god enjoys a warm, moist, fresh out of the oven tollhouse cookie just as much as you do

occasionally, god and i chat about whatever's on our minds, via IM of course. we spoke this morning. here is the transcript...

me: sup yo?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: baking tollhouse cookies. u?

me: MMMMMMMMMMMM...TOLLHOUSE!

me: choc chip?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: yeppers.

me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

me: that was me orgasming by the way.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: gee thanks for sharing. as if it's not enough that i see you every time you do.

me: don't remind me.

me: i would kill for a warm, moist chocolate chip cookie right now!

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: well, if you kill for one you won't be getting any of mine!

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: hehehe

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: just run out in front of the next bus you see steaming down the street and you can be here when the next batch comes out of the oven.

me: no thanks pal.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: you sure? my cookies are, pardon the pun, to die for.

me: i'll settle for one from the cafeteria at the met opera. there's some little old lady who bakes them and they're the best.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: so what's on your mind kid? you only pop up when you need something or you're down and need someone to vent to.

me: WHAT? really?!?!?!?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: it's ok. everyone is like that with me.

me: but i didn't think that i was!

me: REALLY???

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: c'mon! i thought that you, of all people, would be self-aware enough to notice.

me: wow. i guess you're right. sorry bout that.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: like what prompted you to contact me today? be honest!

me: well, i was hoping that you could somehow score me an invite to a wedding in long island next summer.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: SEE!!!

me: i'm such a dick. sorry. well let's talk about YOU today!

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: what do you want to know?

me: how are YOU?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: okay i guess. cookie baking is my therapy though.

me: that's not exactly encouraging! what's bugging you?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: besides darfur, the new york philharmonic rocking out for kim jung il, and marlon brando hitting on my date at my oscar party, everything else is cool. it must be the positioning of the moon of something. it's fucking with my head.

me: the moon effects you? but you made it!

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: so! try mixing bleach with ammonia and see what happens to you. it'll mess your head up. just like the moon messes my head up.

me: i see your point. i think. who was your date that brando was hitting on?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: audrey hepburn. he's been after her for years, even in the other life. i almost punched him.

me: MY GOD! he really got to you, didn't he?

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: totally. and then i had to keep arthur miller from going medieval on baird jones, who showed up just in time for the party, and was trailing marilyn everywhere. she also had mr. coffee pining for her on the other side of the room.

me: holy clusterfucks batman! i had no idea that heaven was so filled with drama!

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: the grass is definitely greener but that only means that the stain that it leaves is tougher to get out.

me: wow. that's kind of profound.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: i stole it from a nelly furtado song.

me: she's deep. i like her. well, i gotta run. sorry to hear about all the drama. but if you get a chance, see if you can help me out with that wedding thing, even though weddings are usually the only thing i hate more than funerals.

ahardmanisgoodtofind69: ok, but absolutely no punch bowl pissing! that's hunter thompson's signature move!

me: DEAL!


stuff white people like

my latest interweb addiction is a blog that i was alerted to by dealbreaker editor john carney called, stuff white people like. i killed a couple of hours reading all of the posts recently. here's a sampling of my personal favorites...

#1 coffee

White people all need Starbucks, Second Cup or Coffee Bean. They are also fond of saying “you do NOT want to see me before I get my morning coffee.” White guys will also call it anything but coffee: “rocket fuel,” “java,” “joe,” “black gold,” and so forth. It’s pretty garbage all around.

#70 difficult breakups

The majority of white person art is created after a difficult breakup; films, indie music, and poetry are all kicked into high production during the end of a relationship. This helps train white people to prepare for the pain that is coming.

Once breakup proceedings have been initiated, a white person is immediately thrust into the center of attention in their circle of friends. During this time, they are permitted to talk at great lengths about themselves, listen to The Smiths, and get free dinners from friends who think “they shouldn’t be alone right now.”

#72 study abroad

By attending school in another country, white people are technically living in another country. This is important as it gives them the opportunity to insert that fact into any sentence they please. “When I used to live in [insert country], I would always ride the train to school. The people I’d see were inspiring.”

If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way. You arrived in Australia not knowing anybody, you went out to the bar the first night and made a lot of friends, you had a short relationship with someone from a foreign country, you didn’t learn anything, and you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country.

#62 knowing what's best for poor people

White people spend a lot of time of worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day.

They feel guilty and sad that poor people shop at Wal*Mart instead of Whole Foods, that they vote Republican instead of Democratic, that they go to Community College/get a job instead of studying art at a University.

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

#63 expensive sandwiches

In most cities, if you need to find a cache of white people get yourself to a sandwich shop. Generally these places aren’t open for dinner, have a panini press and are famous for their bread. There are always vegan options and the selection of meats and cheese are strongly European.

The waiters and waitresses in these places are highly coveted by the white population. They are not quite as cool as bartenders, not quite as snobby as coffee shop workers, but still artsy, young, and more than likely to be a musician/artist/writer (since they only have to work from 11-3).

the blog has only been in existence for a couple of months and has already developed a large following. you can find it here...

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

the blog is written by a guy named christian lander, a 29 year old copywriter. the LA times profiled him recently. the link to that story is here...

white like us


marry him!

after posting something yesterday about the bridezilla that one-ups all bridezillas, a reader named lynette emailed a link to an article by lori gottlieb in the atlantic. gottlieb essentially presents a case for why it's best for all women to settle for mr. just good enough and get married. she writes...

Whether you acknowledge it or not, there’s good reason to worry. By the time 35th-birthday-brunch celebrations roll around for still-single women, serious, irreversible life issues masquerading as “jokes” creep into public conversation: Well, I don’t feel old, but my eggs sure do! or Maybe this year I’ll marry Todd. I’m not getting any younger! The birthday girl smiles a bit too widely as she delivers these lines, and everyone laughs a little too hard for a little too long, not because we find these sentiments funny, but because we’re awkwardly acknowledging how unfunny they are. At their core, they pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle?

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)

Obviously, I wasn’t always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry’s Kids aren’t going to walk, even if you send them money. It’s not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it’s downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.

read the piece in its entirety here...

marry him!


jimmy kimmel is fucking ben affleck

this thing was all over the internet yesterday. i didn't bother to watch it because i felt that there was no way it could be as funny as sarah silverman's "i'm fucking matt damon" thing.

well, i finally watched it last night, and guess what? it's even funnier...




picayune cigarettes

i ran across the pic below the other day on luc sante's blog.


(via ekotodi.blogspot.com)

hailing from a family of smokers in the south louisiana region, i'm kind of shocked that i was unaware that they ever existed. apparently, they haven't been manufactured for some time now. sante writes...

I first heard Picayunes mentioned in Frank O'Hara's 1964 poem "The Day Lady Died." It's July 1959 and he's preparing to go to Easthampton for the weekend, back when the Hamptons contained more poets and painters than rich people. He's buying supplies and hostess gifts here and there in midtown Manhattan--recording everything in his seemingly casual diaristic way that's really as meticulously arranged as a collage by Braque, down to the all-caps names that are after a fashion glued in--and then he sees the NEW YORK POST with her face on it. The pleasantly hectic course of the day, ticking away like a taxi meter for 25 lines, is abruptly flicked off and he's thrown into memory. Billie Holiday has died.

He buys the Post from the tobacconist at the Ziegfeld Theater along with a carton of Gauloises and a carton of Picayunes. For years I had no idea what Picayunes were. By the time I was a teenage poet reading that poem again and again, wishing I could write like that and for that matter live like that, the New York of the poem seemed like a vision of glamour from the deep past, even though it was little more than a decade gone. I did smoke Gauloises when I could afford them, but there was no more tobacconist at the Ziegfeld and nobody I knew had ever heard of Picayunes.

I didn't visit New Orleans until many years after that, and even though I had by then quit smoking, I went off in search of Picayunes, but they were no longer manufactured. Their absence was conspicuous, because they went along with the city and its Afro-Franco-Hispano-Italo- Caribbean style, with the chicory coffee and the lagniappes and all the rest of it. It made sense that the most culturally distinct city in the lower 48 would boast a distinct local cigarette. Picayunes in their day were another symbol of the elegant separateness that would eventually provide the federal government with its excuse for sacrificing New Orleans. Anyway, nowadays local pride is reserved for team sports.

i imagine that picayunes were the community coffee of cigarettes back in the day. a local treasure that everyone consumed. i also imagine that if i were a smoker and an adult in the post-wwII era, i would have smoked picayunes. i sort of wish they were still around just so i could try one.


ray nagin is not amused by your ridicule!

a couple of weeks ago i posted this picture of new orleans mayor ray nagin doing what ray nagin does best...making an ass of himself.



well, ray nagin was not amused by all of those idiot bloggers who made fun of his playing around with assault weapons at a press conference, so he took to the local airwaves to defend himself and, in the process, made an even bigger ass of himself. watch the interview here...

nagin blasts off on WWL


further specualation on obama's safety

the other day, i expressed some concern for the safety of barack obama...

historically, agents of change have a habit of getting assassinated in this country. it's been quite a while since we've had one, bobby kennedy in 1968 i suppose is the last one. you know the storyline...young, eloquent candidate for office who has the country swept up by his charm, promising to institute radical changes in the way this country does things once he takes office, promising to get us out of an unpopular war immediately upon taking office, etc.

yesterday, the ny times ran a front page piece on the subject...

Before Mr. Obama decided to run for president, he discussed his safety with his family. His campaign employed a team of private security guards before he was placed under Secret Service protection. Since then, he has grown fond of the agents who surround him, inviting them to watch the Super Bowl at his home in Chicago and playing basketball with them on the days he awaits the results of an election.

Mr. Obama was reticent in speaking about his security or the period in American history that is often raised — without prompting — by voters who are interviewed at campaign events. Mentions of the fate that befell President John F. Kennedy and Senator Kennedy only increased after Mr. Obama was joined on the campaign trail by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

“I’m pretty familiar with the history,” Mr. Obama said. “Obviously, it was an incredible national trauma, but neither Bobby Kennedy nor Martin Luther King had Secret Service protection.”

read the entire piece here...

in painful past, hushed worry about obama


tell me you didn't see this one coming!



pics of a nude diablo cody, the stripper blogger turned oscar winning screenwriter, have hit the net. rumor has it that they were once posted on her personal blog but taken down once her stature began to rise...

diablo cody nude pics on egotastic.com


diary of a fake goldman trader on dealbreaker.com

my latest "thad" column is up. it was supposed to go up last week but they were having "server issues." after reading it you'll perhaps understand why i was soliciting info on monkeys last week. thanks to all of the assorted vets and animal trainers that responded.

diary of a fake goldman trader: monkey business


and if you can stand any more, i always post a few links and random things here...

http://cajunboy.tumblr.com