed-Stick (which I had wisely applied before the mad dash) for its vigilance before I faced my next challenge: trying to sit comfortably in a sedan with three other heroes wearing those shoulders.

Permalink: 01:48 PM | Comments (2)