Mix: "To the nearest exit."

"Walk This Way" -- Aerosmith
"Walk This World" -- Heather Nova
"Aly, Walk With Me" -- The Raveonettes
"The Walk" -- Imogen Heap
"Walking" -- David Byrne
"Walking" -- the dodos
"Just Walk" -- The Sterling Stitches
"Walk on the Ocean" -- Toad the Wet Sprocket
"Walk On The Moon" -- Asobi Seksu
"Desert Walk" -- Deep Forest
"Walk Away" -- Lovespirals
"Walking On Broken Glass" -- Annie Lennox
"Fire Walk With Me (Theme from Twin Peaks)" -- Angelo Badalamenti

Mix: Run away! Run awaaaaay!

"Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run" -- Sufjan Stevens
"Run My Mouth" -- Ra Ra Riot
"On The Run" -- Pink Floyd
"Run Wild" -- New Order
"Run to Her" -- Mr. Mister
"Run To Your Grave" -- The Mae Shi
"On The Run" -- Kottonmouth Kings
"Run The Numbers" -- Aesop Rock and El-P
"Run" -- Collective Soul
"Run-Around" -- Blues Traveler
"No More Running Away - Live" -- Air Traffic
"No More Runnin" -- Animal Collective
"I Could Run Away" -- 100 Portraits and Waterdeep (Enter the Worship Circle)

PSA: NY in Ur FACE!!

"Your application for admission to the Program in American Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Science has been received and carefully reviewed. We regret to inform you that we are not able to extend an offer of admission to you at this time.

Please be aware that the applications for admission this year are particularly strong, and we have been unable to welcome all of our promising candidates for admission. We thank you for your interest in New York University and wish you the greatest success in your future endeavors."

VICTORY.

PSA: Coming: 24-hour mix

Prince Certainpersonio suggested, and I agreed, that we make a 24-hour mix set of CDs – that is, 24 hours of music that correspond to hours of the day, mainly in tone (i.e., noon is peppy, midnight is dance-party, early morning is contemplative).

Look forward to it.

PSA: Songs with lyrics that refer to cake (the food)

The National, “The Geese of Beverly Road”

Tilly and the Wall, “Too Excited”

PSA: Songs covered by Cake (the band)

"I Will Survive" -- Gloria Gaynor
"The Guitar Man" -- Bread
"War Pigs" -- Black Sabbath
"Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" -- Barry White
"Strangers in the Night" -- Frank Sinatra
"Mahna Mahna" -- Piero Umiliani

PSA: Green Cake

The band Cake's next album is reportedly to be produced in their Sacramento studio "using 100% solar energy," according to Wikipedia.

Also according to Wikipedia, "in June 2008, lead singer John McCrea told music publication REVUE that he is thinking seriously of quitting touring to become a farmer."

Forced divorce

Me: "That's a doctor's office."

My girl: "I'm scared."

Me: "Just walking by it?"

My girl: "Shots!"

Me: "Well, don't worry about shots. Even if a doctor came out here right now and invited us in, I'd say 'no, we don't have time'...That's a lawyer's office. Are you afraid of going to court?"

My girl: "No. A divorce!"

Me: "Are you afraid that walking past a lawyer's office will make you get a divorce?"

My girl: "No!" [laughs]

PSA: Monthly anniversary gifts

Well, dear readers, as you almost certainly know, some ancient Miss-Manners-type long ago prescribed gift types for each yearly anniversary a couple would celebrate: the first year should be celebrated with a gift of paper; the second, cotton; third, leather; fourth, flowers; fifth, wood, and so on, until the 25th anniversary (silver) and the 50th (gold), which are much more well-known.

You may ask yourself what use these lists are, particularly if you are a creative gift-giver or a woman. (These types of people, gift-givers and women, generally believe presents should reflect the desires and needs of the gift receiver rather than the successful rote memorization of a yearly gift-type prescription...though in some cases, just remembering the anniversary might be gift enough.)

But fie on you! Have you no sense of tradition?

Instead of nay-saying the gifting requirements of each year together, I suggest we take this idea and run with it. We need monthly anniversary gifting requirements, particularly for the first year.

It seems almost painfully obvious to me that these gifts should be candy.

So here are the requisite gifts for monthly anniversaries. No cheating and getting a kind of candy your loved one likes. This is tradition in the making, and should be adhered to exactly.

One month: Gummy bears

Two months: Twizzlers (red)

Three months: Smarties

Four months: Peppermint patties

Five months: Sprees

Six months: Caramels

Seven months: Gobstoppers

Eight months: Jelly beans (if seasonally unavailable, Red Vines)

Nine months: Swedish fish

Ten months: Butterscotch

Eleven months: Malted milk balls (Malteasers/Whoppers)

One year: Paper

Note: After one year, monthly anniversaries may continue to be celebrated, keeping in mind the principle of increasingly serious candy types -- i.e. Turtles or Godiva chocolate for years 2-3 -- and methods of gifting. For instance, a person dressed in some kind of costume (i.e. rabbit) delivering a singing telegram (i.e. "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head") along with a box of heart-shaped chocolates (i.e. Russel-Stover-quality or above) may be appropriate between the sixteenth and seventeenth anniversaries, but not between the sixth and seventh.

PSA: Derecolumnized / Redecolumnized

My columns are once again not running. The final column, despite being corrected, in fact will not be run in the paper.

I'm annoyed by the process of being let go, picked up, and let go again, as any small woodland creature would be, but I'm trying to settle back into the "I'm free from this responsibility" mindset I so happily occupied before the confusion.

Please feel free to congratulate me on my increasingly simple lifestyle, and to encourage me in my lifelong pursuit of living on a bus.

MFHTDWF #4-5, and exceptions

MFHTDWF #4

Principle: Don’t go on “Celebrity Jeopardy.”

You’re not that smart.


MFHTDWF #5

Principle: Don’t go on Saturday Night Live.

It’s not a funny show anymore.


Exception to MFHTDWF #4-5

Principle: Go ahead and be on SNL for “Celebrity Jeopardy.” It’s funny, and you don’t have to be smart. You just have to be able to act insanely dumb, which may be how you got to be a famous person in the first place -- so right in your wheelhouse.

Recolumnized

Well, it turns out my column last week didn't run (yet) because the new editor at the paper wanted to include the town names for the comic shops I referenced in the column.

And they couldn't contact me to ask where the shops were because they didn't have my phone number...

And apparently they also couldn't look it up online, where all sorts of information is kept, including references to all three comic shops and their location. A Google search would have taken about a third of a second for each shop, making the search time about one second total.

Maybe the Internet was broken or something.

Manual For How To Deal With Fame: Preface

Ever since last year's “Oh, Bitchuary.”, I’ve been concerned with the welfare of our beloved celebrities, who seem to go crazy as soon as they’re affirmed as “famous.”

Heath Ledger dying of a sleeping pill overdose brought the issue into even more poignant focus over the summer. It’s clear his judgment was clouded severely by the pressures of celebdom, no less by the fact that he took too many pills as by the more obvious, glaring error of being in the presence of Mary Kate Olsen. (I mean, any of us could have accidentally downed too many sleeping pills, but how many of us would ever end up in the same room with MKO?)

Alan Moore pointed out what I think is the real issue, here, which is that people who are famous don’t have a manual for how to deal with fame.

I’ve decided to help them out, in sporadic installments. Here are my first three “how to” instructions on dealing with fame.

Eventually, I expect famous people to start sending me money for this service, since they have so much of it. But for now, the advice I provide is free.

MFHTDWF #1

Principle: Don’t care what people think. Really don’t care. Don’t just pretend not to care – actually don’t.

If you can do that, you’re exempt from the remainder of MFHTDWF, and congratulations. You’re a crazy, possibly sociopathic famous person bound to entertain us all with your soap-opera-like hijinks for years to come.

And since you don’t care who you offend or what the rest of us stand for, you won’t bore us by speaking reasonably on talk shows while subtly plugging your next “project,” or ask other people’s opinions when all we want to know is what you think, anyway. We’ll get sick of you occasionally, but that won’t bother you because you genuinely don’t care. And you’ll always resurface in the public eye, because we are all genuinely fascinated by people who are genuinely indifferent to us.

Besides, having the financial capability to follow through on all your harebrained schemes means you’ll likely keep us entertained with your failures, your bizarre successes, or both.

Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle: ??? [Edit: Charlie Sheen, circa 3/2011]

Examples of famous people who follow the principle, but who we still dislike: Carrot Top, Ex-Pres. G. W. Bush

Examples of famous people who fail at this principle: Almost all of them, including Sharon Stone and all stand-up comedians

MFHTDWF #2

Principle: Don’t contradict people when they say you were upset about something.

They’ll never believe you.

A mediocre way to deal with this situation is to elaborate with a sob story about how you’re in recovery from whatever thing upset you. This is acceptable but will mostly engender pity. Ideally, you should try to always fascinate and terrify your audience.

Elaborations involving how you got revenge on the person, people or group that upset you should either be lighthearted and full-of-yourself (i.e. “but then I made a hundred jillion dollars on that movie, so that’ll show ‘em!” [audience laughter and clapping]) or theatrical and full of occult references (i.e. “what most people don’t understand about voodoo is that it really works!” [audience silence, chair-shifting and sporadic claps]).

If you feel bad about possibly lying to your audience, just remind yourself that as a famous person, you’re always on display, and you owe it to your audience to play an interesting character.

Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle: Tom Cruise (who fascinates and terrifies us), Angelina Jolie (who never says she wasn’t upset about something)

Examples of famous people who follow the principle, but by virtue of our being afraid to suggest they’ve ever been upset: Christopher Walken, Mr. T.

Examples of famous people who fail at this principle: Jennifer Aniston

MFHTDWF #3

Principle: Don’t wear sweatpants. Ever. Also don’t wear track suits, unless you’re a black man.

The paparazzi will find you and photograph your most unflattering features in unflattering angles if you choose to wear unflattering attire. In fact, you should probably avoid wearing anything you could purchase at a K-mart.

Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle: Michael Jordan (immune, because he’s a black man), Halle Berry, Merryl Streep

Examples of famous people who follow the principle, but nobody cares: All B though D-list actresses

Examples of famous people who fail at this principle: Britney Spears, Oprah*

*Oprah can never be said to fail at anything related to famous people, as she is the Kali of the famous-people pantheon (if they were all Hindu). However, despite her immunity, it must be noted that she does occasionally wear sweatpants and tracksuits. She should be considered an exception rather than an example.

Happy Pi Day!

Happy legitimate Pi Day, everyone.

Enjoy the sweet derivatives of this holiday season.

Pies.

PSA: Decolumnized?

Well, faithful readers (all three of you), my weekly op/ed column may have been discontinued -- not, I think, due to the comments I'd only now gotten to responding to, but thanks to a change in editorship.

There are any number of reasons this may have happened, all of them political, and none of them interesting enough to recount here.

You can see my last column, if it is my last, on my column blog. This is like a bonus for you, CU readers, since it has not run in the actual newspaper.

I mainly feel bad for the three comic book shop owners who talked to me for the info on this column. I feel less bad for myself, as almost a year's worth of weekly column writing has left me with a respectable freelance portfolio, I think, if I chose to continue being a freelance writer, and has drained my previously deep well of things I wanted to tell everybody.

And now I'll have time to go back to my first love: the legitimate theater.

Or, er, Continue Unprotected.

Where I can tell you all what I think all the time, uncensored.

Rock on, my three friends. Rock on.

PSA: Return of the browncoats...er, parcels

Number of UPS trucks observed on I-84 East out of Waterbury, 9-9:20 a.m. today: 33

PSA: Bad things about my first name

Nobody can spell it right.

People who can spell it right don't pronounce it right.

PSA: Good things about my first name

It's pointy -- A, L, and I are all pointy letters, as opposed to rounded

If someone were to yell it, they could shout the entire name and end with a long "aaaaaaaa!" which is a sound that carries well.

It's almost a palindrome.

It provides the sole vowel in my family's first-name-initial acronyms: from youngest to oldest, "STAB"; from oldest to youngest, "BATS."

Library 2009 in numbers

Number of books overdue in 2009: 7

Amount of money owed, each, on 5 of those books: 1.20

Amount of money owed, each, on 2 of those books: .20

Total amount of money owed: 6.40

Number of books on CD charged to my account that mysteriously disappeared from my account after frantic days-long search for said book on CD: 1

Number of CDs in said book on CD: 5

Percent certainty on that 5 CD count: 45

Number of books charged to my account that mysteriously disappeared from my account after frantic days-long search for said book: 1

Number of nonfiction books for which my account was fined: 7

Number of movies taken out of the library since Jan. 20, 2009: 0

Number of books taken out of the library since Jan. 20, 2009: 0

Hours spent worrying about library account status since Jan. 20, 2009, minimum: 5

PSA: Mountain mama overrun by Mormons

According to Yahoo! News and the Associated Press, Utah is the happiest state in America.

West Virginia is the least happy.

At least now we know alphabetical placement by state is not an indicator of relative happiness.

Unsolicited Advice, X

If you don't like my columns, stop reading them.

PSA: Whew.

I fried my brain today by going back into the archives of my Internetted columns and searching out comments, then replying to them on my blog archive.

So for today, my unsolicited advice is all you get.

I was there, too, so that makes at least two.

Overheard, at Watchmen, Thursday midnight:

[Distinctly female voice cheers for beginning of movie.]

Guy in the crowd, shouting: "There's a girl here?!?"

PSA: Watching the Watchman's...er...

Anyone who still hasn't seen the movie should be advised that while the graphic novel Watchmen does an excellent job of obscuring the fact that Dr. Manhatten is entirely naked through most of the action of the book, the movie does not.

You just have to get used to it.

Providentially, while fighting in Vietnam and towering over the jungles as Vietcong cowered below, Dr. Manhatten still wore some form of Speedo-type underwear -- if he hadn't, I'm betting we would have seen a marked increase in Freud's "Little Hans" type disorders in comic-book crowd men.

"All I wanted was a little cream soda, oh well."

My girl: "What’s in there?"

Me: "My drink."

My girl: "What is it?"

Me: "Cream soda."

My girl: "I thought you didn’t like soda."

Me: "I try not to drink it very much because it’s very bad for you."

My girl: "That’s soda, by the way."

Me: "I know."

PSA: I'm just not that into you, Cosmo.

Before going with my girl to watch "He's Just Not That Into You," in a concession to a longer than usual day and wanting to spend it somewhere dark and quiet rather than well-lit and full of complaints, I saw an ad appearing before my email login for "You're Just Not That Into Him." So I clicked on it.

It was a Cosmo article on how you can tell when you're not interested in a guy you think you're interested in. Here are the five ways you can tell:

1. You don't think about him much when you're apart.
2. You don't especially want him to meet your friends and family.
3. It doesn't bother you when he goes out without you.
4. You're not excited to hook up with him.
5. You wonder if other guys you meet are available.

Now here's the trouble with this article, not in execution (because I don't have time for that), but in concept: The possible types of women reading this article are as follows.

A. Women who already know they're not "that into" a guy and just want to prove it.
B. Women who really, really want to be "that into" a guy, know they aren't, and are hoping to find evidence in Cosmo that they are.
C. Women who are "that into" a guy and want to feel the satisfaction of checking off a list proving it.
D. Women who don't really know how they feel and are willing to read Cosmo as they would an oracle.

Now I've known for years that Cosmo caters to insecure women, but it had never before occurred to me that the American sex tip master mag is actually written for neurotic women, ones who are (A) in need of constant reassurance, (B) willing themselves to settle for less, (C) control freaks (though possibly minor), or (D) desperate for direction.

Now that it has occurred to me, I wonder how I ever missed it. Women already comfortable with their love lives wouldn't need seventy new sex tricks that will drive him WILD!!! It's a magazine for people with problems.

It's porn for women. But while Playboy gives men an eyeful of what they (think they) want and the chance to do something about it, Cosmo encourages inaction, potential paralysis and codependence -- or else the idea that if you don't know the seventy new sex tricks, you might not drive him WILD!!! You might only drive him WILD!!

Or worse yet, just plain wild.

You have to know what you're doing, in other words, and Cosmo can help.

How is it that men get plain ol' pictures of airbrushed, beautiful women and are trusted to just know what to do with 'em, and women get a jillion-word "how-to" month after month?

Are women really that much more intellectual, or are we just socialized that way?

At any rate, I have no use for Cosmo, and in terms of allaying neuroses, this magazine isn't up to the task of advising me any more than a three-year-old is up to joining NASA -- but in case you're wondering, I clicked on the article because I'm (C).

I happen to like a nicely checked-off list.

PSA: Pi Day (Observed) Pie Party

Today at 8 p.m. will be the Pie party that I thought up totally independently of Pi Day, the nerdy, mathy holiday made up by people who like nerdy, mathy things.

Pi Day (Observed), one week before actual Pi Day, will also cater to those who like pie.

I encourage everyone, coming or not to the Pie Party, to celebrate actual Pi Day next Saturday in the manner to which you have become accustomed over years of family tradition.

New word: Mansoon

n. A single man who wreaks havoc on any other item or situation such that the item or situation appears to have been hit by a large, monsoonlike storm: as in a circumstance calling for social grace but involving a man that has none; any man's tendency to allow or encourage the build-up of fast food containers and wrappers in one's car; a man causing a total and inexplicable disarray of blankets and sheets despite experiencing only a night of uninterrupted sleep, involving no flailing or other sudden movements. Syn. "a bull in a china shop"

PSA: I watches the Watchmen.

At this time, I am watching Watchmen. The movie.

Confessions XXXII

When I got a message from "the We campaign" with the subject line "Pave the way for cleaner cars," it took me several seconds to remember "the We campaign" is about global warming, not whether Alicia has removed the junk from her car or vaccuumed it recently. Because I haven't.

I also keep a spotless house, mainly by making sure there aren't any spots uncovered on available surfaces.

P.C. has probably done as much cleaning of my house and car in the last month as I have, and he has done a better job. The only advantage I have, arguably (since it's all my stuff being cleaned up, putting me at an absolute deficit), is that I've done more (of my own) dishes. But that's only because he keeps cooking me dinner.

PSA: Bands with lead singers who can’t sing, like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, in alphabetical order.

Good

Joy Division

This Is Exploding

Today, 3/3/09, in numbers

Number of independent comic book shops I visited today: 1

Number of independent comic book shops I planned to visit: 2

Number of days early the Matt & Kim “Grand” album arrived from Amazon: 1

Number of times I said “yesss” on seeing the Amazon package on my porch: 2

Number of times I said “yay!” on seeing the CD: 1

Number of attempts with scissors to get plastic wrap off CD: 3

Approximate number of times I listened to “Lessons Learned” between ordering “Grand” and receiving it: 30

Track time for “Lessons Learned”: 3:34

Approximate number of hours I listened to “Lessons Learned” between ordering “Grand” and receiving it: 2.25

Number of hours I spent at the newspaper: 4

Number of net words I added to my column while there: 105

Number of emails I wrote: 5

Number of interoffice messages I sent: 1

Approximate number of minutes it takes my 12-cup rice cooker to make rice: 20

Number of minutes it feels like it’s taking: 100,000

Number of inches of snow on my dead-end street: 1

Number of inches of snow on the well-traveled street off of which is my dead-end street: 0

Number of inches of snow, at its deepest, in the middle of the newspaper parking lot: 4

Number of inches of snow, at its most shallow, in the middle of the newspaper parking lot: 1

Average amount of snow, in inches, in the middle of the newspaper parking lot: 2.5

Number of times Betty slipped on the snow going in and out of the newspaper parking lot: 3

Number of episodes of Sports Night I watched before 6 p.m.: 1

Minimum number of episodes of Sports Night I plan to watch after 6 p.m.: 7

Number of meals eaten today provided by P.C.: 1

Number of meals eaten today involving dairy foods: 2

Number of different types of dairy accounted for: 3

Estimated percentage of my dishes currently dirty: 68

Number of “I Helped Save 69 Main Street” buttons I got today: 1

Number of reporters through whose hands the button passed before reaching me: 2

Amount of money and hours of volunteering I donated to the effort to save 69 Main Street, combined, in dollar-hours: 0

Number of seconds it took for me to affix the “I Helped Save 69 Main Street” button to my hoodie: 12

Mix: Oh, Trevor, I pine for you (yet again)...[V.3]

"Another Bleeding Heart" -- Alex Parker
"Hunters of the Night" -- Mr. Mister
"The Bleedin Clown" -- Manuel Chao
"Bleed" --Meshuggah
"Up All Night" -- El-P
"Statuette" -- Vampire Hands
"The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" -- Vampire Weekend
"Stakes Is High" -- De La Soul
"All Night Diner" -- Modest Mouse
"Slow Night, So Long" -- Kings of Leon

Mix: Oh Trevor, I (still) pine for you...[V.2]

"Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" -- Matt & Kim
"Blood Bank" -- Bon Iver
"Blood" -- El-P
"Out Here All Night" -- Damones
"A Rush Of Blood To The Head" -- Coldplay
"I Bleed" -- Pixies
"And I've Seen A Bloody Shadow" -- Of Montreal
"Blood of Eden" -- Peter Gabriel
"We Suck Young Blood" -- Radiohead
"Only Shallow" -- My Bloody Valentine
"Blood Flower" -- Tilly and the Wall

PSA: White-out

Yesterday was all static, all the time, with the sky blurred by blizzard and our brains similarly addled by the white noise that comes with nor'easters in southern New England.

(Like many New Englanders, I made a useless trip to the grocery store and ended up buying milk.)

I didn't get to post to CU because (I assume) the library was also closed, leaving me Internet-access-less.

PSA: Ways to remember your dreams (the kind you have when you’re asleep)

Keep a journal or notebook next to your bed with a pen in the next blank page, uncapped -- it should be a ballpoint pen, as felt-tip pens dry out overnight, and the journal should be reachable at arm’s length from where you normally sleep on the bed.

When you wake up, lay perfectly still and let the bits of the dream you may remember drift around in your head for awhile. Don’t try to make sense of them. The goal is to re-experience them.

When you’ve rehearsed the bits of the dream you can remember enough to begin putting them into words, repeat them to yourself in your head, still without moving.

Keeping your descriptions in mind, pick up the journal and write them down.

PSA: Ways to remember your dreams (goals and aspirations)

Write them down and review them regularly.

For extra insurance, tell a critical friend or relative who will remind you of your original goals each time you fail to meet them.