Pun business

A cosmetics chain that carries products marketed towards minorities called "Ethnic Cleansing."
A hemorrhoid cream called "Ane-Gel."

Or does it just enable nostalgia for other things?

Is there nostalgia for the web, like for old fads and TV shows? Does going to a once-polular site like Hot or Not evoke feelings of cultural unity and slightly embarassed affection for the recent past?

Except as a novelty

A roaring shame that
The haiku--rapid, total
Never caught fire here

They know me here: mild proclamations

At first I never wore this shirt, but now I wear it a lot.
I've been meaning to click on that.
I'm not working on any big projects.
The refrigerator hum is soothing.
I should start exercising more soon.

I don't mean to insult you, but...sentence beginnings that get people listening

I'm not gay, but
Technically, this is thought crime, but
Please don't take this the wrong way, but
Most people think the vagina
I'm not racist, but

Tough Guys are Back! Trends

Sensitive men are back!
Surf culture is back!
Hand jobs are back!
Facial hair is back!
Pubic hair is back!
Having kids is back!
Motherhood is back!
Fatherhood is back!
Useful skills are back!
Contemplative silence is back!

Why I quit writing

Does the reading world need a book of shiny, virtually plotless, loosely linked short stories about an over-educated, mildly befucked suburban dude? Does it? I thought so.

Tyranny of the underdog

Everyone has to be a winner. Failure is unacceptable. Nothing worse than being a loser.

Yet, we like and root for the underdog. We don't like winners after they've won a lot. Then we want winners to lose. It's not cool to root for the Yankees, Starbucks, Microsoft, Duke.

So: win, but then you'll be a winner, and we'll want you to lose.

Is this how the world feels about America now?

Living will

When I’m dead and buried, and they come out with a cool new bottled drink you think I would’ve liked, please get one and pour it over my grave.

Chris Rock

Chris Rock, in an interview (Onion 40 #46), said, “I’m of the mindset that if only smart people like your shit, it ain’t that smart. If a guy drives a truck and he doesn’t get your jokes, something’s wrong there.”

Something’s also wrong with using truck drivers as shorthand for dumb. There's nothing that everybody gets. And give people who drive trucks more credit.

Why are so many hipster dating profiles against God?

"Atheists tend to advance a version of religion which nobody in their right mind would subscribe to, and then righteously reject it."
-From 'After Theory' by Terry Eagleton

The Best American To-Do Lists: New titles in the "Best American" book series

The Best American Writing From the Backs of ATM Receipts
The Best American Drug Contraindications
The Best American Holiday Letters
The Best American Hate-Newsletter Editorials
The Best American Text Messages
The Best American Coupon Restrictions
The Best American Menu Prose
The Best American Leaflets
The Best American Directions on How to Get out to That Party In The Valley
The Best American Cocktail Napkin Writing
The Best American Product Disclaimers

What's good

"The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are now." -Martin Amis on autobiographical fiction (and Updike) in Visiting Mrs. Nabokov

I’m a fan of narcissism. I like narcissists, as long as they can publicly demonstrate why they’re worthy of self-love.

Everything has been said, but maybe you can say something with a fresh vocabulary and intonation. Maybe people need to hear that thing again.

Hey, at least you’re not the guy on the History Channel who’s spent his life trying to figure out whether Hitler had Parkinson’s.

The sky is exactly like it is at the opening of The Simpsons

Blink? No!
Think before you think.

What a violin has come to mean.
Headlights that are always on.
Karate and dance studios on the second floor.

I dress like a writer, but I sure don't write like one.

Not a good time, heartwise

I can handle vague dread
Hell, it's my butter and bread
The problem with that chick--
The dread was too damn specific

It wasn’t a friendship, it wasn’t a relationship. It was just a ship—a leaking, listing, nauseating ship.

Poll results: Things to be ambivalent about

Artistic integrity
The new parking structure
Helmet laws
Food fads
Bank mergers
Abortion
Silly string ozone depletion
Fly fishing religiosity

Idea for porn magazine featuring pictures of graduate students:

ABD: All-Butt Dissertation!

"While hatred can be animating, it appeals to weakness." Quotes from books

"'But marriage is a battle, a terrible journey, a season in hell and a reason for living. You need to be equipped in all areas, not just the sexual.'"
-from 'Intimacy' by Hanif Kureishi

"'There must be some limit to the burden of remembering that we impose on our children and grandchildren.'"
-from 'Elizabeth Costello' by J.M. Coetzee

"While hatred can be animating, it appeals to weakness."
-from 'We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families' by Philip Gourevitch

"That all students are effortlessly 'creative' and that the need to release this creativity takes precedence over the need, say, to train people with the vanishing capacity for silence and self-containment--these are high among the ruling dogmas of American educators."
-from 'The Culture of Narcissism' by Christopher Lasch (Though for someone big on silence and self-containment, he wrote a lot of books.)

Where does this stuff go when we delete it? Questions

-If we hadn’t opened any of our toys, how much would they be worth?
-What if, upon dying, you’re handed a transcript of everything you’ve ever said? And you had to give a reading?
-What if our names are already carved on grains of rice?
-Did I see you at the gym?
-Were you wearing different glasses?
-As it is recommended to eat before going to the grocery store to avoid overbuying, does it follow what one should masturbate before going to the pornography shop?
-Is it bad to make fun of accents?
-Have you been outside yet?
-If you’re not supposed to worry about what other people think, what are you supposed to worry about?
-Would a catalog of every receipt you've ever gotten make a satisfying biography?
-In a series of close-ups of the genitalia of your former lovers, would you be able to tell whose is whose?
-Did you get my message?

L train, 4pm. You-Labyrinth bag, big headphones. Me-Big hair, puffy jacket, seven-yard stare. Should've talked to you...

Of course it’s easy to fall in love with strangers on the subway—you’re not committing to every inch, every ounce, every hour of them. You’re not committing to anything. Except that moment, which asks nothing of you.

Are we more or less than the sum of our passwords?

In 1996 in the New York Times, William Gibson wrote about the internet: "Somewhere, surely, there is a site that contains ... everything we have lost?"

Things I miss about being a pothead

-Being able to taste each individual ingredient in a Golden Graham
-The heightened spiritual significance of objects and events
-Feeling psychosomatic effects merely from looking the High Times centerfold
-The notion of a High Times centerfold
-Using marijuana as a “gateway,” or “stepping-stone” to other drugs
-Arguing fervently that “marijuana isn’t addictive” while battling devastating marijuana addiction
-Adhering to the version of American history that holds George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are significant mostly because they grew pot. Vast, verdant fields of it.
-Secret meanings in grocery aisles: Stoned Wheat Thins, Baked Lays.
-How every movie was the most amazing movie ever, until halfway through, when the pot wore off

Having more leads to wanting more: Be glad you're not famous

o If you’re never it, you can never become a has-been.
o Because you’re not often quoted, your quotes are less likely to be taken out of context.
o Public transportation and coach class are the best places to learn about humanity.
o The famous can’t dream of becoming famous.
o Nobody indulges the famous when they say they’re depressed or unfulfilled.
o Having more only leads to wanting more.
o Life and opinions aren’t dangerously overvalued.
o As cameras become omnipresent, the truly evolved know how to avoid them.
o The pharmacist doesn’t take special note of your prescription, and doctor-patient confidentiality is more likely to be upheld.
o It’s a lot of pressure being a role model, and a lot of work persuading people that you never set out to be a role model.
o Your alma mater doesn’t expect much from you.
o Living on through fame isn’t really living. It’s dying. Just like everybody else.

Wear a big fuzzy hat: suggestions

-If you want attention and compliments, wear a big fuzzy hat.
-Don't worry about any mistake that can be corrected for 20 dollars or less.
-To be a more casual, more effective parent: pretend that your children are nieces, or sons of a friend, that you somehow inherited. You'll still care, but will feel less pressure.
-To be better to the old: pretend they are all your grandparents.
-Do not be fooled by what other generations deem indispensable.
-Don't be upset over names or words that you can never remember. Maybe you're not supposed to know those things.
-Don't read articles about diseases. Wait until you get them, and they give you the pamphlets.

Problematic fortune cookie fortune

“The simplest answer is to act.” The simplest answer, but the right answer? Answer to what question? Act in what manner? Also, isn’t not acting usually simpler? Or is everything acting?

Poem: Prince of the Park Bench

Prince of the park bench, still
Survey the town's ginch-will
This lead to anything?
Is it responsible?
These are not questions now.

My tone's polyphonic,
Take on shit ironic,
Got no time
For interior rhyme,
Look for me
At the end of the line
I like girls
Who study signs-
Semiotic chicks
Not fixed.

Listen: money can't be saved.
I'm not even sure
What it is we're supposed
To brag about these days-
Is dick size still a big one?
I've got a big one
I've got a voucher
You can call her.

Spontaneity is not sincerity-
I dwell
Half in possibility
Half in actuality
Half in foolish jealousy
Half in whatever's on TV-
Still not complete,
Never be-
Everything is therapy.