Pure Twaddle

It is getting late and I have to work early the next morning, so I say goodbye to my bowling buddies and go to the bar to settle my tab with Pete the Bartender.

“Done already?” he says through yellow teeth.

I had explained my early work situation enough times that night to change my mind. What’s one more beer? Pete seems entertaining enough. I mean, with silver mutton chops and a red vest who wouldn’t be? I order a cheap macro.

In between ten other customers and conversations Pete manages to tell me a story. “So you know, some guy come in here four months ago and I says, ‘Hey! I know you!’ And he says ‘Yeah, I’m part of that band…’ Aw, what’s it called? You know it…”

Still waiting for clues, I say, “I don’t think I do.”

“Yeah, you do!” Pete makes two fists with his hands and starts pumping them back and forth from his body. He says with no tune, “I like to move it. I like to move it.”

I pull the name from the deep recesses. “Reel 2 Real?” That was one of the first songs I downloaded off of an FTP site back in 1996, thus beginning a long career of never paying for music.

“Yeah! That’s it! He come in here four months ago. Real nice guy. Buys everyone drinks.”

“One more beer,” I think, “and this will start making more sense.”

A couple beers later, a tall black man in his mid-forties appears beside me and orders four pitchers of Bud. He’s flanked by two young, attractive women who are showing more skin than not.

From the other end of the bar Pete lights up and points frantically at the man standing next to me. He yells “That’s him! That’s that’s the guy! I like to move it!”

I look up and behold a bald, aging man in a tan suit. Play it cool. “Reel 2 Real?” I ask, as if I knew all along.

“Yeeeah…” His voice was an octave lower than mine and twice as slow. “Hey, Pete. Buy this guy a beer.” He points to me. “And this guy,” he points to someone else.

“Uh, thanks man,” I say as he collects his pitchers and leaves. I call out after him, “Oh, and I dig your work!” I refrain from mentioning his role in my early piracy.

Pete comes up with the beer. “A nice guy. A nice guy,” he says.

Popularity: 12% [?]

I now believe I have found the strangest site on the internet.

Where an adult can be a kid?

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This is why I’m glad I don’t own a television. We’re quickly becoming a nation of dangerous attention whores.

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As we all know, Kanye is a self-absorbed waterhead without a thought filter on his mouth. His stupid interruption of the WMA awards revealed his coarseness. Everything that could have been said about the incident has been said (though some more insightful than others) and, barring any more ridiculous outbursts from Kanye, this matter should die a quick death.

What is noteworthy, however, is the complete inability to find the actual video on YouTube. A simple search reveals pages and pages of what seem to be the actual video, but then turn out to be vapid commentaries by anonymous people from across the blogos-net. Each one talks about how rude the interruption was and how he/she is outraged by Kanye’s actions. And yet, here we have thousands of people using this very transgression to further their own internet stardom. So much so that even the original video isn’t even readily available on the most popular video sharing site.

We’re only a few years away from Ruby Rhod, folks.

There’s only one thing that can keep growing without nourishment: the human ego.

—Marshall Lumsden

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I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it looks like the central source for hipster satire and transplant hate, diehipster.com, is dead. Is this a nefarious plan perpetrated by some hipster who has finally had it? Has Brooklyn been nuked from orbit and I’m only just finding out? What is the American Apparel connection?

Beware those who poke fun at the weak-willed and poorly dressed of Brooklyn. They, too, will come for you.

(Or perhaps their hosting company has just hit the “website off” button.)

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Actual Craigslist sublet title:

$550 very specious Brooklyn apt. to share

At least they’re honest, just like my previous spammer.

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The Washington Post has a front-page story complaining about the low quality of food in Paris. What are well-to-do Washington Post journalists to do? I say, let them eat cake!

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A recent SPAM message in it’s entirety:

phatbartimaeus@clin02.cassiopea.it
to me

subject: Watch her come over and over

Why lie? I need money.

I admire his honesty, so I sent him $1,000 by wire transfer.

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Let me first preface this clip with a few facts:
1. I like Stephen Colbert
2. I believe P. Obama is eligible to be the US president
3. I believe in honesty

Now regard the following video:

It’s shocking how many times Colbert is cut into Taitz’s conversations. It’s not just basic interruption, a good ear would catch that most of her words have been edited out so that the only voice is Stephen’s. Sure it’s satire, but to invite someone on and make them a foil by post-production is disgusting and cheap. I thought better of you, Colbert. You don’t win arguments by erecting a straw man.

Popularity: 8% [?]