Spring Break re-cap

Yo. Jack and I had an awesome trip to the Canyon. We had great weather (except for a snowstorm the night we left) and ran into few problems (aside from the pack with our tent in it that didn’t make the connection). We spent almost the entire time in and around the Grand Canyon, including a four day trip inside the “big hole in the ground” as the Ranger manning the front entrance liked to call it. We drank a lot of beer on National Park Services property, met the least sneaky field mouse ever, and turned a 3 and a half hour layover in L.A. into an epic hunt for In-N-Out burger. Joe Rice was called, but there was, sadly, no response. Photos are up on the ‘book if you haven’t seen them.

So aside from having “Single Ladies” stuck in our heads for almost the entirety of the trip and averaging back-to-back 12 mile days with 5000 foot altitude changes, the biggest problem we ran into was the heat. It gets into the high 70’s during the day inside the canyon and without  any vegetation there really isn’t any shade. This can be problematic when you’re surviving on pond water and trail mix/peanut butter sandwiches for a week straight. To solve the problem, we’d usually try to keep cool during the hottest parts of the day – which can be rather boring. Thus, I humbly present to you our game of hangman, as played in Cottonwood Creek campsite on the afternoon of March 20th. Please note that we’ve chosen to hang a buzzing fly, our constant companion at that campsite. Enjoy. 

p.s. People can maybe start posting their summer/post-grad plans here so we can get a sense for who’ll be home and all that? Might make sense, post as your situation becomes news.

I Need One

Business has been slow around these parts, so let’s talk about a new internet phenomenon sweeping across blogs and forums that finally showed up on my radar on Kissing Suzy Kolber, a fantastic sports blog you should all be reading. Even God posts there. Seriously.

Boom, the McGangBang! Also known as the McGB and brought to by the hamburglar’s dollar menu wetdreams, it’s a McChicken inside the patties of a double cheeseburger. Phenomenal! Grab one of these and an Arnold Palmer and you’ve got a recession proof, $3 feast. Word is traveling quickly enough about this little delight that customers are reporting a growing ability to order one by name. Another variant: the Unprotected McGangBang, a McGB with the questionable spice additive found on a spicy McChicken. Learn the particulars of this monstrosity quicky; we’ll probably be making them when we’re all working at the Rt. 1 McDonald’s in 3 months.

Re: Vermont

Vermont is actually cool and way better than Boston.

Oh yeah. This is my backyard.

Roasted.

Wordle

Here’s a quick diversion that will take up about an hour of your time in the library or whatever else you might be doing right now. Wordle. I love this thing. Here’s a few examples of wordles people have created:

the lye speech from fight club

the big lebowski screenplay

pulp fiction screenplay

one example of the star wars screenplay

another star wars screenplay

Check it out

The 14th State: Actually, It Sucks

Driving through Vermont this past weekend, it occurred to me that there is nowhere more depressing on this side of the Mississippi than the Green Mountain State in warm months. I’m not sure there’s any argument here unless your name is F. Scott Fitzgerald. For anyone who’s ever been skiing up there (and I know a great deal/everyone else who posts here has), the entire economy is dependent on ski tourism. Ski and snowboard shops, motels and lodges located conveniently close to the local mountain, shit imitations of culture elsewhere to try and make us nonnatives feel somewhat at home, it’s all there. None of the people who actually live in Vermont have any need for this bullshit. Those guys wake up, walk down the dirt road to pick up some newspaper and possibly dirty sneakers, and then come back to admire nature or do work assuming its not completey unstable and dependent on wet winters. It’s the yukmouths like yours truly looking for Chinese food who are the real targets of these ridiculous enterprises (Vermont might be the worst place to look for Chinese food ever. I highly suggest never doing it as someone who has also never considered such a heinous action.

I’ve had the gross displeasure of spending  a couple of summer days in Vermont. It was the summer of 2001. I only remember this because the most memorable part of my trip was watching a fourteen-year old Danny Almonte throw fucking BB’s at eleven-year olds while pretending to be twelve or something. He was an unbelievable talent, but he was also an idiot. I watched his games from the hotel. That’s how I knew it was 2001. If the fact that my first memory was watching Little League Baseball, the most torturous activity this side of a vicegrip for balls, I got nothing to tell you.

I remember taking the lift up to the mountain and not doing anything when I got there. Not a damn thing. The entire place was barren of the skis and the people and all the cool stuff that happened there six months before. Even the lodge at the top of the mountain was shut up. I ate a pepperoni and mustard sandwich with my dad (I love a good sandwich, but this happened during my misguided pubescent days. Horrible food choices were often made. Forgive me) before actually riding the lift back down. Oh sure, I could hike down the mountain. But that strikes me as mildly retarded, considering I could also wait for it to get snowy and haul ass down the ‘effin thing. So I took the ride of shame all the way down. The views were spectacular. The stupid was overwhelming.

Later that weekend, I would go on to have the shadiest hamburger ever served at a restaurant. I’ll pass on the description – just know that there should have been some sort of something on my food that wasn’t hair. I thought my town was a boring place to be, but driving past shuttered buildings every 5 acres (because apparently there are neither zoning laws nor buildings near roads in Vermont) was excruciatingly painful. There’s nothing I wanted less than to stay. Fortunately, pops read my mind and I GTFO.

Being at Mount Snow reminded me of the stupidity, the nonsense of the Vermont economic model and how legitimately shitty a place it is without snow. Even with snow, it’s cold as hell. Here’s a hint: move to Austin and party with UT girls whenever possible. Or, live in a state populated four months out of the year with the stinkiest of tourist assholes. I’ll be wearing a big funny hat, because it will be winter and I will only ever return with snow on the ground.

Also, Bud Selig is an unrepentent muppet who needs a talking to. It’s on the way.

- Dan

Canyon

Been awhile since I posted anything of note here. Feel bad about it but not that bad since most people still haven’t…

Anyway things are cool at Tufts. Writing for the magazine, finalist for the Fulbright grant I’m hoping for, which is cool. Jimmy Kaiser and Barack Obama came over for the 22nd birthday, that was a pretty neat time too.

I promised some cool interactiveness about the trip Jack and I are taking over spring break. We’ll be in Arizona from March 15th through the 22nd. First few days we’re gonna scoot around and see as many as the local parks as possible. Midweek we’re going to head to the Grand Canyon and camp out for a few nights inside the South Rim. Here’s a Google Map with a summary of our trip – our campsites are fairly close so there’s a lot of room for improvisation, but this is a general idea of what we’re going to be up to. Check it out, leave some comments.

View Larger Map

Hope everybody’s being awesome. What are other spring break plans?

I got it

Forget jobs. Forget adventures. If your Costco palette of Arnold Palmer doesn’t work out, just do what I’m gonna do. VH1 and MTV have provided a solution for these terrible times. I’ve found my calling. I’m gonna be a professional shithead.

hata blockas in full effect

Shithead is now a legitimate career path.

Professional Shithead has only recently become such a lucrative career path, following the resounding success many have found as Professional Trifles.

trifle, trifle, and trifle

harem of trifles

I’m serious; there is an established track from the bottom to the top of trifling. Let’s take a look at New York, for example. New York began life in the public eye on “Flavor of Love” after Flava Flav said enough outrageous things on “The Surreal Life” and had his heart broken badly enough by Brigitte Nielsen to warrant his own show. New York, in turn, said enough outrageous things on “Flavor of Love” to warrant her own show and change VH1’s business model. With the success of “Flavor of Love,” “I love New York,” “Real Chance of Love,” and the countless other phenomenal reality sagas VH1 has brought us, they no longer have to fill their scheduling block with commentary on A-list celebrities by B and C-list celebrities. Now they have a perfect cycle of entertainment. They take pseudo-celebrities and give them television shows with which to make trifles and shitheads into pseudo-celebrities, who eventually get their own shows and begin the process anew.

Here’s the flowchart:

What would we wear around our necks if Flava Flav hadn’t come back into our lives?

new york: your fame nervouses me

the stallionaires

is "I Love Corn Fed" next? keep the trifling coming

People are losing their jobs like crazy. Not shitheads and trifles. Their skills in high demand like never before. Not only is there a career path, the Shithead and Trifle field even has better job security than most fields. Hypothetically, let’s say a trifle doesn’t fall in love with Bret Michaels; she might not. There are options; she’s not going home empty handed and she will get a second chance. There’s forgiving in the trifling business. You get to go “Charm School.” Not only do you continue to get paid as a TV star, you get to be made into a better person by none other than Mo’ Nique or Sharon Osbourne.

Mo' "i'm gon break yo dick off" Nique

Now, as said, the shithead half of the field is still involving and thus there is currently a little less love for shitheads. While self-improvement is a common theme, there is not as of yet a male “Charm School” equivalent in which former contestants return. There is, however, “I Love Money,” currently in it second season. “I Love Money” may be the pinnacle of VH1 reality programming. No one’s pretending to fall in love with each other, no one’s looking for fame, there’s just money and douchebaggery.

Actually, we should hold off on just what the pinnacle of Vh1 reality is. I have a hunch that Tool Academy may yet eclipse “I Love Money.” See, they both have trifles and shitheads, but only “Tool Academy” has them working together towards a common goal. The fact that VH1 is teaming them up is incredible. In fact, it rewards being a bigger shithead, because the more of a shithead you are when you enter the illustrious academy’s doors, the larger your “transformation” will be when you cut the act and start being a normal person. It’s great. The jury’s still out on whether some of these couples feature neither trifles nor shitheads and are in fact hustling everyone else. If that is the case, and I really hope it is, it will only make the show that much better. Somebody’s gotta be doing that. My money’s on Shawn and his revolving door of girlfriends. Seriously, does anyone honestly live his life this way and with this hair?

this man has a pair of scissors tattooed on his stomach, because he’s cut. really.

Apparently this is a legitimate profession. Shawn, Matsuflex, and the other clowns on this show are pioneers of shitheaddom. I hope we see more of them. Then there’s Brody Jenner: professional shithead masquerading as professional bro. I don’t really know what to make of him. It’s pretty cool that he got $10,000 an episode for The Hills, which I can’t really comment on because I’ve never seen it. I’m willing to bet that he did not do $10,000 of work in every episode, though. Anyway, it’s even better that he now has his own show, in which he is actively recruiting and molding the shitheads of tomorrow. Again, job security. MTV really took care of this guy and is proudly milking this minor curiosity for all he’s worth. And why shouldn’t they? He’s so sweet, he has name tattooed on himself. All the same, Brody is inspiring. Everyone’s getting laid off, but not this guy.  People are creating jobs for him; people are actively fighting to be his friend in the hope that some of his shining shithead example will rub off on them. If I only had the same shithead ability he does. Then I’d be set for life. I’d make bank, I’d love in a sweet house with a bunch of dudes like myself, and I’d get my fifteen minutes. What’s not to like? For any questions regarding “Bromance,” I refer you to this list.

oh yeah

I’ve just spent 17 years in school only to find that Liberal Arts majors are not in demand. I’m optimistic, though. Shitheads are in high demand and the necessary skills are few and easily attainable. I just need to up my tat coverage, grow some outrageous flow, invest in gaudy timekeeping accessories, and work on my hustling abilities. Can’t be that hard, so who’s with me?

On the Genealogy of Municipal

To find a chorus

It takes a thesaurus

To describe this great man Reid

And how he sucks at guitar indeed

- prekambrian, “Ode to Barnett, Part 1” (2003)

How do you define the word Municipal?

Municipal refers to a physical location—the parking lot in which we hung out in high school. We call ourselves Municipal, or the Municipals, as well. One might easily leave the question at that.

But I think the idea of Municipal runs deeper than the definitions above. It consists of our rules of engagement for the high school social scene. Indeed, Brant, before going undercover, invoked the notion of Municipal values in the Wilton Girl Debates of Summer After Freshman Year (that infamous chat room). Yet we had never discussed Municipal values before that incident (nor after).

What are these values? In Brant’s eyes, they are negative: rejection and ridicule of other social groups, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, etc. His was/is a moralistic outlook concerned with the institution of Bans and criticism of others’ behavior. It must hereby be noted that we fucking love Brant and miss him and this is by no means a judgment of his character. Nevertheless, we must ask ourselves why he has stopped even communicating with us for over a year now.  I am sure opinions vary widely on the matter.

I disagreed with Brant’s idea of Municipal. It is too extreme. We were not ascetics and never would be. We spent a great deal of time in high school trying to obtain and drink spaghetti (alcohol) a la Superbad. Any concept of Municipal based upon particular moral positions did not hold in high school and certainly failed beyond it. Moral values are what typically distinguish groups from one another. So, then, were we just like any other high school clique?

What are Municipal values?

Brant’s obsession with ridicule—the other part of Municipal, in his view—comes closer to my conception of the term. Here I will endeavor (and probably fail) to set Municipal apart from your average band of high school misfits. Although mockery of other social groups is an integral ritual of any high school clique, Municipal took it a step further. We broadcast it to the school, via prekambrian and our blogs. We didn’t care what people thought of us. We set aside concern for our social status and made fun of most kids in our school. (Nowadays we suffer an utter famine of party invites but who gives a fuck)

What is more, our attacks weren’t personal. Calanca notwithstanding, Reid Barnett, our most frequent target, had done very little to provoke our disdain. He was actually a pretty nice kid, though he was a douchebag. We weren’t searching for personal triumphs or pushing any agenda with our humor. We just liked making fun of everyone & everything.

Another feature that I must bring to the fore is what I see as the Philosophy of Municipal: /\ or “Don’t Care.” This oft-repeated refrain, coined by Roath (I think), became a central feature of Municipal culture. Akin to the “whatever” or “nevermind” of bygone eras, Don’t Care encapsulates our commitment to not taking ourselves too seriously.

In high school, people who took themselves too seriously bothered us. We did not hold personal grudges; instead we targeted people who cared too much about themselves, like Barnett, the Mormons, Luhtala, or Corona. Moreover, we were opposed to the social structures and status that seemed to define the lives of so many others. We mocked the concept of popularity and refused to try to fit in with kids outside of our group.

As one would suspect, we were pretty tough on each other when it came to issues of popularity and girls. When a Municipal tried hanging out with another group of kids, he would typically come under fire from fellow Municipals. And if a Municipal had tried to, say, watch a girl who he likes run at her track meet, he would have met a barrage of jokes upon jokes upon his return to the group. Nevertheless, this ironic hostility toward integration helped define our group.

I’m going to leave the discussion at that. Mostly because I have no  idea where I am going with this post. Municipal remains undefined.

Blades: Not Manly

Some mothafuckas always try to ice skate up a hill

I forget how old I was when I graduated from being bathed to taking my own showers. Probably because I was too young to remember anything at that age, but I have no recollection of being told exactly what to do with the knobs, washing myself, which lotions went where, and so forth. It was possibly a frightening experience. I can see that being the case. My first memory of showering certainly fits that profile.

I used to shower in my parents bathroom on the other side of the house as opposed to the bathroom which would eventually be shared by my brother and me. I’m not sure why this inconvenience was undertaken, but parents have good reasons for everything. In any event, I was doing my thing, going through my routine, no big deal. There was a seat built-in to the shower bay that I liked to sit in and contemplate the larger issues that haunt eight-year olds, such as the relative merits of writing in script or alternatives to broccoli at dinner. On this particular day, I took to inspecting my surroundings in the shower. There were all the usual shampoos and body washes docked in the shower caddy. There was a bar of soap tucked in to the wall. To my left was the shower door, held in place by a large metal bar that spanned both walls. It looked pretty big from that seat a couple feet below. Could anything, I wondered, be on top of that bar? Being eight and inquisitive (the latter generally following the former), I climbed the wet seat and peeked on top of the bar. Sure enough, there it was: a pink razor laying in wait for someone to use. Clearly there was only one man for the job.

What happened next is fairly predictable. Knowing the general motion of shaving and that it was what adults did (and clearly wanting to be an adult), I took the blade to my face. There were maybe ten seconds before I noticed the blood on my hand dripping on to the shower floor. Success had not been achieved. Mommy had to be requisitioned to clean up both my face and my ego. The shower and the razor escaped scot-free. Lesson learned and band-aid applied, my life went on completely razor-less.

I’m sure this isn’t the sort of thing that happens to young boys across the nation; it was hardly a typical experience. Nonetheless, it shaped me. I am inexorably different because of it. For one, I won’t use my mother’s razor anymore. That much was obvious. Digging deeper however, it is one of the many reasons why I buck the popular trend and shave my face with an electric rather than a live blade. Seriously, there are numerous reasons. I understand I am in the vast minority on this point, and have weathered my fair share of befuddled looks from men who wouldn’t dream of letting anything other than three metal blades touch their face. That’s fine. I get it. Their loss.

As I see it, there is really no argument in favor of using traditional razor blades to groom a man’s face. There are only a myriad irritating and bothersome aspects that come with employing such arcane tactics. No glory, no elevated machismo. Only frustration, minor danger, and more trouble than grooming is worth. Filling the sink with water? Carefully applying shaving cream across the face just to be removed with equal precision? It’s all a big messy process, observed only because it’s “the thing to do” for some. It might be a thing to do, certainly. As far as I’m concerned, the thing to do is to have a cleanly shaven face with as little fuss as possible. That necessitates the use of an electric.

More integral to this endorsement is not the ease with which one shaves electrically, but the arbitrary notion of masculinity through blades. Certain aspects of society lend themselves more easily to one gender or the other. Men are more apt to go to war, to undertake large construction projects, to grill meat. Similarly, women are more apt to use ellipticals, wear tight clothes, or put on lipstick. Nothing about the act of shaving is as inherently masculine as wearing construction boots. There is a process, as has been established. Hot water on the face, plug the drain, shaving cream on, slow smooth strokes. It’s all a process. Somehow, this has been misconstrued to the point where procedure attached with nostalgia has become a masculine act. This is hardly how social norms are reached. There’s nothing masculine about manually shaving, just the romantic thought of it. If everything antiquated and tedious was considered part of a man’s machismo, where would we be as a society? Moreover, would individuals be partaking in such painstaking activities for the sake of being masculine, convenience be damned? That would be an excellent way to live as a colonial reenactor or as an anarchist bent on reversing technological trends of society thousands of years. I would like to believe that as a people, we have hurdled such obstacles. The notion of partaking in something because hey, we used to do it and it was moderately cool back then, that doesn’t make one iota of sense. If you believe that, saddle up and go watch a movie at the drive-in movie theatre in your backyard; Lord knows the rest of the world doesn’t want one.

Safety razors served their purpose back when they were conceived. Facial hair could be removed easily and (relatively) painlessly. No mess, no problem. Electric innovation streamlined, simplified, and further powered this process to a point where no argument can be made. Not one of utility, or of tradition, or masculinity, or frugality, or cleanliness. There is no clear cut argument favoring the manual razor blade over its electric counterpart. So plug in today and cut with the wanton glee of someone who knows his or her face will only become less hirstute and not more bloody and painful. You’ll feel fuckin’ regular.

Cookies

Yo, there’s some cool stuff on the internet.

More serious post to come soon, had to share this though.