May 2013
1 post
And I could not think of anything worse
This is the story of how my friend, Cecil, got himself a free Zune.
I’m on a rooftop overlooking the San Francisco bay. In the distance the Golden Gate bridge is just sitting out there silently. We’re on Russian Hill and the landscape feels unreal. I look around and I see the crush of other houses below and popping in and out, draping the hills, and the roads look like ribbons.
...
October 2012
2 posts
2 tags
Witnessing Daniel Tosh selling his soul to Satan
“Get yer mitts off my Peugeot” I said, brandishing my glock.
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He had a punchable face, that was my first thought. A Very Punchable face. He was sweating profusely, dressed in ripped and baggy jeans and a faded, ragged hoodie. Homeless dude, I thought.
“Please!” He said, hands clasped.
His hands were shaking as he reached into the one pocket that didn’t...
An open letter to the Levis Jeans ad campaign "Go...
Fuck. You.
Okay, that’s out of the way.. ah…
Fuck. You.
So sorry, I think I’m done…oh-
FUCK. YOU.
I don’t know what came over me. Probably the crushing weight of reality. I’m not sure. I just watch the commercial and I see so many things wrong with it, I don’t think I’d be able to articulate all the errors with it.
You, Levis Jeans ad, is set...
September 2012
1 post
4 tags
The story behind "Soul Sister"
I’m sitting in an anonymous, windowless conference room on the middle floor of an anonymous office building in the middle of Overland Park, Kansas.
The carpet is drab grey, the chairs all have various coffee stains and bolts missing, the table is covered in starbucks empties. Everyone is sitting there, staring at piles of index cards with words like “Rhythm” and...
May 2012
2 posts
1 tag
The Simpsons: The Final Episode
I’ve seen it. They keep it in the same vault as “The Day The Clown Cried” (Which made for a very uncomfortable double feature)
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Matt Groening was ordered to make it when he signed a 15 year contract extension with Fox back in 2001. Secretly, he said as an aside, it’s been extended until 2020, at least. He also tells me that a computer program has been recording...
I told myself I was gonna write everyday
clearly, that was a mistake.
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[Noun] [Verb] Pirate Ninja.
[Noun] [Verb] Bacon.
There’s something about writing where you just run out of ideas, and the advice that you should just “write whatever” and then edit it later feels really hollow.
In my head, I think it’s easier to wait for inspiration and then write then, it’s not as if your fingers will...
February 2012
2 posts
America's dark future
Today’s blog post is brought to you by a split in the space time continuum wherein Newt Gingrich is actually elected president.
Gingrich had Taco Bell yesterday, I can tell, because I’m the one that cleans him.
Let me explain:
We were all shocked, “there was no way that Newt Gingrich could be elected” we said to ourselves, and went on our merry way. I remember I...
The man who would bring the Fedora back
“That’s a fedora” I said, staring at him.
We met in a Starbucks. The ads in the wifi login splash screen advertised for job-hunting sites. Everyone was hatless, save for this man; Theodore.
“Call me Ted, please”
Ted is special because he’s part of a small but dedicated community of Fedora wearers and Fedora Enthusiasts.
“So, I know you get this...
January 2012
1 post
Reddit is bad, and you should feel bad
“Cecil, what is this mess?” I asked, mouth agape.
Cecil, my dear friend from the IT department, was always talking about Reddit, the link-sharing website. Four years ago he discovered it, and would go on and on about “this cool thing I found on reddit” and post funny cat pictures he found to the office pinboard. But as the years wore on he began to complain more and more...
December 2011
1 post
New York, Day 45
“You should really learn how to relax” Burgress said to me as I lay in the grass of Washington Square park, weeping slightly.
“I can’t” I said “It’s sorta hard to relax when your insides are made of deep-fried depression, and the only thing that keeps you going is the use of controlled substances and the delusion that at some point in the future things...
October 2011
2 posts
New York, Day 2.
I wake up covered in beer cans and crushed expectations, the blinding Brooklyn sun making it’s existence known, rudely. Already someone was up and tapping away at a typewriter.
“This is shit, utter shit. Shit shit shit” the someone said, tapping furiously. He puffed a cigarette as he went, a beret covering some very messy hair. His coffee stained striped turtleneck. The...
Taking the weekend off in NYC
It was just after we crossed the Ben Franklin bridge when the driver came on the intercom:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some bad news. We have entered New Jersey”
I was on a double-decker tour bus to New York city. A ticket purchased on a whim, a weekend trip to Anywhere but Philadelphia. I needed to know what it was like to be human again. To breathe. To use a reliable transit...
September 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Blood on the tracks: recapping the Republican...
So there I was, sitting around the Reuters offices with nothing to do. Bob was playing a hearts game on the wheezy Packard Bell, while Tina the intern surfed Ask Metafilter and giggled to herself. Suddenly the editor busts in the room as everyone else tries to look busy. He tells us he knows what we’re up to, and he’s very disappointed in all of us. Our collective punishment is to...
1 tag
America's last non-hipster
South Dakota: Journalists are flocking to one man in a double wide trailer in the middle of rural South Dakota. Vice magazine had published a whitepaper claiming that this man, a William Fredrickson, aged 45, was the last American who could not be described as a Hipster.
I was thrown into the press crew along with several photographers. We were sharing a tour bus with some scientists from Yale,...
July 2011
1 post
Bohner, Obama, and the Debt Ceiling
“I ain’t got no brainpower left!” Bohner yells, chucking his empty 40 Oz of Colt .45 across the conference table. The bottle skids past the head of President Obama, who is motionless at the sudden assault.
I had been the last journalist in DC willing to cover the Debt Ceiling negotiations. All others had to bring various recreational drugs with them in order to tolerate the...
June 2011
5 posts
Google+, first impressions
“Come to the corner of 5th and Wall, wear a bright orange shirt, and yell ‘IDDQD’ and wait” said the email from the google+ team. I did this and they threw me into a panel van (why does this always happen to me?) and they dropped me off on the edge of DC with a slip of paper, this was my google+ invite.
Google+ is google’s answer to MySpace…or...
Writer's block sucks.
Readers (All five of you now!) are probably wondering what happened after escaping Taco Bell. My editor apologized for selling me, but the article ended up getting stolen picked up by The Huffington Post, and made them a “metric buttload” of internet hits. And apparently they were able to call off the Taco Bell Asset Protection Squad by buying me back, obsensivly with these...
Sold to Taco Bell!
Now reader(s! there’s two of them now!) I don’t want you to think that my employment prospects are bottoming out with Reuters, it’s exactly the opposite. Last week they found a way to keep me on the payroll, but it’s a bit complicated. Allow me to explain.
Yum! Brands (they insist on adding the exclamation point) recently started a new “youth oriented”...
Playing the Duke Nukem Forever Demo
After a particularly bad argument with my editor, I was greeted with an email from a friend who had a demo key to duke nukem forever. After some effort I downloaded the demo and summarilly played it.
The game opens up to a bathhouse, but it’s not any kind of bathhouse, it’s one of those Turkish ones with the waiters that bring you hot soups, and everyone is naked, but the game pixilates out...
May 2011
2 posts
Sarah Palin rides with Rolling Thunder
Reuters had read my synopsis of Oprah Winfrey’s last show and promptly called me up, they wanted to hire me based on my “Superior writing skills” and “Unique voice” and I heard something about gonzo journalism. I just needed to pay my monthly rent, when I mentioned this the person on the other end could not stop laughing.
After settling in DC I headed over to the...
Oprah's Final Show
For those of you that didn’t watch, I have taken it upon myself to watch it and thus summerize the events. The picture faded in, onto a guilded set plated entirly in gold, chrome, and other shiny surfaces. The audience is destroying their throats, yelling for her, Oprah. Fireworks are triggered, and in one large explosion she enters the center stage, riding atop a new Ford Flex(tm) that...
