Places Where Nobody Would Find You: Magadan

"Magadan is Definately Not a Tourist Destination"
"The buildings in Magadan are mostly typically Russian highrise buildings. The pavements and streets are hardly ever cleaned and are revoltingly dirty. In summertime there are the odd flowers grown in front of some buildings and in little parks."

Wikipedia:
"Magadan is very isolated. The nearest major city is Yakutsk, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) away via an unpaved road ['The Road of Bones'] which is best used in the winter, especially since there is no bridge over the Lena River at Yakutsk."

Cycling Home from Siberia:
"To Russians, Magadan was known as the “gateway to hell” - over 3 million
Russians who arrived at this port were sent to work to their deaths in the
icy gold mines of Kolyma."

Magadan is cold.

I have been published by Six Sentences

Two Penises.
Go there and vote for it - vote 'six-tacular!'

The lowest you can vote is 'good' which is still a compliment, although in this cntext it probably means 'meh.' Great is only neutral. Six-tacular is the only indication of a positive reaction.
Thank you.

This was my Christmas Card

I think it is the best Christmas Card I have ever made.

I have made very few Christmas Cards.

I wrote an email address on a post-it note and lost it

Does anybody else get no-reason boners when they ride on airplanes? Does public transit make you horny?

I am drinking an Arizona Iced Tea. Big gulp in a can. Great Buy 99 cents. Tommy is here and he was shopping today. My brother, Tommy.

Christmas

photo by Michele Abeles

Happy Holidays from Adam + Ramin

End of the Year Lists 2

List of Foods for 2008

6) Veggie Patty Sub from Subway
5) Burrito from Curly's
4) Hamburger in Canada
3) Health Grain Bagels from Murray's
2) Soups from Westville
1) Coffee from Trader Joe's

How to fire a proffessional athlete

The Dallas stars say Sean Avery will not be returning to their team. All he said was something about sloppy seconds and Elisha Cuthbert. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. This crisis seems manufactured.
The real problem might have more to do with him interning at vogue and acting like a total twat all the time.

Hungry to Recieve Lots of Cash

Some guy named 'Adam Humphreys' emailed me.

My reply: "fuck off"

He wrote me back: "good luck trying to get ahead with that attitude."

-

I picked up my tickets last night with L and had a bacon cheeseburger.

I thought they would be fake.

I scanned in at the gate and the man's little device made a green light, and I saw the word 'go' with a check mark on it's little screen. That was nice.

TM seems bogus

David Lynch is into transcendental meditation. Here he is, interviewed, being pushed, and acting cranky. David Lynch is a successful artist, and has been called, by Tom McCarthy (winner of the believer book award and co-founder of the international necro-nautical society), ‘one of the most interesting artists.’*

*Not an exact quote

I downloaded ‘Catching the Big Fish’ after learning it will be turned into a mini-series that will be web-broadcast. I liked listening to Lynch, and thought: ‘yes, I should learn to ‘plunge inward’ and ‘expand my container’ and ‘experience the unified field.’’

I wrote them, and then called them – the TM people. At first they emailed me ad copy, which spoke of a free orientation meeting. If I chose to go on there would be eight intensive lessons. They gave a phone number to call to book my orientation, and I did. A woman answered the phone, and said that there they had taught 38000 New Yorkers since inception. She went back over the part about the intensive lessons and mentioned a personalized mantra that I would receive from the teachers. I was told that the ‘teaching’ would cost $2000. I told her that this dissapointed me immensely.

After hanging up, I googled something like ‘Transcendental Meditation Bogus’ and came up with a lot of results – people who said it wasn’t worth shit. People who felt exploited. I read about the guru guy, Maharishi Mehish Yogi, and learned that he makes a lot of money off of the ‘teaching.’ I learned that the 'personalized mantra' which you are to tell to nobody else, is not really personalized. They give everyone the same mantra.

This makes Lynch an even more interesting figure to me. How can a director who obviously privileges artistic integrity over money choose a philosophical/spiritual practice that obviously privileges money over other concerns (increasing world peace)?

Is there no dissonance?

It takes a ‘suspension of disbelief’ to think that you are not being exploited a little bit when you pay so much to be enlightened. You have to either be naïve, or good at denial to block out the negative notion ‘this might just be a profitable cult.’

Maybe you can think: ‘Everything costs money, even inner peace.’ If that is the case you probably have money and little sympathy for people that do not.

The Young Entrepreneur Part 3

He walks through the super-target in his own home town
and spots a pair of guitar hero underwear
in a guitar hero tin container, shaped like a fat guitar

The young entrepreneur walks past a wall of drills
And has an overwhelming urge to drill
But they are unplugged, and nothing happens when he presses the buttons
The young entrepreneur walks away from the drill wall

The friends he used to know are all like him now
They are entrepreneurial - most of them have business ideas
The young entrepreneur tells them the ideas sound great

But there is doubt
they are getting fatter and more weary every year
when they are alone in their rooms they feel like they need a break
they dream of foreign adventures, and Thailand

They feel scared and anxious and drunk at night
They will need wives soon

The Young Entrepreneur Part 2

Some things people make up about themselves
And they feel better when they can convince everybody of these things
Things like: I am a powerful and intelligent person
Women love me, and I am very successful or will be soon

----

Things like: ‘I am a better and more equipped human being
Than the person beside me, or the person beside that person
I am not normal, or boring, or limited
I am unique and special and powerful and I fuck women as proof

----

Some people think these things
But there will always be a person out there who won’t be convinced
Who’ll say: Whatever
To friends after meeting the Young Entrepreneur

----

The young entrepreneur can beat them, though
He can call them haters 'They are inferior to me,'
says the the Young Entrepreneur
Who by some combination of genetics and social conditioning

Fucking rules.

----

I am a good person, or will be a good person
And will not be depressed, I will draw pay and have
An integrated spiritual life

The Young Entrepreneur Part 1

He likes the idea of himself as an aggressive business
‘I will fuck you out of money if you are stupid
that is your own damn fault
I am trying to run a business here.”

And this is the law of the jungle
He thinks, As clear and as old as the sky

I sort of take issue but feel helpless to stop him,
or stop caring because I am no longer near him.

Steve Young, Brigham Young, The Swede, and Chip Lambert

Ann Woo's Photos at tiny vices are calming.


Proposition 8 is wack, mormons are sort of wack (except for my cousins!), Steve Young is not wack (though Mormon), but is a descendant of Brigham Young, who is a historical Mormon Leader with 20 wives, which is wack.

I think some people have genetic predisposition to leadership. He must have had good genes, Brigham Young, to have become the leader of the Mormon church. He was probably tall and athletic. How does that work, then, that people who are tall and athletic make more money on average and generally achieve more.

This is sociologically proven. Each inch on your height is exquivalent to like, 2000 a year in salary. Most of these big leaders probably never had to be physical, like Steve Young.

But people look up to them or follow them regardless. I will argue that these people suffer less form depression and failure. They probably have higher self esteem, which is reinforced by their subjects. A literary character who is a big leader is 'The Swede,' from American Pastoral, who suffers a 'downfall' which is analogous or stands for an American Downfall. I like the Swede, but these big leaders are my spiritual enemy.

I liked the Corrections because I feel like Chip sometimes. Chip is smart, but he is an academic and a loser. He is depressed, too. I think he is funny. He is analogous or symbolic of American Academic/Cultural Downfall.

Brigham Young: People subjugated themselves to him, or wanted to, for whatever reason. And those are the same leader genes, physical characteristics that made Steve a good football player.

Also, and aside. Mormons don't really believe in what that Joseph Smith said. He was a liar, and he was full of shit. Watch southpark. It would take phenomenal denial to not see that. But I understand the draws of the church like any religion.

Religion can provide meaning, identity, purpose. It can provide friends. Are religions just like scenes? Except they're harder to leave?

Yes, a religion is like the best scene you could ever be a part of, where the people are nice, and care about you. But they are not so creative, maybe.

Corner Theory

By: Adam Humphreys
Here are some things I have thought while in New York, concerning what it’s like to live in New York, what this says about people who move here, and the world at large. These could also be called: failed personal philosophies of urban life.

If you are new to the city I suggest you read ‘The Human Zoo,’ by Desmond Morris. The central argument of the book is that human beings in a city behave in predictable and unhealthy patterns analogous to animals in captivity.

At one time I thought that this book was the key to understanding not only my experience of moving here and reorienting myself, but the people in the city at large. I liked to think that the people around me were ‘animals.’ That I was an ‘animal’ in competition with other ‘animals’ for dominance, rewards, money, whatever.

To thrive in the ‘animal city’ one must reoriented oneself to be maximally competitive. One must take social obligations seriously, and manage their contact list aggressively. I let that go very quickly because I felt it was wrong in my guts and balls.

Now to the Midnight Cowboy narrative/thesis: whereby young, optimistic people move to New York with ideas and lose those ideas and leave. Midnight Cowboy is pitch black jaded. I would get into this one if you’ve been around for a couple of years and don’t see yourself really ‘making it’ as you had previously envisioned. It’s funny to look at yourself and laugh at the notions you may have had once, and it might even allow you to put some distance between your new healing self and your old depressive self.

Now I’m proposing something I call ‘Corner Theory.’ It is very mysterious.

When you Google map Manhattan, you will see it is a grid. The streets run in rectangles, and the apartments buildings within are squares. The apartments themselves are usually little boxy things, and sometimes the bathrooms have no sink. Even on the sidewalk there are squares of pavement. This makes the city pretty efficient to maneuver, but it also means that there are tons of corners, and that any time you are here, when you look around and really take things in, you will always find yourself in or on some form of corner. Cornered, as it is.

With corner theory we can better accept instances wherein people behave like cornered animals.

Things to Escape To

Video Lottery Terminals in a barroom, Drayton Valley, Alberta

Fantasy of being wealthy, famous + respected

Fantasy of being celebrated 'posthumously'

Fantasy of stumbling onto a 'period of unrestrained creativity'

Fantasy of moving to Paris, Berlin, Prague, Mexico City, Cabin in the woods somewhere

Fantasy of stumbling upon great business idea

Notion that free will is bogus and therefor I am not accountable for my failures; or that free will is only 23% causal in 'life' and 'career' and I can be forgiven for wandering and not planning well enough ahead

Vacations to Paris, Berlin, Prague, Mexico, Miami, Art Basel, cabin in the woods somewhere

Drug use

Blogs, Novels, Poetry, Short Story collections, Films, New Yorker magazine, music criticism

Notion that I am getting better at planning ahead

Notion that I have 'achieved' a mutually supportive relationship with good, smart, creative, understanding woman

Games of chasing cat around apartment, meowing at cat, tackling cat, listening to cat meow, and getting bitten by cat

Movie theatre

Work at the store

Ideas for structure of novel

Short stories I am writing, ideas about 'style'

Drinks with friends

The intense, dull pain of flossing for the first time in two months and coating the string with bright blood

Blog posts

Hockey statistics, scoring race in the NHL

Music I will vouch for

www.bronxcheercomedy.com

Memories of old friends that I have not grown apart from, times when I have acted 'out of character'

Feelings of accomplishment with regards to the 150,000 trees I planted last summer and the nearly 500,000 I have planted in my life thus far

Notions of limited free will with regards to my future career and literary prospects

Notion that a lot of people could be jealous of my life

Notion that things end up working out in the end, how they work out we don't know, but that my 'wanderlust' could be re-defined as 'integrity' or 'lack of ability to compromise,' which can be interpreted positively

Intervention

Notion that a community college would probably hire me to teach, notion that there are a bunch of things that I could do that might be awesome and that I just haven't thought of yet

Hockey game tomorrow at Madison Square Garden and the smell of a hockey arena and the sounds of the echo in a hockey arena

Interview: Jonathan Owen Black

Jonathan Owen Black is a photographer with a young wife that he shoots naked. He first published photos of her in a hospital bed all beat up after she fell off her bike.

In their august photo issue Vice ran a section called ‘FOUR NAKED WOMEN WHO ARE NOT MY WIFE AND ONE NAKED WOMAN WHO IS.’ Three months later it is still near the top of the ‘most emailed’ section of Vice's website.

Jonathan Owen Black is a close friend. I met him at a skate park in Vancouver 8 years ago, and stayed with his family in Scotland when I was 18. He is Scottish. He is about 28. I interviewed him.

People often blurb, esp. contemporary photo people, things like: ____’s work is built on the relationships between the photographer and his/her subject.

Anonynous: dont trust no bitch with no titties. Like a small prepubesent boy.

Now I think: if we are going to call this ‘work,’ then, we can’t discount the process of the location of and bonding with people that are aesthetically agreeable. The manufacturing of ‘the relationships.’ Or: ‘networking.’ This kind of troubles me because it makes the ‘relationships’ kind of forced.

I think your photos of Laura could be blurbed this way, but to call your relationship to your wife ‘work’ is absurd.

It’s actually a little bit like a diary. The whole process of taking photos is enjoyable. There is something satisfying of recording your life like that. Maybe L’s like my muse or something. I enjoy the process of shooting her and printing the photographs and, you know.

I just like to do it.

Anonymous: what a lucky lucky man Jonathan is.

Who came up with the name, ‘Five pictures of naked women…’? To me it is aggravating in like, a big brotherly way. It presents a fantasy that is unrealistic and makes (I am projecting, because I know you and am not envious of you) people feel like their lives are hopelessly shitty in comparison to yours.


I think we came up with it together.

Do you want people to be jealous of you?

I think it’s not 100% deliberate, but I think generally creating a fantasy around your work and stoking people’s imaginations about your work is probably good for any artist or photographer. This maybe portrays me to whoever saw it as, ‘some young lucky guy who’s married to a beautiful woman shooting stunning women in a big new york apartment.’ It is a fantasy, though. The apartment was in Bed Stuy. Those girls weren’t out there lounging naked all of the time.

Anonymous: so hot i wan to have sex now!!!!!!! i am soooooooooooo desberate

Do you want to debunk your fantasy life?
I don’t know. Maybe that’s a bad idea.

I mean. That is my life. I managed to have those women take off their clothes for no money. That’s kind of satisfying in a way. I think beautiful women should always have the opportunity to be shot naked. I think most women with beautiful bodies want to be able to show them off at some point.

Anonymous: vice makes me feel empty

I think a lot of people have a problem with vice. On their message boards people express a range of negative emotions: they feel bad, mad, envious or contemptuous.

Do you think that they know that; that they’re trying to make you feel bad?

Probably not.

I think they’ve stumbled into something that people want and are trying to give that to them. I think that that they want to stoke controversy. Magazines in general are a conduit between consumer and advertiser. They do that by selling products by creative ways.

There are independent publications that really hold their integrity - to what they want to say - believe in what they are doing, but they generally fail and don’t make money. Even the New Yorker has been in the red forever. But it bolsters Conde Nast’s esteem, so that’s part of their agenda.




disposablecity: haha. you all are so pathetic.
these women are all beautiful, these photos are beautiful, quit trying to talk yourself out of being depressed that you'll never have anything close.

What’s your agenda?
I want to have my work published.

Have you ever thought about strangers masturbating to pictures you took, or pictures of your wife? And if so, does it thrill you a little? Or does it make you feel neutral/nothing at all?

The first time I thought about that was when I saw the comments, like: ‘I’m gonna go masturbate right now.’ I never thought about people masturbating to my wife. I don’t think the pictures are that overtly sexual.

cantstopwinning: Your wife is an understanding woman to take her clothes off for this lot.

I don’t think people would masturbate to those pictures either. I think they would segue into more hardcore porn sites – I think those pictures might make you horny and want to go to a porn site.

Yeah – there’s a lot more explicit stuff out there.

It’s been at the top of the most emailed section for a long time now. Did you expect that people would react so strongly?

I thought people wouldn’t care. Terry R. Ryan and Kern have shot this kind of stuff for Vice for a long time. But then again, maybe the title is a little bit more exciting. I had no forethought when I shot it.

What is your real job? Tell me about the last few months?

I worked in the photo department at Men’s Vogue, I was pretty much the assistant to the photo director. They went under two weeks ago. It has to do with the recession. Now I have no job.

Anonymous: Lucky bastard is just showing off now.

Are you going to try to shoot all the time now?

I’m happy now that I have a lot more time to work on my own projects.

Would you rather people see your work in a commercial/pornographic or more of an art Context?

I don’t think there is too much of a difference between artistic and commercial photography anymore. I suppose if you just do it for yourself then it’s considered art. But then you find an outlet for it, and get money for it, and then it’s not so clear who you’re doing it for anymore.



Anonymous: Ok, seriously, what the fuck, do I have the longest breasts in the world or what? After looking at these I feel like one of the mothers from a trade aid advert. How the fuck does this work, I’m only 17, they, huh? so confuseddd!!!!!!

What about the girls out there who feel bad about themselves?
The only girl breasts in those pictures are Laura P’s (the girl leaning against the window), Jen’s - who is full frontal, and Laura’s - my wife. Laura has like, zero breasts. You can’t say if they are perfect or not. They are small. Laura P’s you can’t tell. They’re from the side.

Jennifer I think is one in a million so far as how good her breasts look. I wouldn’t feel bad about that.

I’m just lucky enough to have a model with breasts like hers.

More girls probably look like the seventeen year old in the comments section, with her long breasts.

'Holong' is Korean for 'Tiger'

I like the way the television noise comes through so clearly in this video. This is me: pretty happy.

You Fuckig Did It, Ray Scapinello

A referee never gets any attention until they fuck up. A referee is a leveled person. Nobody likes the referee.

Below the referee is the linesman. Do you know what he does? He calls icing and offside. He drops the puck. He puts the net back on it's moorings when it gets knocked off. It is a munson of a job. Nobody likes referees and nobody cares about a linesman. They are munson-men.

Yesterday I learned that a linesman has been inducted into the NHL hall of fame. I can't help but feel good about it.

I started to wonder about Ray Scapinello. Here you have a guy who has spent his life lines-manning. Guy is 62 years old and has been in more NHL games than anyone. He has been touring around North America forever. I wonder what his schedule is like. Where he works most often.

Do they fly him around? Or do they make him take the greyhound. If the execs at NHL were making the decision I am sure it would be a difficult one. Revenue is a priority. I am sure Scapinello was humiliated a few times on greyhound buses in the early nineteen nineties. I am sure he felt like nobody cared about him and he wasn't important or worth shit to the world at certain points in his life. Who wouldn't? as a munson man. He just thought to himself: 'this is my life, and that's the way things are.' Then he went about his days doing his job. Putting the net back on it's moorings and dodging stray pucks.



I am sure he was hit with thousands of 'clearing attempts.' I've italicized that because Ray will sometimes have wondered if the player was actually trying to shoot the puck at him just to hurt him.

I'll bet he accidentally blocked one of these, once or twice, and the other team benefited by his error, and scored. And Scapinello thought to himself: 'you're such an idiot, Ray' as the players scoffed at him and the coach screamed. 'All you need to do is drop the puck and call offside and stay out of the way of the puck, and you can;t even do that. God.'

Imagine how often he was screamed at by angry coaches like Mike Keenan? Then he thought: 'oh well, nothing here or there. That's the breaks I guess. Sometimes things won't work out the way you want them to.' Because that's the kind of guy Ray Scapinello is. He doesn't dwell. He suffers stoically. That's why he's in the HHOF.

The article's heading says, It's Unanimous: Scapinello Was the Best. They're stretching it: Ray knows. He probably thinks this is all kind of silly. The Best at what? The best at dropping the puck and calling icing and filling the holes in the ice with water bottles during commercial break.

Why wasn't he ever a ref? Did he never want that? Or was he not good enough? Did he feel that he had a special calling in lines-manning?

+++

Here is a munson who worked hard and didn't complain and is getting a little bit of recognition. I'm not going to act like this is some gigantic accomplishment. I'm not going to pretend like a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame is like, sacred or anything. It's not that meaningful.

But it is something.

In the future, some Canadian kid will walk through the HHOF and say, 'Daddy, who's that?' And the Dad will say, 'a linesman I guess,' and then he'll walk up to the plaque and say, 'says here his name is Ray Scapinello.' And his kid will look up at the linesman's big cardboard cutout, thinking about whatever kids will be thinking about then - a new toy?

And that kid may or may not grow up dreaming of being a hockey player. He may keep dreaming into his late teens, but he might not be good enough. But he'll be still very much in love with the sport; making money by reffing peewee games as I did in my mid teens.

He won't be able to go to college. In his 20's he may or may not ref junior hockey games. The world won't make any sense to him. Hockey will endure.

And maybe he'll be a linesman one day, and the name Scapinello will resound in his head forever like an ohm.

Kathy Lo

My friend Kathy has been interviewed for this thing.

When I first moved to New York to go to school and my Dad payed my rent, Kathy moved out from Vancouver. She had a camera and a duffle bag full of clothes, and probably like, a thousand bucks - she wanted to be a photographer. She asked if she could stay with me, and I said sure.

We slept in the same bed for a month, until my roommates asked me to make her leave. It was an 'uncool apartment situation.' We never 'did it,' which was kind of special. I doubt many straight people will have that experience.

We went to lots of parties and she took pictures of kids having fun and put them on her blog. It was called kathyisyourfriend. I am pretty sure she's 'over' that now.

I met her mom.

She runs the supreme blog, where I talk about the music I like, and nobody seems to comment or care.

She works for this magazine.

She's a busy, hard-working city girl.

Kathy is one of these 'downtown cool' creative types that corporations will pay for being in advertisements. They'll be like: 'we need cool downtown creative girls for our thing.' And then they'll be like: 'what about that Kathy girl?'

She loves cats.

Election Day Self Fulfillment Projections

I am pretty sure BO is going to win, and that makes me ecstatic. If you had told me that last January. Well, I would have been surprised, because usually political things do not work themselves out to my likings. I took a stand on BO early, and now there is a vacancy opening up inside me.

I think about it. The 'election' has taken up a lot of my consciousness in the past year and a bit. I would say that 23% of my thoughts are aimed towards meeting opposing arguments with counterarguments, towards having reasonable words to say.

I would also say that 73% of my internet time has been dedicated to reading political stories. I read DailyBeast, New Republic, fivethirty eight, and sometimes realclear or huffpo. I look at it all day at work and at home.

23% thoughts, and 73% reading. This is a lot of my consciousness, my mental life.

I worry what will happen to that consciousness after 'election.' Surely it will be a big relief. But also...

What will I do on the computer with the 73% of the time I spend there now? Where will that time go?

I hope it does not go to porn. I hope it goes towards things like 'networking' and 'research.' But I think it will go to 'porn' and probably 'criticism,' which, I think, is almost worse than porn. Porn is bad for somebody's sex drive, and criticism is bad for somebody's art drive. Criticism makes everything beautiful look suspect.

Too much analysis of beautiful things and you're fucked. You'll become anhedonic. Art will stop giving you as much pleasure as it is capable of.

Maybe I will get off of my computer more, or write more. I think I will have more mental energy to write short stories. And maybe I will submit them to publications.

I will also have 23% room for new thoughts/feelings. Mental life, I mean. What will fill that? I would like to tell you that I will find something productive to fill that, but I am not fully in control of my thoughts/feelings, or else I would be happy all of the time and probably working for a good company with benefits.

I will try to take an extra day at work. Make it four days of retail a week. And then I will go to a meeting about transcendental meditation. I'll kill time meditating every morning and every night. That's a good way to pass time. It's not destructive.

I got David Lynch's book on Itunes, and I listen to it when I walk to work. 'There are all kinds of fish out there, ones for business, ones for art...' 'I call that anger the suffocating rubber clown suit of the mind...' 'And when you get it, it's not a goofy happiness, it's a thick beauty...'

I like listening to him. I might try this. But is it weird to do that because one of your favorite artists does that? This might bother me. Also: I am afraid that if I go there, to one of the meetings, I will find a bunch of people who are also in pain and dealing with feelings of personal failure, and I will see myself in them. I will identify with them and it will be painful. It will make me feel worse about my life and not better.

Tiger on Obama

The independent in the UK interviews famous black Americans about what Obama means to them and how they will feel about an O presidency, and most of them are really pumped. Except for tiger woods, who uses the opportunity to give a shout out to 'all politicians,' saying how much he admires their ability to think on their feet.

Tiger Woods, Golfer

I've seen him speak. He's extremely articulate, very thoughtful, I'm just impressed at how well, basically all politicians really do, how well they think on their feet. Especially those debates. It's pretty phenomenal to see them get their point across. But I just think that he's really inspired a bunch of people in our country and we'll see what happens down the road.

I don't know what this says about tiger woods. It is interesting that he boils it down to a skill - the ability to think on your feet. He sees a politician as analogous to an athlete, in this way, I guess.

Something ominous in the 'we'll see what happens down the road.' He doesn't have a ton of hope, like the others.

Why is this? Tiger Woods is, after all, the Barack Obama of golf. OH! No, maybe he is angry at being outshined! A black golfer doesn't look so important next to a black president!

I doubt that. Tiger would not be so petty.

Maybe he is afraid of alienating his golf loving republican fan-base. Maybe there are apolitical stipulations in his contract with Nike. I am assuming that golfers are republicans 3 to 1.

Or maybe he has a deep seated loathing for other black people, sees them as inferior and incompetent. This would be the hardest to prove, and probably the most insulting.

Or maybe he is just smart and really weary of all politicians. But still, shouldn't the black guy thing make him happy anyways, even if Obama were kind of a dink? Wouldn't it mean something to him, like the others, in the context of the civil rights movement?

Or maybe he is actually ecstatic about Obama and this just didn't come across in the interview and in the text.

Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer who ever lived, though. You've got to give that to him.

Election Day

People of America. Vote for Obama today.

It is a good idea. Take it from me.

I am a man who knows what it is like to open an email inbox day after day and find nothing but a job search email with a bunch of jobs that don't even seem like real jobs or come from real companies.

I know what it is like to be lonely even when you are around your friends.

I have a job, but the emails keep coming. Every day they get sadder and sadder.

Can you believe that Obama's grandmother died yesterday, the day before he is going to become the first black pres in American history? It's almost too much. If we were to see that in the film, the protagonists primary caregiver succumbing to cancer one day before her spawn wins a general election and becomes a black president, inspiring many in the process, the caregiver dies, we would think it a great contrivance on the part of the screenwriter. We would question the versimilitude of the narrative. It happened though.

Goes to show that a) things that would seem like bullshit could really happen in real life, and that b) those are exactly the kind of things that you WANT to see in movies, because they make more sense, allow one to draw more meaning from events than is there, heighten the emotional impact of a story, etc.

I am reaching on b). There is a bullshit American dream narrative of exceptionalism in a lot of biopic movies, and movies in general. It feels like such a hunk of putrid bullshit. But then someone like O comes around and hey, you have to remember that sometimes god or universe or nature or whatever combination of human will and external force goes for sentimentality even in politics.

And next we get him giving a speech and crying at a rally. First politician to cry since Hillary. I don;t know if I even believed Hil when she was crying or if I thought she was trying to manipulate her femininity and the sensitivity of others. But I believe Barack, like I believed him for that long time, the run up to the general, before he 'broadened' his message.

All politicians are politicians. That is a pure fact. But this guy was like, an avant garde politician. He cut across the grain. He drew attention to the artifice of others simply by the way he spoke and the things he said. He was like a great artist that way. I mean that. And he writes well.

So you may say that there is a character aspect to my endorsement. It is not idolatry. I do not consider him a messiah. I think he is a great leader, and I want to help him.

Elect Obama Tomorrow

Ramin's Reasons For Voting Obama
-symbolic value of black president
-global symbolic value of black president
-indictment of bush era republican party, war on iraq
-positive vibes
-more discipline, economic intelligence
-let's start over america feelings
-america might not be so bad after all feelings
-vote for positive not negative reasons feelings
-blown away by race speech
-only guy who told the truth all through the last eight years
-not hostile to science, culture, academics, knowledge
-intellectualism is not akin to 'falsity' in obamadeology
-tired of culture war
-Palin representing the antithesis of Obama message, culture war, antagonist to reason, education, intelligence, under the guise of authenticity
-speech on race blew me away
-McCain not a maverick, not intelligent, has proven that he will not stick to his 'guns,' talks about guns far too frequently, speaks of presidency as akin to a war, asks for permission to go on 'one last mission,' a hostile stance to an increasingly hostile world, not a good stance, or a kind stance, or a virtuous stance
-no longer possible to believe in goodness of supply side economics
-endorsed by economist, (Adam adds: Ramin Loves the Economist)

Nobody with a good reason to vote otherwise. The idea that you can decieve 'everyday' and 'working' people in 'real' America into believing they are voting for down to earth authnticity, even when they are voting out of their own economic interests is not good. This is called false consciousness.

Sarah Palin is bad for America. For real America and fake America. I am convinced.

Today I am going to make phone calls for the Obama campaign. I mean it this time. I am in a melioratic fervor right now. Melioratic is not such a bad thing. It is better than the opposite, which is fatalism. If you can say to me that no we can't do any good in this world, and we are doomed to human folly and people acting stupidly and violently, and people being greedy and anti-social and ruled by anger at nothing in particular; if you told me all of this I might say, yes, I understand and can agree. Karl rove seems to have told me these things and it has required intellectual gymnastics to get that into my head - even the remotest understanding of how a man could enable such bullshit. How a man could act in such a way as to take life and spend money recklessly and still feel like he was not the exact evil that comes from textbooks and bibles. But now I understand. It is because they don't believe the future can be saved, they believe the future is an abstraction, and is not worth anything. And I might agree.

But the Obama appeal is better. The Obama appeal says we might as well try. Tomorrow will be the day that we get up and some of us will vote, and when that guy gives his speech at midnight or whatever, maybe even later, we will know that we are trying to be better, and that is worth more than not trying to be better at all.

Conservatives believe in unique human excellence. Liberals believe that excellence is not the sole determinant of someone's fortune. Obama is excellent and lucky. He deserves to be prez.

Strong Drug Experience

I had a strong drug experience. I went to a new secret bar. I told Lauren the cat was a mirror, that he revealed people's inner selves. What do you want from the cat? I asked her. That's what the cat can tell you.

"SNOTTY TATTOOED DUDE"

INTERVIEW WITH A SNOTTY TATTOOED DUDE



When the Rag and Bone Store was reviewed in the style section of the New York Times last month, writer Mike Albo spent a serious chunk of his word count on an unnamed employee who rubbed him the wrong way: 'a guy clerk wearing a bowler hat, mustache and one of the Rag & Bone waistcoats [sitting] behind the desk staring at the computer and his forearm tattoos...

Approaching the register, the dude-clerk wouldn't look at me. Next to him was a pleasant smelling Diptyque candle. Like a gushing tourist, I tried to make conversation: "Hey, what flavor is that candle?" I asked.

"Doesn't it just say on it?" he snipped, still refusing to look at me. Oh. I see how it is, Mr. Cool Guy.

As my gorgeous, imperious friend Rebecca says: "Noted." Maybe he was busy, or tired, or just broke up with his girlfriend, but I flared with loathing.

Most people who read it probably forgot about it. But not the ‘Snotty Tattooed Dude’ - who happens to be my coworker. His Name is Jason Levine. He was born in Teaneck, New Jersey in 1976. I caught up with him in the Rag and Bone store in the West Village, where he works. Still works.


Describe the initial feeling of being dissed out in the New York Times.

Completely embarrassed. I fucking went white. It was - anxious. I was anxious at not knowing that someone wrote something about me and you know, I felt really vulnerable. I felt exposed. Wrongfully. No not really. Oh that sounds gay dude, don't write that.

How did you take the criticism? Did you think: That writer is an asshole? Or did you think: I am an asshole. Did it change the way you do your job?

I definitely didn't think I was an asshole. Actually, I don't know. If someone calls me an asshole than maybe I just am. I'm not really sure about that. It was really embarrassing.
Yes, it made me more conscious of how I come across with every customer. Maybe that was a good thing. But that's pretty much worn off by now. Customer service is tricky. People say that the customer is always right, but I've worked in bars for far too long to really believe that. At what point do you stop blaming yourself? I always try to help as many people out as I can. Basically, you can't please everybody. That's what it comes down to. The bastard just happened to write for the New York Times. That's what it comes down to.

How did your bosses react?

They thought it was hilarious. Thank God. I have known the owners, Marcus and David, for a long time. I like to think that they know who I am and wouldn't be effected by someone elses' assessment of me.

Do you have a message you want to give Mike Albo?

(Thinks about it). See now - if you would have asked me clean after I would have told him to go fuck himself. But now, a month later, it's neither here nor there.



INTERVIEW WITH MIKE ALBO, CRITICAL SHOPPER


I have two friends that hate each other for no apparent reason, and it makes me think about human chemistry. I don't think we can always choose who we like and who we don't like. I think that sometimes we just have animal emotions towards those we don't know. Some we will love, and some we will abhor. Do you agree? And did you find Jason repulsive in this way? Would you be truthful if you did, or would you want to seem compassionate?

Is that his name? Jason? I think actually, that he represented something to me: Clerk Who Has No Time For Anybody Who Isnt A Hot Girl or iTunes Music Programmer. And I probably represented to him: Annoying Gay Accented Aged Hipster Asking Stupid Question. Once we talked or hung out, I am sure we would find common ground. I am very Obama Era about people.

Refinery 29's Gabriel Bell said that the critical shopper has become 'required reading.' She also said that, 'While we love Albo, we have to wonder if there's not a soon-to-be unemployed mustachioed clerk who will be hunting him down in weeks to come.' (article.) Did this make you feel anxious, proud, or both? And what was that like?

I was actually so worried that I would get that dude fired. It was just the way I felt at the moment...and I am such an obsequious “please like me” person, that when someone is rude in a store I am stultified. But truly, if I see him I would want to hug him. Maybe one day we can process our feelings in a naked drum circle at a polyamorous eco-religious commune, where I secretly wish I lived.

Your book has been optioned by Warner Brothers. That must have been pretty exciting news. I have heard that they option a lot of stuff, the studios - and that not all of it gets made. What is going on with that now? Are you going to have anything to do with the script? And if not, and you had to choose one or the other, would you rather The Underminer become a shitty movie or not a movie at all?

this is such a good question. It ended up not panning out...it was my first big edumacation about Hwood and all its lures and trappings. Although I did meet some fantastic people through the experience. A secret truth I didn’t know about people in LA is that a lot of execs there are huge readers and very intelligent and love to talk about books.

You are also a performance artist with a funny, mystical website. Do you see your fashion criticism as an extension of these other things? Or is it more of a thing you do for money/ recognition?

I seriously fell into fashion writing in a strange way — when I started I knew nothing. I love, love, love writing the Crit Shopper column. It is, ironically, one of the only places in my freelance writing experience where I feel I can let loose and express myself. I credit my editors with that...they are pretty magical over there. The column does fit in with my other pursuits and interests as a performer and writer...because I am fascinated with our strange consumer bubble mentality. The big plastic pig that is America. I am fascinated by it...how all of us are manipulated, guided, and inhibited by our raging, weird, addictive consumer culture.



Jason is going to be one of the guys from 'the other gang' from a Clockwork Orange (above) for Halloween. What are you going to be?

I am actually afraid of ‘Ween. First of all I feel like its the New New Years Eve in terms of amateur night antics and I am always afraid someone is going to thrust a firecracker in my eye or something. My friends and I are going to have a séance instead!


Do you have anything to say to Jason?

Jason: see above — you, me, naked, drumming.

Tropical Storm Hannah

The sky (verb)ed with Tropical Storm Hannah
Rain, I said, I told it to rain rain rain
The water helped me to grow

I need swollen creek beds and damp earth
For my roots.
And when it stops I need mist over mountainsides
Sticks crunching underfoot, and dark green overhang
To maneuver in.

I went for a run in the East River Park
To be healthy
But also to see what it would be like in a tropical storm -
It came down harder than I’ve ever seen.

I splashed through knee deep puddles
Wearing no socks, water soaking into my eardrums,
I could hear it. It felt like being in a plane.
When you start descending and your ears won’t pop.
Awful feeling, - my hands were pruned up.

After fifteen minutes, I wished I had not come
But I was far away from my apartment. I cowered
Under an overpass, alone, and cold.
For a while. But it wouldn’t let up.

Then another jogger jogged by me and back out
Into the rain, and I knew he was right

so I followed
pretending that I was training for

an important athletic event.

TODAY IS NICE DAY

I went to see the movie with my brother and for the first thirty minutes I worried about my brother. I kept thinking about how he was experiencing the film. I was worried he would not like it, and he would start shifting around in his seat, checking his watch, and even messaging on his blackberry. After a while I stopped worrying.

MY BROTHER IS COMING

I told him not to expect a big screaming endorsement for the decisions I've made.

Got tickets to see Mike Leigh's new movie at the New York film festival.

BANKS

This is what is happening:


also this: