Facebook: A Deal with the Debil

You guys, Facebook is totally evil just like that little scoundrel Damien, from the Omen, except that instead of being branded with the mark of the beast under its cute seven-year-old bowl cut, Facebook bears the hideous marks of all of its advertisers.

I learned about it the hard way. By getting a surprise motherfucking news bulletin about myself posted in everyone’s goddamn mini-feed! Do I need my smart friends who I lie to about what movies I see to know that I just Fandango’d two tickets to Role Models for tonight? No. Do I need some people I already told I would see it with and then totes didn’t invite to know that? No. So um…how come Fandango told Facebook to tell everyone about it. AND HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?????????????????

I did some in-depth research on psychics and determined that FACEBOOK IS! ...it all fits....

And now, because I am the nicest blogger ever (except for those other more widely read and other regular people bloggarts who already covered this story in a far more cohesive, informative way) I am going to share this info with you so you can avoid what happened to me, so you won’t shake with rage and be forced to blog about it even though you hardly EVER blog about anything (I miss y’all too! Whatcha been up to? Leave a girl a comment what whaaaaat!).

Anyways! Have you ever noticed that if you happen to be thinking that maybe you would like to be engaged to your boyfriend or whatever, that sometimes a little annoying ad for engagement rings appears to the right of your stupid Facebook profile? Well, there’s a reason! You see, Facebook and its ad partners are watching you right now with their paid psychic mind-readers (see above illustration). They can see what you’re wearing and hear your private thoughts and they are feeding all of that info through super-computers located underground in the Facebook lair in Palo Alto, CA and turning it into statistics that it sends to GameFly and ebay and the Knot among others (full list of participants in FB “social ads).

How it works:

Facebook has access to hundreds of these magnificent super computers!

Remember: New Facebook is smarter than you think. Mark Zuckerberg is from the future. FB is very high-tech.

(*** Please not that the above image of the Starship Enterprise is meant to illustrate Facebook's "high-tech"iness, but not neccessarily its "from the future"iness because remember that episode where Captain Picard realized that they were probably stuck in a worm hole and might be repeating each moment over and over again for millions of years without even realizing? We don't know that Star Trek is from the future. It might exist in the past, present, and future all at once. Impossible to tell. Space!)

The only way to stop FB from making all of your private internet business public knowledge is to change your privacy settings. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHANGE THEM.

Vanquish the hideous blood-sucking Facebook by throwing its ring of power into the lava and outrunning that giant boulder and returning to Tatooine to live out your days free from Big Brother’s oppressive 1984  grasp!!!!!!!!!!

You can do it! Vanquish them!

I was shocked to find that the first page of images for the word VANQUISH was pictures of this dumb car. I was hoping for a viking or something. The internet has gone to seed. Officially. When this car is our collective top image of "vanquish"

HERE’S SOME ADVICE: You should check to make sure that there isn’t a Facebook logo on basically anything you touch, for example your toilet. If there is one, it means that Facebook has a fucking ad deal with your toilet and it can advertise in your profile on behalf of your toilet to raise your toilet’s profile and hence, generate revenue for your toilet. If you don’t check, then don’t blame me when:

“SO AND SO IS reading Teen People and peeing”

appears on your profile. I’m just trying to save your whole entire life and reputation. No big deal.

BUT DON’T WORRY THEY ARE ONLY DOING IT TO ENRICH YOUR SOCIAL LIFE AND MAKE ADS MORE INTERESTING!

From the News Feed/Wall Section of the Privacy Settings Page: “Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Social Ads. Social Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. These respect all privacy rules. You may opt out of appearing in your friends’ Social Ads below.”

My friends and I feel so special that you target us with weight-loss, chocolate, wedding portrait photographer, and celeb news publication ads! Thanks Facebook! NOT! IT MAKES US FEEL PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AKK! I love cats!

An ironic part is that the ad program Facebook runs to integrate ads into your profile based on internet activity un-related to Facebook is called Beacon. As in, it’s a Beacon of privacy-infringement in an already over-sharing world. (Speaking of over-sharing check out my tumblr!!!!)

In conclusion: Remember if you have a Facebook account it is not smart to register on any porn sites even under a fake name y’all, or else your aquaintences might get a mini-feed that says

“So and so is enjoying himself! He’s just purchased a download of the Naylin’ Paylin video.”

Game over for getting that new job!

And now I must go, I have to link this hilarious blarg entry to all of my social networking profiles so everyone will know about and like me!

Obama O’Clock

First smoker president, I bet

Well, we did it. Not me, I mean. I didn’t do anything except create viral ideas and launch them into the blogmosphere, like any patriotic young American would have done in my stead. Now it’s all over but the screaming — and boy, is there a lot of screaming! The entire borough of Brooklyn (well, everything north of Division Avenue and the BQE, which is as far as I was willing to bike drunkenly in circles in the rain for the last two hours) has devolved into one hugging/honking/shouting “woo” at passers-by festival, which is just terrific fun. There was one black person at the bar, and all the hipsters kept spontaneously hugging her, which must have gotten awkward after Hour Six. But it’s okay to be patronizing when shit is awesome.

Think of it! Although my loudly pronounced prediction that Obama would win Georgia did not, so much, pan out, I am fairly confident that (1) Sarah Palin will be on The View by next fall (2) I am going to get so sick of looking at photos of Jesse Jackson crying and (3) everything is perfect forever.

This was a good night. Beer was half off (yo, Miller High Life for $1.50 within the five boroughs, you can’t even get that kind of deal in Real America), everyone was optimistic, and the most conservative guy in the bar had voted for Obama — but got pissy when people booed McCain, which in Brooklyn places you somewhere to the right of 99% of the population, who are in favor of booing and of throwing batteries at the Democratic caucus because they won’t impeach the other 42 senators and all that. But hey. We’re excited. Look. Barack Obama stands for a better America. An America where anyone can make out with Katherine Heigl, if they want. Our long national hangover begins apace in the morning — when we realize that, despite how bitchin’ this all is, we are still completely fucked — but for now I’m going to bed in a good mood. SO LONG, HATERS! See you in 2012, when the remainder of Obama’s hair will no doubt have turned that sad grey color that most of it already is.

“I voted for John McCain, but only because I can’t afford the
airfare to Brooklyn to make out with random bloggers”

Back-to-back action!

Oh hey everyone, welcome to our blog! We used to write in here all the time! And we will again! Soon! Maybe now! Whatever! I have something fucking important to talk to you about!

Oh hey, what’s up, we’re just leaning on this oval.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I bring your memory back to the ONLY adventure TV series made in the United States SINCE 1979. If you didn’t watch the Action Hour back in 2000, when I was 14 and way too impressionable to be watching a show like this on an 11″ TV on the floor of my room upstairs, let me briefly spell out what my weekends were like back at the very end of the Clinton administration for you.

The first half of the action hour: Jack of All Trades. This is a show where Bruce Campbell is a CIA agent from the 18th century or something, and catches Ben Franklin with whores, and whatever it’s not really all that important. It’s just Bruce Campbell walking around, probably making Evil Dead references, I don’t remember for like half an hour. Whatever. There are Napoleon jokes. It’s on first, so you have to watch it. It’s the same reason I watched Sesame Street when I was a kid — because it was on before Cleopatra 2525! Wait, no, I mean Carmen Sandiego. Wearing some sort of halter corset thing and a bottle blonde.

This took forever to Photoshop — so APPRECIATE IT!
Also, like half the Google Image matches for Carmen are
slutty and from deviantART. Whatever.ALSO FURRIES
VROOM VROOM I’M RUNNIN OVER YOU SQUIRREL

BTW, read the Carmen Sandiego (character) Wikipedia article. Holy dick. Here’s a completely non-fake excerpt:

In the latter seasons of the show, Carmen began to be portrayed as more of an anti-hero than a proper villainess, even teaming up with the show’s protagonists to defeat criminals more unscruplous than herself on several occasions. Additionally, it was made clear that she makes a point of refusing to steal something if the theft will cause anybody harm — a vow she frequently breaks outside this canon.

[Editor’s note: When I started writing this article, I didn’t realize Carmen Sandiego was such a ridiculous sex object for prepubescent nerds, but the Internet has quickly proved me wrong. THANKS, JACKASSES.]

The next show, in case you have some weird style of reading where you skip every third sentence, was Cleopatra 2525!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me FILL YOU IN! stripper goes under the knife for a boob job! There’s an anesthesia accident! She wakes up in the future! The future is inhabited entirely by hot girls and evil, Matrix-style robots. In fact, it’s possible the Matrix ripped off this show. Also, when I say “hot girls” I mean “sorta hot, considering this show was on at 3 PM on Saturdays in summertime during a recession. Also it was the ’90s.”

A standard episode of the show goes as follows: they FIGHT the robots, the robots OVERPOWER them, they run AWAY (probably in slow motion) to their UNDERGROUND CAVE, and then recuperate and make stupid jokes. Periodically, the robots are defeated by doing pole dances and stuff. I’m not kidding. Somebody actually greenlit this. (BTW, if I ever start my slightly exploitative TV network, I will make a million dollars — it’s called the “a bunch of girls making out” network. We’ll play reruns of this show during commercial breaks. It will be on basic cable. I will be so rich. So rich. Explain to me why this idea wouldn’t work. I goddamn DARE you.)

An additional problem with this show: why the hell are they bothering to fight these robots? One of the premises of the show is that they’re the entire human race, and there’s only four characters. And only one of them is a dude, and he’s not even that important… what are they going to do, repopulate the earth? Gross. Come to think of it, this was also a problem with the Matrix — MORE PLAGIARISM!!!

But this isn’t what I’m here to talk to you about — I’m here to talk once more about politics! Using Cleopatra 2525 references! (You can tell this is a reasonable transition, because of that clever Bill Clinton segue in the second paragraph!) But only for about ten seconds. I’m a values voter, folks. Shows like this offend me, because one of my values is potential profit value. And the fact that the Back-to-Back Action Power Hour Extravaganzawhatever got shafted so badly is just ridiculous. (Another one of my values: punctuality. I will vote for whichever candidate airs Cleopatra and is on time for all their campaign events. I don’t think that’s so much to ask.)

Did that paragraph feel SHOEHORNED IN to you? Start your own blog where you capitalize whenever you feel like it! Jackass!

P.S. If you’re really into Cleopatra 2525 (who isn’t?) there is apparently a play-by-email RPG. Man, remember when the Internet had crap like this all over the place? That’s amazing. Whatever, bye.

Close Encounters of the Ill-Mannered, Possibly Retarded Kind

One of the many charming, intriguing mysteries surrounding Smackdown HQ (our apartment, on Monitor Street) is the nature of/name of/ mental state of our “landlord,” a strange, impolite personage who landed on my radar last night, unfortunately.

The whole affair surrounding him/her is very strange. For starters, our rent check is made out to a woman who we’ve never met or seen, and we are required to slide it under the door of creepy, behind-the-stairs-apartment 1R every month. It’s all very Wizard of Oz. The woman doesn’t even live there. She must be some kind of puppet-master calling the shots from a nice building.

the real landlord?

A dude named R**** (and in case he knows how to use Google, I’ll be blocking out his name in most instances) does live in the building, maybe. And, he might have a duel identity. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Here are the facts of the case DUN DUN:

1. We used to call R RonnyBobby, because we’re pretty sure he’s introduced himself as both-on separate occasions.

2. R may have a brother named Bobby, with whom he shares a voice mailbox- or maybe he is really both. He has referred to Bobby as both his “buddy” and his “bro,” which tells us approximately nothing. Zach claims to have met “Bobby,” and says that he is identical to R.

Unsettling, no?

3. R doesn’t have a last name? Or maybe is the son of our real landlord?

4. R lives in 1R? But usually sits out in front of the building in his car for some reason, emerging only to lecture building dwellers on the proper way to recycle? He told Zach he lives there sometimes….

5. R does not appreciate or actually, seem to notice sarcasm. He never laughs or smiles. He curses a lot and says “Ya know wha’m sayin?” after like EVERY sentence. This + the Bobby mystery leads us to believe he may be mentally retarded, or at least generally retahded.

Okay, so whatever. He’s your average middle-aged, cantankerous, Brooklyn landlord. NBD, right? WELL THAT WAS UNTIL I GOT ATTACKED. Yesterday, while we were at work, working full-time office jobs like real people, R was apparently inspecting our apartment, possibly with his side-kick/bro Bobby, with no prior warning.

He was appalled to discover that our window AC unit was left on low throughout the day, that we had 10ish empty cereal/little frozen pizza boxes ready to be recycled and also like 15 or so bottles/cans. This recycling pile was not even big enough to be on the floor. Everything was arranged by size and type on top of the recycling bin lid. Man, we are SUCH aNiMaLs.

The thing that kills me is that between my occasional OCD and Zach’s propensity for general tidiness, we generally have a pretty orderly lifestyle. I’m more Phoebe than Monica, it’s true. But Monica is in there , goddamn it. I scrub floors, I dust everything! And always have a back-up canister of Clorox wipes under the sink! There were no dishes in the sink, no food left out, etc. Just strange art supplies and books strewn gracefully, WHIMSICALLY, throughout the space.

But as Zach put it: we have a right to our clutter. We also have a right to reasonable warning before being descended upon. If this were a real blog like curbed or gothamist I would have a scan of that stipulation in our lease inserted below. But this isn’t that kind of operation. Weeeee!

PS- type Air Conditioning Unit Fire Hazard into Google. Unless it is also a HEATING unit, which makes sense as a producer of FIRE….it’s job is to COOL things. Also it is full of WATER.

(Thank you to Z for calming me down off of the “we’re going to burn alive in this air conditioned death trap one night” ledge using Google last night, so I could go to sleep.)

It’s true, we had one pet “roach” … I prefer the term “palmetto bug.” But um, HELLO, it came from the depths of hell, and no matter how deeply I clean, that’s a little out of my jurisdiction.

I really don’t like the thought of our possibly twin’d, definitely unstable land person minion or whatever just wandering around our apartment whilst we are away. Did he bring his 25-year-old Asian girlfriend with him? Did they make fun of our pathetic DVD collections, rifle through our books and records, watch some HBO, and sample all of the different kinds of cereal we have? Did they test our beds to see if they are just right? It’s hard to say.

"Bear Tenants Outraged at Goldilocks' Abuse of Master Key"

WE MAY NEVER KNOW.

How To Be A Beloved Contemporary American Writer!

I’ve deliberated long and hard and finally decided that actually, most of the formula for being a super-successful published essayist is to have a few stories to tell about various shit that happened to you in your life, and to be able to prove that you are qUiRkY! Congratulations FUCKING EVERYBODY. Time for us to call up our literary agents.

I made mix-tapes as a teen and have a cursory knowledge of history too Sarah Vowell, b.f.d.!

[photo: Getty Images via nymag.com]

Writing a book used to mean something. “I AM GOING TO WRITE A BOOK!!” used to be met with gasps and applause, and the endeavor itself used to command respect. But now, all you have to do is live long enough to have at least 10 wAcKy AnEcDoTeS to tell and be able to get to a Borders to read that dumb NaNoWriMo guy’s book.

"How to write a book without the only thing that makes a book!"

In one short month, you will have your very own book of essays that other people can buy and chuckle at and be like

“OMG that is SO something that happens to people!” or

“NUH UH I had a problem relating to my parents/boss/French people one time too! LOL!”

Has anyone else read Sarah Vowell’s book “Take the Cannoli?” Did anyone else notice that it was just a bunch of stories about different stuff that ANYBODY could have written? She didn’t escape from a war, she didn’t discover any scientific discoveries, and she definitely didn’t figure out that having bangs and wearing makeup helps you be pretty. But she did grow up, go to high school, and have some friction with her dad and some trouble learning to drive! Sound familiar? WHATEVER. Also, yeah RIGHT you have a lisp and are allergic to gluten, and played the recorder. TOO ADORABLE, I AM NOT BUYING IT.

Then there’s David Sedaris, who unlike Sarah Vowell is actually really funny and a good writer and related to someone else funny and famous. However, he’s also just an OCD dude from the middle of nowhere in North Carolina of all places who did a lot of drugs, worked as a furniture mover, dropped out of art school, and sort of walked around for a while. JOIN THE CLUB, GUY.

So…why are these two living the good life and not having to wake up early to go to a job? Telling stories that anyone could tell and getting to be on national radio like every day? What is the secret to their relatively random success? I need to know, because getting famous enough to be able to live in like, Flatiron and not have to get up at 8 am is basically the most pressing goal on my plate right now.

Well, friends it’s pretty simple. Do you want not to be REALLY famous but at least get to be read by snobby kids on the F train and able to get published in NY Mag or whatever if you need vacay money? Then like Vowell and Sedaris, you need the magic ingredient. The magic ingredient is what qualifies you for publication other than being a hipster who loves to speak in public (HELLO, OVER HERE!).

DUH it’s Ira Glass.

King of Anecdotal Entertainment

[photo: commons.wikimedia.org]

Ira Glass, listen, I’m pretty sure that listening to/inserting poignant music into anecdotes from across the country and having a professorial speaking voice is not the same as being smart. So why don’t you just take off those sexy foxy salt and peppery used to have a ponytail infectious chuckle having smart guy Elvis Costello looking fake glasses and stop haunting my dreams with your unwelcome but undeniable sex appeal, k?

David Sedaris on Ira Glass:”I owe everything to Ira….My life just changed completely, like someone waved a magic wand. (wikipedia.org)”

Um yeah, no shit it did. I wish Ira Glass would wave his magical wand all over me too (yeah that’s right). One minute you’re reading your diary at an open mic night and like, working odd jobs, and then two seconds later you’re all over the mags and radio and getting artsy smoking pics taken of you! Pretty sweet if you ask me, and just the excuse I’ll need to take up smoking again in another 25 years…

"Ilive in France, but it's soo haaaaard!"

[photo: bloggingbunny.blogspot.com]

What if you don’t think you can meet Ira Glass? What then?

DO NOT PANIC. You just have to revert back to the time-tested approach of just being really pretty. Being pretty will still get you everything you want, including popularity and a book deal even if you grew up in the suburbs and your book revolves around a story about a boss who was pretty mean to you. It also doesn’t hurt to happen to work in book publishing while you are being so pretty.

[photo: mediabistro.com]

Oh um hey Sloane Crosley….sorry…I didn’t see you there, how awkward…. umm, you ARE really pretty though…

The Fragile Ecosystem Of My Bathroom

So, I came home the other night. And… how can I put this? I’d had a few. And then they got lonely, so I had a few more. Have you ever seen a drink separated from its friends? It’s like watching an angel cry. Then I walked home from Sunnyside at 3 AM, because that’s just how I roll.

First thing I did when I walked in the door at 3:08 (I can walk *very* fast when drunk, and really I left the bar at like 3:06 to boot, like Michael Johnson) was get in the (gold shoes) shower, despite my somewhat altered state of consciousness. You see, my dream has always been to be killed in a completely avoidable household accident, like Dave Matthews. (Hopefully, I mean.)

And when I finished toweling off, I very nearly got my wish, because there was a cockroach crawling around the sink. And not one of those friendly cockroaches from Song of the South that sing and dance and grant the wishes of lonely wooden dolls, no, no, not one of those motherfuckers. This cockroach was twenty-two inches long. It needed a haircut, badly. It bumped up against me, dropped its sunglasses, and said I had to pay for a new pair, cash. It said it could get me tickets to the Today Show. It cast racist aspersions on me for not helping out. Three days later, I saw it on the subway saying it was an Iraq veteran and selling Snickers for $1.50 out of a bunch of boxes held together with mailing tape. Then it breakdanced with its five-year-old brother. This was a total sociopathic motherfucking cockroach.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen me when I’m the worse for liquor, but I get jumpy, friendo. I sprinted out of the shower. My lovely co-blogger will testify that I actually stacked a bunch of books against my bedroom door while I slept, lest the clever creatures follow me the forty-one feet from the bathroom and come to my room while I’m asleep and lay eggs in my goddamn mouth.

This sort of thing stresses me out slightly.

The last time I saw a roach, I’d just woken up. It was about three inches long and it crawled out of my line of sight so quickly — and I was so unable to find it — that I wrote it off as a hallucination. And it’s okay to ignore them. Roaches are a vital part of living in New York, like worrying about terrorism and eating $6 egg sandwiches every day. Like power outages and subway strikes. You can forget about them for months, even years at a time, but they’re there. Oh, yes. The roaches are still there. They’re hanging out in the 1/8″ gap between the sink and the wall, demanding 32% wage increases and delivering rolling blackouts whenever the temperature breaks 80. They’re the rent-controlled tenants of the bathroom-kitchen boroughs. They are fucking everywhere and all I want to do is go to sleep without thinking about tiny legs on my face. Goddammit.

Wet Hot American Sellout

I started blogging today strictly because I wanted to use that title. But also I want to talk to you about McCarren Park and what is becoming of it.

McCarren Park, if you don’t know, is the epicenter of all Williamsburg and Greenpoint leisure. It’s a giant, unpleasant, treeless park littered with cigarette butts and dog crap. It has an all-weather track, an astroturf soccer field, a Hasidic softball team, and is now completely surrounded with giant luxury condo towers. It’s a hipster promenade: people put on the absolute dumbest things they own and strut around with their ironically named dogs. (Some good ironic dog names:  “Meow”, “Ceci n’est pas une chien”, “Capitalism”, “Michael J. Woof”)

What’s that? You want more pithy commentary? Well, there’s seven ice cream trucks there, nineteen hours a day, and they never turn the goddamn sound off. When they passed that “shut the ice cream trucks the fuck up” law last year, these trucks straight up cranked that shit up until it bumped, my friend. That’s how the bootleg Good Humor man rolls. Bling bling, and watch out for children. Also there’s a bunch of women that don’t speak English selling sickeningly sweet fruit ices, and they have bike horns on their carts to alert you that they’re now standing within a couple miles of you. This is to protect us from silence, which is one of the top ten problems facing New York. Right up there with “way cheap”, “too polite”, and “subways insufficiently crowded.”

The park is tres complicated and fun, in other words. And the gem of McCarren is the McCarren Park Pool, which is a big abandoned pile of bullshit that you aren’t allowed into ten months of the year. Here’s a brief history [NOTE: this is mostly mythology at this point]:

• 1935 – Robert Moses bulldozes some tenements or something and builds a pool.
• 1950 – The pool is popular. People swim in it.
• 1969 – A bunch of Puerto Ricans move to Williamsburg and have the audacity to use the pool. In a furor, the grumpy Italians and Polish demand that the pool be immediately abandoned and destroyed by weeds. The city gives in, because back in the day the city was a huge racist, and apparently also didn’t realize that Puerto Ricans could vote.
• 1998 – A bunch of hipsters move to Williamsburg and start using the decaying corpse of the pool for free concerts.
• 2005 – The concerts are getting really popular.
• 2007 – Some genius realizes that if they charge $50 for the concerts, they won’t be fun anymore, so Clear Channel immediately starts doing that. Bayard Street becomes jammed with Hummers.
• 2008 – Grumpy Italians and Polish (now joined by the 1960s Puerto Ricans, who have grown old and are annoyed enough with hipsters to join the “angry” team) realize that the concerts and events are popular and fun. In a furor, they demand that the venue be turned back into a pool, at tremendous expense, so nobody can enjoy it ever again. The city gives in.

Trust me. Robert Caro said so.

So, as a result of all this helpful political activity, this is probably the last summer of events at McCarren. Then they’re going to turn it into another gross New York swimming pool, complete with the pervasive urine and gunfights. [NOTE: People love killing each other at public pools in New York. I blame RENT.] In the meantime, though, there were a few awesome events left this summer that didn’t cost money.

First there was the Hold Steady concert, at which thousands of people were left outside a locked gate on Lorimer Street while the band played, during a thunderstorm. That was pretty hood. I took the bus home.

Then there was Wet Hot American Summer. Let me be clear. This wasn’t a bad event. It was well-attended. The people next to me sat there smoking cigarettes, talking loudly on the phone (“I’m at the pool! In the outer boroughs somewhere! What? No, I’m watching a movie! What? Yeah, there are lots of weird people here!”), and generally indicated how they were just way too cool to enjoy the movie. But hey, I wouldn’t have moved to Brooklyn if I didn’t want to put up with massive douchebags all the time. So I put up with that. Michael Showalter and Paul Rudd arrived and made funny.

Also, the guy from the L Magazine showed up. “L” (get it? it’s the name of a rad train and I guess it sounds like Elle, that’s clever) fancies itself a hipster rag, but the man was wearing a power tie. He had a combover. He asked us to, quote, “give a round of applause for the Scion.” He helpfully informed us that our fun was being sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery (cheer), Greenpoint Wines (faint, snootier cheer), and Starbucks (crickets). And Scion.

[P.S. Scion has also taken over Adult Swim. Maybe somebody should call Scion and tell them that nobody in the 18-24 demographic will ever buy a new car. “Hey, guys, they don’t sell Scions at thrift stores or Old Navy. Yes, really. Uh huh. Stay classy, dudes. OK. Thanks for all those unpaid marketing internships.”]

At this point, walking the six blocks to Williamsburg is like going to a sponsored funeral. Have you been to the American Apparel? It’s right next to Sea! Across the street from the Pad Thai place! No, the other one. No, the red one. They have great egg rolls, I think. The pallbearers were brought to you by Pepsi. That’ll be $74.99, special bereavement rate. Smile for the brochure.

But hey, man, pretty much all 8,000 hipsters showed up to see the movie and be mocked by Michael Showalter. It’s nice to see a little community. And the DoubleShots were free! Let me tell you, I can’t wait to drink Colt 45 in the kiddie pool with all you jackasses next summer. 25 cents off park admission if you buy a condo. Now with authentic grit!

Things I Don’t Want To Do This Weekend

I’d prefer not to step in anything, so it’s best if I don’t walk anywhere in Greenpoint. And if at all possible, I don’t want to get on the L train. Leaving the house should be optional, if it’s allowed at all. Have you been outside the house? Everyone’s wearing makeup out there. It’s inhumane. The other day I was sitting on the subway while a guy who basically looked exactly like me sat there painstakingly applying blush, using the window as a mirror. And I’m not talking about casual blush. I’m talking Las Vegas in summertime.

If I learn any new slang this weekend, I’ll be seriously pissed off. I’ve been saying “Man, it’s really hot and noise” for days and people keep sidling away from me. I don’t want to turn the air conditioner off, ever. I also don’t want to sit in front of the air conditioner until all the moisture leaves my body and I die. Don’t laugh. It’s happened before. In my past life I was sort of a dumber version in myself and that’s how they took me down. Although I don’t feel like believing in reincarnation right this sec.

I don’t want to go to Union Pool. Last time, some guy blew smoke in my face and spilled a beer on my shoe at the same time. He was wearing a sport coat, and not ironically! What, you didn’t have time to change between work and 11 PM the next day? The PBR is like $4, that’s ridiculous. A six-pack shouldn’t cost more than three bucks. In fact, all beer-related activities are out. And all the hard liquor in my fridge has been there since high school. Midori and orange-flavored vodka, anyone? You can chase it with somewhat soured milk!

Cafe Grumpy sucks ass for some reason. A week ago there was a girl sitting in the corner, reading a book with a cigarette in her mouth. You can’t smoke in coffee shops, but that girl was definitely letting me know: sometime in the next two hours, she was planning on smoking! Thanks for the heads-up! Coffee makes me jittery and nervous anyway, I’m already way too on edge. I don’t feel like cooking but all the restaurants are way too expensive; I’m trying to save money here. The grocery store is closed anyway and the roaches finished off the last of my cereal.

All the blogs are too depressing, and if I use my laptop my lap gets way too hot, so I can’t even check my email over and over. I refuse to read a book. Besides, if I lie in bed my head hurts, and the couch is filthy. The only comfortable way to read a book is on the subway, and I think I mentioned that I’m not getting on the subway. I won’t ride my bike, either, the tires are flat and there’s too much stuff in my closet for me to find the pump. I don’t get why nobody is calling. OMGWTF.

Take A Trip To The Nostalgia Factory

I was in the unfortunate position yesterday of having to listen to a speech. When was the last time you were at a good speech? For me, it was basically never. I’ve given two or three speeches in my life and I’ve got to tell you, even those were pretty awful. And I have an extremely high opinion of myself, especially when it comes to public speaking. My voice is akin to an earthquake, my words a … smaller earthquake.

But this speech was pretty lame even by conventional standards. For one thing, it was given by another 22-year-old, never a good sign. Aside from how poorly such speeches invariably work, there’s one gimmick that every Gen Y kid whips out: nostalgia. Now, yes. I know what you’re thinking. Everyone has been complaining about nostalgia (and way more eloquently: Dorothy Gambrell’s words are akin to an asteroid hitting a planet) since VH1 started running I Love The Last Seventeen Minutes or whatever back in like 2001. And all those Oregon Trail Facebook groups (I’m not even linking to them).

But it may have gotten worse! I have noticed, for example, that nostalgia no longer has to have anything to do with the conversation. I was at a party the other day and said something embarrassing. I don’t remember what, but here’s a re-enactment of how the conversation went, with a plausible faux pas inserted:

Girl at party: Oh, man, in high school I had really bad acne and split ends.
Zach: Jeez, so you must have been really unattractive!
Girl at party: (long, awkward pause)
Zach: Must… defuse… awkardness. Um… Fraggle Rock!
Bystander: OH MY GOD FRAGGLE ROCK!
Girl at party: Fraggle Rock was the best show ever! Remember (some inane detail from Fraggle Rock)?

I’ve never even seen Fraggle Rock. But I’ve been using this technique ever since I’ve been accidentally rude to strangers (i.e. my entire life). However, yesterday’s speaker pulled this same crap. Here’s an excerpt:

Speaker: We must rise higher, and succeed! The challenges of the future are more challenging than the challenges of the past! And I’m not talking about Salute Your Shorts.

That doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I didn’t even have cable growing up! I thought 60 Minutes was balls-to-the-wall entertainment when I was a kid, probably because the only other show I’d ever seen was McLaughlin Group. My nostalgia costs $300 per hour, courtesy of PBS’ kick-ass early-90s lineup. But that’s no excuse for talking about muppets all day. Not when there’s Carmen Sandiego to fondly remember! Remember Carmen Sandiego?

Things They Do Look Awful C-C-Cold, I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Yes that’s right. I’m talkin’ bout my generation.

You guys are aware that we’re being shat on in the media by the very flannel-wearing, pizza-faced slacketarians who used to babysit us and lifeguard at the pool when we were little, right? Well join me up here on this high-horse, because as Charlotte put it, “it’s fun up here. Feels right.”

So my story today starts with poor Robert Lanham.

(pictured below with under-appreciated associate D. Menace)

That frontal lobotomy is not treating him well. Not only did he further doucherize FreeBilly by taking out the galleries section recently (fact: Robert Lanham must have all the art in Williamsburg to himself!), but now he’s attacking what our staff statisticians report make up about 80% of his readership. The group I’m referring to, of course, is EVERYONE between the age of 18 and 27. I thought living somewhere youthful and hating youth was New York Shitty’s job.

Says Lanham of my generation in his May 13 article for radarmagazine.com:

They’re naive, self-important, and perpetually plugged in. This is a call to arms against millenials…They think updating a spreadsheet while simultaneously posting to a Twitter account about the latest gossip on perezhilton.com is an essential corporate skill. And…they’re always doing stupid shit, but rarely getting called on it.

First of all. Jeaaaaaaaaaaaallllllloouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuussssssss?????

Secondly, low blow, dawg. YOWCH! I bought all of your motherfucking deliciously entertaining books and now you have to go and do me like this. God. Parents just don’t understand. Way to join the dark side of the force.

Lanham before and after his Radar online article:

What scrambles my brain so thoroughly on this one is that Robert Lanham’s mental math just doesn’t add up with this attack on 20-somethings. Not only is he seriously biting the hand that feeds him by alienating himself from most of his readership, but he is also embarrassing himself by revealing to us, his Brooklyn-dwelling, blog-reading, and now teary-eyed former-admirers that he is in fact NOT hip, cool, or fun, but actually just old and crotchety AND A HYPOCRITE. LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE.

Complaining about those younger than you immediately designates you as old, tired, bitter, and, like all dads everywhere, roller blades, vacations at Sandals resorts, last season’s ballet flats, and leggings-as-pants, tragically, tragically uncool.

Which, call me crazy, probably isn’t good for the editor of a major culture blog. BuT WhAt dO i KnOw i’M jUsT a SpOiLeD yOuNgStEr.

Way to get your super-chic, topic-of-the-moment article idea from 60 Minutes, broseph. Way to coast on a point argued on TV 6 months ago. Way to go. Yeah, way to go!

Above, Lanham in a recent interview.

The most wack part of this whole wack attack is that his afront on my peeps is totally unneccessary to his article! Ironically, his article focuses largely on whining about the unfair shake and lack of coddling and babying the boomers provided Generation X. He sort of implies that his generation longed for the treatment we receive, and that the boomers’ ill treatment of the X-ercists effed their shit up – which has nothing to do with Generation X’s (perhaps more favored, sure) followers…as we were in middle and high school when, to put it millenially, all of these dramz went down!

Lanham is blatantly hating the playa because of the game by dragging my generation into this boring punch-up of hurt 30-somethings looking to place blame everywhere but on themselves for their reputed baditudes. He says:

Let’s face facts: The boomers always detested Generation X. They felt threatened by our youth, confused by our lack of earnestness, and deeply troubled by our lack of appreciation for James Taylor. The boomers’ entire identity was wrapped around being young and progressive. Gen X was an affront to their place in the world. What’s more, they never understood us…

Since the ’90s, boomers have plotted to turn us into the redheaded stepchild of generations. We were slackers. Cynical. We loved Pauly Shore.

So… forgive me if it SEEMS like his complaints about Millenials sound exactly like the complaints about Gen X that he is complaining about with his complainy writing complaints. Complainer!

The bottom line is that Robert Lanham has no reason to villainize those younger than him simply for being born and leading productive, confidently Wikipedia-informed lives and succeeding while everyone lurves us and wants to hire us. I’m so glad that I can blog about how immature he is while I’m working on spreadsheets, playing Wii at my desk, typing on six laptops at once and linking everyone I know to this entry via Facebook and Myspace.

Lanham, we’re here and like it or not…we got to grow up with the internet and political correctness firmly in place. But we also fucking look up to you guys,

(and as for the outrageous cries from Gen X about our cultural appropriation….we’ll be confiscating your Led Zeppelin tapes now in the name of fairness, oh and the White Stripes and the Gossip count as ours so we’ll grabbing those from you too)

and buy your stupid culture-comment books and read your largely pointless blogs, so if you’re going to cry about how the boomers never liked you, at least be a man about it. Now it’s OUR TURN to call bullshit. You made us be PETE WENTZ!?

Now THAT is fucked.

sent from my iphone.