Congratulations, you’ve got a Lotus convertible.
It must have felt real good to open that baby up to a full 20 mph on Alewife-Brook today. We’re all very proud of you.
#1. boston.com: Woman’s odyssey to New York lands her at center of scandal
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the cast of characters go like this: soon-to-be-former-Governor Eliot Spitzer’s political career has crumbled around him because it was revealed that he utilized the services of a high-class escort service. Which people aren’t very down with, even though he was frugal enough to only go for the five diamond girls instead of the seven diamond ones (which cost a few grand more…fiscal responsibility, people!). As the media sharks have circled the story, they’ve honed in on the girl, who works under the name Kristen but lives under the name Ashley Alexandra Dupre. In digging around to find out more about her story (and as an excuse to run blurry MySpace photos of her while moralists and apologists alike secretly think about what she must look like naked and the sort of things she’s able to do to be worth $1,000 an hour), we’ve also been introduced to Carolyn Capalbo, the girl’s mother. While the mom is “shell-shocked” that her daughter is a whore, she still has a strong sense of belief in her girl:
“She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor,” Capalbo said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Wow. It’s nice that you want to stand by and support your daughter, and stand up for her intelligence. But…you could maybe choose your words better. It’s bad enough your mom knows that you have handled a governor – does she have to talk about it to the wire services? Thanks, mom.
Side comment I: how humiliating must it be to be the wife of the famous politician who cheated on you and then had to hold a press conference admitting it? (Boston.com has a nice little photo gallery here.) They always have to stand there, trying to look supportive but not overly forgiving…and in the end, they just look shell-shocked with simmering rage. Sometimes it works out for you (like you can end up being a major-favorite candidate for president)…most of the time, though, it probably just sucks. If I was ever the politician in that situation, I’m pretty sure I’d be standing up there alone. “Uh, yeah, she couldn’t make it – she’s currently destroying all of my possessions and preparing what best way to mutilate my genitals when I get back home.”
Side comment II: did you ever think the day would come when the prestigious New York Times would be giving a photo credit to MySpace? Times are strange.
#2. CNN.com: Boyfriend: Phobia caused woman’s 2-year bathroom stay
The details of this story speak for themselves. And they say things like:
“She is an adult; she made her own decision,” said her boyfriend, Kory McFarren. “I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it.”
…
McFarren, 36, said he can’t be certain how long Pam Babcock stayed in the bathroom because “time just went by so quick I can’t pinpoint how long.”
…
“It just kind of happened one day; she went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay — like it was a safe place for her,” McFarren said.But McFarren said she moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into the clothes he brought her. He brought food and water to her. They had conversations and had an otherwise normal relationship — except it all happened in the bathroom.
How…endearing? I guess it’s nice to support your significant other in whatever their hopes and dreams are. But…dude, her skin grew over the toilet seat, and it had to be surgically removed. You could have tried putting your foot down a little more.
Questions I want answers to on this story: when they say “normal relationship,” does that mean…uh, an “active” relationship? And if so…how? Also, if she lived in the bathroom for two years…and she was sitting on the toilet for at least a month…where, um, did this guy go when he had to TCB? Was there a second bath in this trailer? Is there a particularly fertile patch of trees nearby?
I don’t really want to consider the alternatives. Yuck.
boston.com: Students in Canton given electrical shocks after prank call, report says
I don’t want to jump to any conclusions until all the facts are in…but that might be the most successful prank call of all time. You got two kids shocked a total of 106 times? Not bad. Of course, the victims of this tele-Milgram study should have realized what was going on after the first five shocks, when the “supervisor” started yelling out, “Howard Stern rules!”
I like these two sentences:
The Judge Rotenberg center, which serves about 250 adults and children from across the country, has been under fire for more than two decades for its unorthodox behavior-modification treatments, including electric shock treatments. Its defenders say that the school takes in troubled students, some with self-damaging behavior, who have been rejected by other schools.
Critcs say that guns are tools of destruction that do nothing but cause damage and have no worthwhile benefits in our modern day society. Defenders say that guns are shiny.
Seriously, is that the best defense they can mount? “Well, we take in troubled students that other schools have rejected.” Oh, yeah? So do crack dens. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for the kids to go there.
Finally, there’s this part:
The identity of the staffer who was fooled into administering the shocks has also not been released. State officials indicated that some disciplinary action took place, though they would not specify what it was.
“Disciplinary action took place.” I bet it did. Look out, Mr. Staffer…it’s shocky-shocky time.
I don’t know if this is a big story outside of the realm of CNN.com, but I just became hip to the story of poor little Youssif. Youssif was (well, is) a 5 year old little boy in Iraq who, for whatever reason, was picked up in the street by five dudes who poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. Which, you know, isn’t cool. So CNN wrote a story about it, the kind that says, “Just look at the horrible toll of war. Just horrible. … Please click on our banner ads.” Then people who read CNN.com felt rightfully ashamed of having laptops and high-speed wireless connections while this poor kid sat in Baghdad with horrible scars across his face.
The story is horrible. The guys who did this are jerks. There’s never any reason to hurt a 5 year old, unless you’re another 5 year old and he stole your Tonka truck and you give him a wussy child-like slap-punch on the shoulder before crying about it to your mommy. He deserves all the sympathy and monetary support he has gotten. I hope that he gets better and can return to having a normal life.
All that being said…here are a couple of things from the article about him that sort of struck me as inadvertently and inappropriately funny:
From today’s article, “Surgery over; Youssif’s biggest scar removed”:
Youssif entered the operating room around 6:30 a.m. PT for the three-and-a-half hour surgery.
Just before the surgery began, Youssif began crying.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” he said.
Sedation then set in, he relaxed and Dr. Peter Grossman, the plastic surgeon with the Grossman Burn Center who is donating his services, began to operate.
The writer conjours the image of a poor, injured boy (from a country with medical facilities that rarely has pain medication) crying about how he doesn’t want to do a round of surgery…following that right up by, “Sedation then set in.” For some reason, this seems like it should be followed by, “Dr. Grossman tilted his head back, syringe in hand, and let out a long, slow cackle. “Mwuah-hahahahaha!”
Maybe that’s just me.
Later in the article:
Living temporarily with the balloons is never an easy process for burn survivors because they look much worse — like a “science-fiction creature” in Grossman’s words — before they can get better.
“We try not to traumatize the patients emotionally with this too much,” he said.
It might decrease the emotional trauma if you stopped using phrases, “science-fiction creature” when describing them. Genius.
The topper is from the first article on Youssif from August:
“They dumped gasoline, burned me, and ran,” Youssif told CNN, pointing down the street with his scarred hands where his attackers fled. Photo See photographs of Youssif before and after the attack.
As he sucked his thumb, he repeated, “I was burning.” He tried to put the flames out himself.
…
“He’s become spiteful, I am not sure why,” said his mother, Zainab. “He is jealous of everyone. If I say the slightest thing to him, he cries. He’s sensitive.”
Wow. You don’t know why he’s become spiteful? You’re all heart, Zainab. “Yeah, his face is horribly disfigured and we have very little chance of doing much to change that. But I don’t know why he’s such a crybaby. Maybe that was pansy gasoline they poured on him. Pansy.” I guess we know who’s not going to win the Baghdad Ms. Having-A-Clue contest.
I’m sure this was just a poor Iraqi-to-English translation. And some mediocre, overwrought journalistic stylings. Still…it had to be commented on. Get better, Youssif.
You don’t have to have been watching the playoffs recently to have seen one of the many, many ads for ED drugs. ED is the new term for impotence (since I guess people don’t want to be called impotent…it sounds negative.) Apparently a lot of guys have erection problems, so there are a lot of Viagra and Cialis ads around.
Having seen a lot of the ads recently, I’ve been picking up on more details to pay attention to and ponder. Apart from the whole, “why are those two old people flirting in two individual bathtubs on a hillside?” thing, I’ve paid more attention to the long medical/legal disclaimers. One of them is this:
“Use of Cialis (or whatever) does not protect against HIV or AIDS.”
Seriously? You need to say that? I know that lawyers and legal departments over-worry and add more than necessary to cover the asses of the companies advertising the medicine. But…who are the idiots who think that, just because a pill can help you get a boner, it will stop that boner from catching a deadly disease? I guess the thought is that someone out there is thinking, “Oh, well since I wouldn’t be able to get it up otherwise, this must stop me from getting something awful once it is up.” Really? Have people become that dumb?
Maybe they have. To those people for whom that was written, please remember this: if any of these pills could stop you from getting AIDS, it would not be advertised as boner pills. They would be advertised as the pill that will stop you from getting AIDS.
Idiots.
Fact: the Red Sox lost again tonight, with their starter once again not making it out of the 5th inning and the offense being unable to come up with enough firepower to overcome a deficit.
Fact: this has been going on for the last three games…so since Saturday’s Game 2.
Fact: Saturday was the day that I shaved my face in order to more completely embody the costume for the Celebreality Halloween party that was held at the Compound. (I was Brett Michaels. The costume was tight. That’s a whole different story.)
Conclusion: I must shave the face-wide full beard, currently in stubble form, off of my face, leaving only a goatee behind. Then, and only then, can the Red Sox dig themselves out of this 3-1 hole. This mojo…is powerful mojo.
Crazy, you say? Well, here’s a little story for you: my friend Dan and I had a long conversation between Games 5 and 6 of the 2003 ALCS about how we should shave our heads in order to help pull the team to victory in the final two games against the Yankees. We hesitated, and then said we would do it when they had advanced to the World Series. I don’t think I need to tell you how that turned out.
Some might counter this flawless logic with a statement similar to this: “There is no way that anything you say, do or wear can, in any way, affect the outcome of a ball game being played hundreds of miles away by players who have never and will never care about you, your appearance or your existence.” And to that I say…shut up, dude. You’re ruining all the fun of it.
Look, maybe Karma and Mojo don’t exist, and they are just two more strippers who dance on poles next to Mystique and Aura. But the illusory and probably-false belief that your actions and thoughts, as well as the actions and thoughts of the others who have joined you in the communal effort, have an impact on something going on in the world outside of you…well, that belief is what has, for years, driven spectator sports, magic acts, improvisational performances and religion. Don’t take that belief away from us. It may be nonsense, but at least it’s nonsense that makes us feel that we are doing something towards a common goal.
And if it isn’t nonsense…well, I don’t want a full beard to get in the way of a potential big comeback. Enjoy the celebrations tonight, Cleveland. Tomorrow, the Mach 3 comes out to turn the tide. Again.
This afternoon, on my way back from a delightful breakfast in the best booth at Zaftigs, I picked up a light denim jacket that was on sale at the Gap. (I know, I know…I feel dirty.)
This jacket was one of those Project Red dealies, where part of the proceeds go to help Bono save Africans. Which, you know, I’m in favor of. But since the jacket was on sale (twenty bucks instead of something ridiculous like sixty), does that mean less Africans get saved?
Answer: yes. At least according to the lady at the register. So the Gap will still take its full profits, and then skim off whatever is left and throw it towards AIDS babies. Nice. Glad I could help.
Of course, maybe the Saturday afternoon employee doesn’t know the full intricacies of the company’s (red) policy. Maybe she was just hoping to use my liberal guilt to sell me a $30 t-shirt too. I don’t know. But I do know that, if I had really wanted to help, I should have listened to the Buy (Less) people and just donated directly. In fact, I might just take the money I saved by buying the jacket on sale and cut a check for The Global Fund right now.
(Note: I won’t really do that. Instead I’ll use that money to help me pay for the car repairs I needed to have done last week. Then I’ll wear my new jacket while I drive that car around, sucking up petroleum resources and polluting the air. I’m also going to start littering out the window, kicking sick kids and voting Republican. But, you know, I could have written that check. So there.)
Dear Guy Walking Out Of The Fresh Pond Whole Foods Around 6pm Last Night,
What was the first thought you had yesterday morning that led to the conclusion, “Today’s a good day to wear my Michael Vick jersey”?
I’m assuming one of the following things is true of you:
Whatever it was…godspeed, sir. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Last night I was driving down Storrow Drive when I hit a little patch of construction…traffic was merged down into one lane. While waiting for people in the left lane to let me in, I got a chance to look at the battered old SUV in front of me. It was sporting this lone bumper sticker:
After he finally got to merge to the left, the driver’s left blinker remained on for about six minutes. That is, until he had to switch back to the right lane. Then his right blinker remained on for the rest of our time together.
I think I know pretty much everything I need to know about this guy.
