Barrrrf

In the news today: Veggie Booty Tied To Salmonella Outbreak. Too bad -- it'd have been a lot funnier if it were linked to scurvy.

Permalink: 10:08 PM | Comments (2)

Piggybankrolling

Do you think Will Ferrell saw this...

...and made this?

Probably not. Still: Earlier this week, some folks were telling me about a video in which a kid demands money from an adult, and the top video was the first I thought of. Turns out I'm just the dork that watches too much YouTube, and they were all talking about, uh, the video with broader appeal. But anyway, the comedic value of money-huntin' kids was established long ago:

Permalink: 08:52 AM | Comments (0)

Do people like being around you?

I sometimes take online NPR listener surveys, and this question was asked in the one I took today. I love its delicateness. Sure beats, "Do your friends and family give a shit what you want to listen to?"

Permalink: 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

I am doing something

Apologies for the sporadic posts of late. To prove I'm not just an all-around slacker -- and that I am, for what it's worth, just a blog slacker -- here's word of two large pieces I began as a freelancer and finished as a staffer at Boston mag. They're in the July issue, which just hit stands: an piece about what's right and wrong about BostonNOW, an ambitious new newspaper in the city; and a survey of major developments proposed in Boston (although it's graphic heavy, and best viewed in paper instead of online).

Permalink: 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

Drawings that hit you over the head

From The Onion. More on this in a bit.

At my first newspaper job, working as a reporter for a dinky local paper, the editor often talked of running locally drawn editorial cartoons. It would have been a great improvement over his standard method of production, which was to pick, at random, an editorial cartoon from a stack of syndicated toons that showed up in the mail. That meant there was no guarantee the toon would be funny, but there was a guarantee that it’d be wildly outdated.

So one day, I volunteered to draw a cartoon -- and ended up making this, which I thought was a mildly amusing swipe at a standard (and, I think, lazy) convention of editorial cartooning. I showed it to the editor, who said, “I don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get?” I said. “Editorial cartoons often show someone reading a newspaper, and the text on the front of the newspaper says what the topic of the cartoon is about. So, see, this cartoon makes fun of that.”

“I haven’t seen that,” he said. “This cartoon doesn’t make sense.”

And that was that. Five years later, that paper still hasn’t run a locally produced toon.

But at least someone knows what I was talking about. The editorial cartoon at The Onion has quickly become my favorite part of the paper, because it so keenly -- and with far more wit and skill than I had -- pokes fun at the overdone symbolism and heavy-handedness of cartoonists like Sean Delonas. People are labeled, a crying Statue of Liberty often pokes her head in... why, it’s just perfect. Go check them out.

Permalink: 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

Aliens don't do drugs, but kids do

In between cheeky assurances of his own pot-smokin’ days -- ok, we get it already! -- Seth Stevenson at Slate goes gaga over those simplistic, animated anti-pot ads: “This is very possibly the most effective, and least offensive, anti-marijuana campaign ever created,” he writes. I agree with the “least offensive” part, which Seth nails:

Until recently, most anti-marijuana ads made the same fundamental mistake: They tried to link smoking weed with some sort of immediate physical danger. Think of the PSA in which a carful of stoners runs over a girl on a bicycle; or the one in which a fuzzy-brained pot smoker shoots his friend (oopsy daisy!) in the head. Melodramatic scare tactics like these may reassure the older, out-of-touch politicians who approve federal funding for anti-drug ads. But when it comes to a drug like weed, this message just doesn't ring true with the people it's meant to reach.

These new ads don’t rely on overblown scare tactics. Instead, they position pot as something that makes you lazy, and a bore to be around. Each ad begins with only one pot smoker, who is subsequently abandoned by a non-pot smoker. The intended consequences of this drug we've been told to be so, so afraid of? Apparently, lonelyness. That’s at least more respectful of kids’ intelligence, but I don’t think it’s going to be any more effective than its breathless predecessors.

All kids need is one real-life example of a pot smoker succeeding -- and I use that term lightly, to mean retaining his girlfriend, or being popular at parties, or being in a great high school band, or whatever -- and even these ads don't ring true. Examples are surely easy enough to come by: I'm guessing (although, unlike Seth, I have no personal experience to boast of) most kids smoke in a group, or were at least introduced to pot in a group setting and can always join that group for more smoking. And as long as there’s one example to disprove the ad, the ad is rendered useless -- and a lie.

But then, why would kids believe an anti-pot ad at all? They've already seen the dramatic ones Seth mentions, and now they're seeing the anti-pot organizations loosen their message. Kids aren't idiots. It's like a kid sitting down to eat a piece of chocolate cake, and an adult runs over and shouts, "Don't eat that! Once inside you, it'll grow arms and play banjo with your intestines!" But the kid's friends have already had a slice, and they're perfectly fine, so the kid starts eating anyway. Then the adult returns and says, "You shouldn't eat the cake. It, uh, doesn't have enough frosting on it." I mean, come on now.

My bet: No anti-pot ad will ever be effective, because it's impossible to convey any real consequences that kids can't easily discover are false. This is money better spent elsewhere.

Permalink: 08:51 AM | Comments (6)

Here comes the flood

On my way home tonight, I noticed a thick leaflet placed on every car and fence along my road. I grabbed one in front of my apartment building, and read of the “horrible, God-sent, unparalleled nightmare” it promised would be coming, courtesy of the usual suspects: schools, media, “abortionists ... aborting their daily quota of innocent babies,” and, of course, young people who are living “empty and unrewarding” lives. And to this I say: Eh, go fuck yourself. I went back outside and took them off all the cars on my block. Above is my collection.

I felt a little odd doing it, as if I was infringing on someone’s right to free speech. But then again, wasn’t I exercising the same right? I’d say so. I would have collected more, but it started to rain -- first a drizzle, and then something fierce. Had the distributors of these leaflets been around, I thought, they’d surely say this was a sign from god, telling me I shouldn’t be out here doing this. And I’d be able to reply that, in fact, god was helping me out: It’d take me hours to retrieve all the leaflets (and, in fact, what you see above was only what I got in a few minutes, before the rain got too heavy), but a good downpour would destroy all the leaflets at once. Funny thing about god, isn’t it? So malleable.

The leaflets I snagged are off to a better place: They’ll be put out with Monday’s recycling bin.

Permalink: 10:58 PM | Comments (5)

This guy must have had an interesting day

Witness the top left of page B2 in today's Boston Globe: A picture of a man holding a little boy, placed above a headline that says, "Maynard police warn of child predator". Probably not the best pairing.

Related: The child is the predator!

Permalink: 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

Strike out

This story comes to me from a high-quality source:

Earlier this week, Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett (right) was at the Macy's in Cambridge, buying a Coach bag. A customer spotted him, quickly purchased a Sox jersey, and then approached Beckett and asked if he'd sign it. Beckett's reply: "It's my day off." No signature. Also, no word on whether the customer returned the jersey. (I would have.)

Permalink: 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

Table Scraps:

♣I GOT THIS at a Chinese restaurant recently:

...which was strange, because my last fortune cookie actually knew what it was talking about.

♣THANKS, MIAMI, FOR giving everyone another thing to be self-conscious about. This time, it's plastic surgery on bellybuttons.

♣WHO NEEDS AN exterminator when you've got a glass jar? (Be sure to watch the video.)

♣TREADMILLS TO THE extreme! (And just as I was about to post this, Scott sent me another video from the same crazy show, this time of human Tetris. Awesome stuff.)

♣IN MY FORMER apartment building, passive-aggressive notes were the tenants' primary form of communication. They also made great entertainment. Now that I'm living among more agreeable people, I've found another way to get my snotty-note fix.

♣THE FRUITS-N-Veggie Kabal is in cahoots with the MSM. Didn't you hear? From Andrew Puzder, the CEO of Carl Jr.'s: "My opinion is that the media is the main supporter of healthy eating. We're certainly not hearing it from our customers." No, no, I'd suppose you're not.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:45 AM | Comments (2)

I su|re love to clu|ck at art

A friend and I were reminiscing yesterday about the brilliance of Mad Magazine's back-cover "Fold-In," and soon enough we were at work making some. Turns out, they're really hard. After 30 minutes, this was the best I could do:

See? Get it? Because he's getting shot into a brick wall! It's... ok, fine, the larger image doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Al Jaffee, you're the man.

Permalink: 02:18 PM | Comments (2)

Killed instinct

I happened to quickly glance at Joseph Finder's new book, Killer Instinct, and laughed out loud, which probably isn't the desired result for a book like this. Note to the publisher: If you want to cite positive reviews, it's probably worth getting the reviewing publication's name right. The Sun-Sentinel is in Ft. Lauderdale; Orlando's paper is called the Sentinel.

Permalink: 09:56 PM | Comments (1)

Next: "Knocked Up," the reality tv spin-off

NBC needs some Boston teens for a new "documentary" (as they call it):

Are you and your partner ready for adult life? Do you want your own money and independence? ... We are looking for teenage couples (18-19) who would like to experience life as an adult. If you would like to live in your own house, take on adult responsibilities and get the chance to live with your partner and look after babies and children, then please get in touch! We would love to hear from you!

A friend sent around that invitation, and another replied with my thoughts exactly: "I don't even understand it -- are they going to give these reality show contestants little babies to take care of? Or just get the girl pregnant?" Fanciful thinking, perhaps, but it turns out to be partially true: The "documentary" -- ahem, the reality show -- will feature teens taking care of babies, toddlers and, eventually, some actor playing an aging parent. This from the NBC press release:

When a real (baby) appears at their door ... the fumbling new teen parents are in for three long, arduous days that make chilling out a distant memory.

Zing! Baby got no time for your homies, teenagers! The series is clearly supposed to be funny -- it's "a rollercoaster of emotions, laughs and empathy for people of all ages," says an NBC exec in the release -- and let's not forget how they'll accomplish that: by removing the consequence. We can laugh because these teens, overwhelmed as they'll be by new babies, aren't actually stuck in this life -- unlike, you know, teens that actually do have babies to raise.

I'm no connoisseur of reality tv, but I can't think of another instance in which a network replicates a real-life problem for yucks. Is there? Did ABC ever make someone sleep on the streets, where chilling out comfortably is a distant memory? Is CBS recruiting families to live in homes with long-overdue electric bills, where, to avoid literally chilling out, they have to sleep next to an open oven? (There's stuff like "The Biggest Loser," I suppose, but that's at least taking a problem and turning it into a constructive contest. It's not like they recruited a bunch of skinny guys, made them wear fat suits and then, uh, said chilling out with hot girls at a club would be a distant memory.) I don't mean to get preachy, but the NBC crew could probably find a real-life teen couple with a baby and shoot, shot for shot, the exact same stuff they'd get from their fake couple. But we idiots at home wouldn't quite lap it up the same way.

Permalink: 08:43 AM | Comments (1)

I should have felt a breeze

Back in March, you might recall, I quit my newspaper job and made plans to move to Boston and freelance full time. We made the move in April, and soon an important date emerged on my calendar: I’d start it by having breakfast with a magazine editor, to talk about a job I was a candidate for; then I'd get coffee with another editor to talk about a cool freelance project I was being considered for. Both went well, I thought. We had good conversations, both were exciting possibilities, and I ended the day energized by what the future could bring. That night, as I paced our bedroom and described the day, my girlfriend stopped me cold.

“Wait,” she said. “Were you wearing those pants today?”

I looked down. They were fine pants -- not brand new, but professional enough. “Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“Turn around,” she said.

I did, and she guffawed. As it turns out...

...I had a giant rip in the pants, right at my ass, allowing for a clear look at my boxers. (That picture, which I took a few minutes after this episode, makes it also appear as if I was wearing pants 12 sizes too big. I assure you, it’s just the angle; I at least got that right.) I fell into a panicked silence, trying to remember if I ever walked in front of either editor. Surely I walked in front of hundreds, possibly thousands of Bostonians that day, but the two that mattered most, I think, were spared the unwelcome insight, so to speak. A relief, but still: Dress for success, this was not.

But as it turns out, the day was fruitful: Two weeks ago, I left full-time freelancing and started as an associate editor at Boston magazine. I was really hoping to get the gig, and it’s already been extremely rewarding. (It also explains why this blog hasn’t been updated as frequently in the last two weeks, something I’ll have to figure out how to fix). I also got the freelance gig, which I’ll talk more about when it gets printed.

I consider myself lucky. Next time I have important meetings, I’ll be sure to give my clothing a good look-over. And at the very least, I’ll be spared those pants: They went straight into the garbage.

Permalink: 08:21 AM | Comments (4)

Before they say "I do," we should vote

I went to a wedding at Saint Anselm College in N.H. yesterday, and on our way out, we passed this:

Sadly, it wasn't a post-wedding spin room. The college is hosting presidential debates today and Tuesday, and CNN is taking over. At the entrance to the college, there's now a sign that says "CNN = politics" -- which, if the two were in fact identical, would explain why American politics sucks so much. I kind of wished the spin room was for us, though. Imagine the brutality of post-wedding spin doctors: You'd have the pro-wedding faction ("The bride showed today that she's both graceful and intelligent, and clearly she's the right choice for the groom") and, say, the jilted ex-lover faction ("The bride may say she's ready for commitment, but her record during the spring semester of sophomore year clearly shows otherwise"). Now that's something I'd watch CNN for.

Permalink: 01:23 PM | Comments (0)

Table Scraps:

♣ADVICE FOR TRAVELING film directors: When you're at an airport and a customs agent asks what you're there for, and it turns out you're there to film the first episode of a potential television show, you might not want to say, "I'm here to shoot a pilot." Because, you know, they might take that the wrong way. (UPDATE: In the comments section, Francis wisely informs us that the story isn't true. Damn.)

♣THE NAZI COMPARISON of the week goes to a guy in Cambridge, Mass., who told the Boston Globe that upset a local dog park will no longer allow out-of-town dogs to run off-leash: "I was brought up in England before World War II and saw happenings in Europe and discrimination against groups," Wilkins said last week he as he watched Babe chew a stick. "This whole business is a retrograde step."

♣NOBODY PUTS BABY in a corner. At least, not this baby. Because it'll kick your ass.

♣THINGS ABOUT WAL-MART: It's too cheap for its own good, and it can't take a joke.

♣BEHOLD, THE ONLY segment of Nancy Grace ever worth watching, courtesy of Elizabeth in Nancy's control room.

♣GOOGLE MAPS HAS, yet again, become increasingly amazing and scary. Go there, click on "street view," zoom in on one of the cities, and pick an intersection. Interestingly, they managed to take pictures with almost no people in them. I wonder if their photographers asked people to get out of the way. (UPDATE: Apparently I wasn't looking close enough.)

♣THE CHART PROVES it: Biggie was right.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:45 AM | Comments (1)