this is what happens when i go to the movies

I'm gonna be blunt, mostly because by the time we get to the end of this essay I'm sure you'll be assuming I've been smoking one. But before we go there, let me just flat out declare that E Street Cinema is by far my favorite movie theater in DC. Obviously that isn't that crazy of a statement, considering that not only is E Street usually the only cinema showing many of the films I most want to see (i.e., The Room), but it's also located underground, which means film-goers can be assured that their film experiences won't be interrupted by groups of petulant teenagers texting or worse, actually talking on their cell phones about sh*t they're probably way to young to even know exists yet anyway, let alone use their outside voices to chat about with someone actually outside. Hmph. But seriously, shut the f*ck up children and let me enjoy this film whilst quietly sipping on a theater-priced libation.

Oh? Did I forget to mention E Street serves liquor? Yeah, like I said, it's my favorite.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is because last night I went to see Midnight in Paris, the new Woody Allen movie starring a whole bunch of famous people, including  Owen Wilson who got the most screen time. And let me tell you, that sh*t was tight. In fact, I think I'm pretty confident saying that this film has dislodged Terminator 2 from my list of Top 3 greatest films ever. (The Top 2, of course, shall now and forever remain Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I'm extremely high-brow.)

Now, without revealing too much about the plot, I will steal a one-liner from my date, Anti DC Creative Director Terry the Tourette's Turtle, who said, "It's basically the art-house version of Inception. Donkey balls!" Hell, it even starred Marion Cotillard as the love interest! However, instead of exploring deepening levels of someone's subconscious mind, Midnight in Paris explores time, among other things like love, literature and happiness. It's amazingly clever and is probably the only film I've seen that's been successful in the magical realism genre, which I tend to favor only in books. I mean come on, Lost (although not a film, it's still something to be watched) tried it and look how that turned out -- it was Hot Tub Time Machine without the laughs!

And so (and this is the part during which you'll start to suspect I've been indulging in the good sh*t), Midnight in Paris got me thinking again (yes, again) about theoretical physics. You know how scientists discovered that atoms only act like we'd logically suspect them to when we're actively observing them? And that in actuality all atoms might be everywhere at once? And that maybe, just maybe, everything really exists on an infinite two-dimensional plane, which means -- holy crap! -- we're living in a hologram that just seems 3D because of the mechanisms that make up our conscious senses allow us to see it that way? Or something! Well then... does this mean magical realism could potentially be really real for real?! Does time solely exist because of our conscious perception of it? If our purported 2D universe were to shift ever so slightly altering every atom, would time then warp, too? Would it stop completely? Most importantly, if we were to discover how to manipulate this theoretical 2D plane and alter our perceptions, would we then be able to travel through time and make all of our magical realist dreams come true?!

Wow. It really is embarrassing that I have these types of thoughts completely sober...

But, oh well. It's called #dorkswag and, judging from the fact that I apparently speak in hashtagese now, I've got it in indefinite aggregate amounts. Perceive:

But seriously, time travel would be freaking awesome, right? RIGHT?!

(Give me a break. It's the weekend. Enjoy yourselves.)

it really is a dream

I woke up feeling great today because I have a new understanding of our reality thanks to quantum mechanics. For those of you not as nerdy as me, quantum theory suggests that reality only exists the way we see it because we can see it. It says, theoretically, once you get down to the n[minus-one]itty-gritty, sh*t basically disappears. Hmm.

And so really, our world is an illusion and everything is nothing. While ordinarily, this thought would be somewhat horrifying because it gives meme-y questions like, "THEN WHO WAS PHONE?" scientific gravitas, this thought becomes extraordinarily comforting after having subjected myself to the CNN-led Republican debates last night.

While it may have appeared like the debaters were saying a lot, the more you thought about it -- that is, the more you delved in deeper -- the less substance you realized was actually said. I mean, how else can you explain that Tammy Faye Baker Michelle Bachmann apparently won? For the sake of our remaining brain cells, sh*t better have been an illusion...

But enough about all those perceived holograms, can we instead look at the equally ridiculous illusory reality that is DC souvenir T-shirts? Why are they pretty much the equivalent of Rep. Bachmann's crusty fake eyelashes? In both cases, less would be much, much more. I mean, look at this:

Photo courtesy of Flickr user londondan. 

These shirts look like the bottom of Rainbow Brite's toilet bowl after a hard night out. And they look even worse on. I really don't get why tourists buy this crap. I mean, I know for a fact you can tie-dye clothing in garrish colors anywhere in the world -- you don't need to purchase it in DC. Any child who's ever gone to summer camp knows that. *sigh* But again, all hope is not lost because if we divide these sartorial obscenities into small enough pieces, they'll disappear. Ahh, to be a quark...

And speaking of disappearing, it's Planck time for me to venture out of doors, so allow me to end this post with yet one more item that will make you thankful our perceived reality is only an illusion -- a new episode of The Anti DC Show! The still capture from the video should serve as an apt warning to you about the substance (or not-even-theoretically this time, lack thereof) of its contents. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some additional nerding to do.

i'm longwinded, but at least i'm not racist

I'm not sure if I've ever written anything about how seemingly baseless some of Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy's arguments usually are, but a bunch of other people have. See, Milloy occasionally writes about race and when he does he almost always insinuates how racist white people are. And no, he's never talking about a particular white person, but all white people. We're all racist, apparently, and if you think you're not, using Milloy's logic, it probably means you're actually even more racist.

Really, the only thing this brand of Milloy writing proves is that he isn't a particularly insightful columnist. And no, just to be clear, I'm not asserting that because Milloy is black, I'm asserting that because he sometimes sounds like a reactionary moron.

Which brings me to his latest piece of "work," which supposedly is based on a recent talk given by Charles Murray called "The State of White America." OK, so at first, that sounds like something kinda racist to write about. But if you actually click the link to watch Murray's talk, the first thing said is, "Despite the title of this evening's lecture, those expecting to hear a discourse on race, are not going to hear it." (Which begs a question for Murray, why the f*ck did you pick such a race-baiting name?)

Instead, here's Murray's argument, which I actually have a whole set of problems with that I'll get to later (and yes, I watched the whole damn 90 minutes). Basically, Murray says he decided to study "non-Latino whites" because this group is usually the reference point for sociologists/politicians/wonks when they study American societal trends. He says: "When you read about the latest poverty statistics, for example, what you read is usually like, 'Here's the black poverty rate compared to the white poverty rate,' 'Here's the latino poverty rate compared to the white poverty rate, and here are the implications for how America is doing.'" The problem here, he says, is that it's easy to lose sight of what that reference point actually means -- who are these pale people we're comparing everyone else to? And so he decided to study white people for the sake of illuminating the depth of the larger cultural trends that "are tearing America apart at her seams" that "cannot be remedied by eliminating racism or resticting immigration policy." The conclusion, of course, is white people have problems, too.

Well, duh, says anyone who's ever seen an episode of Cops/Jerry Springer/The Real World/Bad Girls Club or any other reality-based programming featuring white people acting like rodeo clowns without the rodeo.

But for Milloy, this seems to have been revelatory news, causing him to utter a Nelsonesque "ha-ha!" and write this sentence of pure vitriol, describing all whites as "a group that has long managed to deny the extent of its character flaws by projecting the worst of them onto black people."

I'm not about to deny that some members of this "group" definitely do that. Those people are called racists and they should be described as a subpopulation of a group. But to categorize all white people as racist is inappropriate, shortsighted and destructive because had Milloy made his argument more accurate, it could've been great. Instead, it's just kind of stupid -- as dumb as, say, those idiotic white people who blame everything bad about America on black people.

But because I'm bored with Milloy's easily argued-away thesis (and extra shame on him for not taking advantage of the material Murray really gave him), I'd rather go back to some of the things Murray said in his lecture. Like I said, there's a lot to contend with here. But unlike Milloy, whose argument is based on inaccurate assumption, Murray's arguments are actually based on facts and statistics, meaning it's not the rationale I don't agree with, but Murray's basic worldview. (Again, Milloy, why did you choose to skip the main course for the garnish?)

Murray's study compares statistics from 1960 and 2010 among the top 20 percent of rich white Americans to the bottom 30 percent of the poor white Americans. Then, with the addition of some de Tocqueville quotes he makes a basic moral argument, which is not dissimilar to that of the religious right. He thinks marriage, heterosexual two-parent homes, greater industriousness and religion will save the United States from becoming a big un-American blob. Lo and behold, the average rates of those things have declined slightly among rich folk and greatly among the poor, leading Murray to conclude sh*t be funky now.

OK, well he didn't word it like that, but he did say the decline in the number of marriages, the rise of single-parent households, and a whole new slew of lazy-ass white working-class secularist hobos, who refuse to coach the local Little League team are changing us for the worse -- they're evidence of the "unraveling of our civic culture."

Hmm, fine, I suppose, if Murray's only point is to point out possible causes for why everyone's bowling alone these days then sure, maybe. (Incidentally, Murray did mention Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam.) What was missing, however, at least from this 90-minute talk, was evidence that the above and this perceived civic unraveling are definitely connected. That is, I don't buy, at least with the evidence Murray provides, that the decline of traditional values necessarily correlates to a worse-off nation.

Times change, people's minds change, their lifestyles and attitudes change. This is the natural course of events, which is why when it comes to very morally conservative folk, I tend to find their almost worshipful devotion to eras past wholly unrealistic and a little bit creepy. Let's not forget, in 1960 segregation still existed (and prior to the aptly named Loving vs. Virginia, interracial couples still couldn't marry in some states under the law!), most homosexuals were forced to suffer in the closet, women were largely discouraged from working outside of the home, and this would have been my hairstyle:

Let's just say the 1960s weren't necessarily pretty. And because of that, I have a hard time finding practical value in studies like Murray's. While I admit civic involvement is important to a nation like ours (and probably to sustainable nations around the world), and yes, there was higher participation in it when more people happened to be married or going to church in 1960, saying those were the reasons why and then advocating either of those things today as a solution (or, as Murray puts it, "the right track") seems suspect. Should we start forcing poor people to get married? Do we send them unwillingly to mass on Sundays? One, that's not even possible; and two, even if it was, that's inhumane. Really, It seems the only solution for reachieving life as it was in the past is a time machine, preferably of the Hot Tub variety.

And so maybe a more feasible and useful question to ask would be what can civic groups and communities do to attract more participating members in 2011? Obviously, if a group is unwelcoming to thirty-something single moms, those single moms (who are growing in numbers, say statistics) will not participate.

Perhaps, what we need to study is a way to start purporting a different set of values to get people engaged (and not necessarily to be married) again -- a more evolved set that emphasizes personal responsibility and education. And I'm not just talking about formal or public education, but the ideas of knowledge, inquisitiveness and, most importantly, critical thinking, which is something I think, unfortunately for their survival, organized religions often discourage. (For the record, like Murray, I'm also a self-described agnostic, but I strongly believe in living my life as it intersects with others' in a secular humanist manner.) With increased personal engagement with our own brains, it seems industriousness -- the one point I agree completely with Murray on -- might improve on its own.

In short, while I don't have any empirical evidence to support my loosely crafted theories, which I admit need a ton of tons more work than what I have time for on this blog, I believe I've at least touched on a few counterpoints worth exploring. At the very least, I didn't just pull a Milloy. (I hope.)

sam harris drives illiterate blogger into philosotard

Before we begin today (and it's a doozy, trust me) I feel obligated to tell you I'm under the influence of a couple of Vicodins, which I had left over from that one time I got a concussion from slipping on my goddamn hardwood floors. (It's a rough life). See, I climbed Old Rag Mountain on Monday and because I'm so coordinated, today I'm dealing with a twisted elbow, two scraped knuckles, a hand gash, a bum ankle and a severe case of chapped lips. Indeed, I'm in the perfect state to wax philosophical.

Enter Sam Harris last night on the stage of George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium. For those of you unaware of who he is, such as the emcee of last night's event, Harris recently released a book called The Moral Landscape. Note to last night's emcee: He did not write a book called The Moral Compass. That book, a treatise on "traditional family values," was written by right-wing pundit William J. Bennett in 1995. They're different.

Very different actually, because unlike Bennett, Harris doesn't believe morality is a gift from God. Morality, he says, is an aspect of humanity that can be scientifically quantified by measuring well-being. This means that, unlike über-politically correct cultural relativists on the left, there is a "moral truth" -- a right and wrong -- that can be derived from reason, totally apart from the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, etc.

In fact, he argues that religion can even be immoral. His most famous claim is about slavery. He said last night, "The Bible got slavery wrong." (Seriously, Exodus 21, really?!) And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg (that God created?). There are some 100 verses in the Quran that call for killing nonbelievers (and if you kill yourself in the process you're rewarded) and the Bible's Old Testament orders that women who stray from their husbands are to be stoned to death. Really, there's a million other contradictions and truly quite horrific/insane orders in religious texts that are supposed to be the direct wishes of God.

Yet here is the problem with religion somehow being the beacon of morality: If that were true, there really should be a lot more dead ladies on the street.

But who am I to talk? According to many believers, I'm just a lost little secularist over here. I'm immoral under the strict definitions of many of the world's organized religions. Yet still, unlike just about all the Catholics who've gone unstoned that I've ever met, I've never cheated on anyone. I've also never killed anyone, never stolen anything of value and I hate intentional deception. If I don't believe in an anthropomorphic God, how could this be? I argue that it's because God, as I had come to know Him growing up a baptized Russian Orthodox and confirmed Episcopalian, seems a lot more confused about life than me. In the Old Testament, God is a huge dick and in the New Testament he's the benevolent father of a long-haired hippie. How are these two God's one and the same? To admit He changed is to admit His faults, isn't it?

I'll admit, growing up I never gave it much thought. I was a Christian by default, as both my parents decided to make me attend church. And I was cool with that -- every Sunday I got free cookies. As boring as Sunday School was, it actually seemed like a pretty fine deal at the time. But then my dad died when I was 16 and suddenly, for lack of a better term, sh*t got real. After that, I stopped being blinded by Snickerdoodles and began to contemplate the meaning of my inherited beliefs for the first time.

At first I found comfort when people told me, "Everything happens for a reason, dear," or "It was God's will, honey." It's a nice thought to think that someone as important as God and Jesus wanted the company of my 51-year-old father so badly. But then I thought, "Hmm, if that's the case, why not just take him peacefully in his sleep, rather than give him cancer and make him suffer an excruciatingly painful deterioration of health for three months?" For that, I couldn't find a satisfactory answer in my religion and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the Bible couldn't be the actual word of God, unless God was so stupid and lazy as to let editorial errors like the fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke can't figure out what came first at the last supper, the water or the wine? Uh, really? I guess I'd like to give God more credit than that. I also came to the conclusion that the Old Testament God, who honestly reads more like a vindictive Real Housewife of Heaven than a righteous divinity, isn't worthy of my time. At this point, evidence leads me to believe that the Bible is less divinely created and more schlocked together by a few powerful and persuasive, but fallible men. And that goes the same for the Quran and the Torah. Really, if God wanted to intervene on Earth, why not do so without playing a giant game of Operator, in which the message will most certainly become mangled by the time it reaches those of us who didn't get it firsthand. Surely, if God wanted to speak to us, God would speak to us all directly by doing something more awesome than sending down a couple of stone tablets with some weird mountain man. The God I'd like to believe in would make it rain champagne or something. Seriously, let's give God some credit here...

Despite all my doubts, however, unlike Harris, I'm not prepared to say there is no God at all. While I reject Christianity's and other religions' depictions of God as humanlike, I cannot discount the possibility that there's something bigger than us we can't see out there. Like Harris, though, I don't believe we should conduct our lives on Earth via any other means than by the reality in which we live. That means that, yes, science rules. In the words of a Michael Jackson documentary, This Is It. (That was a good documentary, by the way.) What you see is what you get and the most moral thing for us to do is be open to discovery and seek answers not through blind faith, but through tangible evidence. Just like physical health, says Harris, morality (the idea of maximizing well-being) is no different. It can be refined and benefited via empirical inquiry. For a better explanation (one I'm not capable of writing right now, as I'm starting to hallucinate -- hi, unicorn!), watch this:



And on a different religious topic, despite the title, the The Astronomical Kid's hit single, "Stop Lookin' at My Moms" is not about polygamy.

Also, that song just elevated my well-being by, like, a million. And since I'll be singing it nonstop, all day because it's so catchy, if you run into me today, it is sure to elevate yours as well. You're welcome.

the salahis are a giant conspiracy theory!

There are few things in life that get my goat other than the obvious (goat-nappers) and people like Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The mere fact that I know who these people are makes my goat want to get got and me want to give myself a lobotomy. Sadly, though, there's nary a way to avoid these assholes anymore, regardless of whether you're in Bravo's Real Housewives demographic or not. Yes now, simply by default of being near a television, you're forced to encounter these clear f*ck-ups in evolution whether you want to or not. For example, here they are farting all over HBO's Real Sports w/ Bryant Gumbel yesterday.



My goat just ate a revolver and shot itself inside out. What a f*cking sh*tshow...

And while I grab my Shamwow to clean this mess up, riddle me this: Do the Salahis prove that the whole world is against us or does their dopey omnipresence demonstrate an inside job? That is, who's trying to keep us from being anything more than that old stereotype of Hollywood for ugly people? Because really, this time-machine version of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt is doing more to make sure we remain just that but dumber than any Martha Washington-looking politician ever did, including even George Washington and his purported 30 dicks.

I mean, seriously, what is going on here? If it's all the Salahis' doing, I ask what happened to the days when being rich meant you built a compound named Xanadu and went crazy in opulent privacy? Why are people today so intent on putting their private shambles on a public stage, especially in DC where being famous for fame's sake has no obvious pay-off. In fact, save for the President and a few pre-selected others, more often than not, when people in DC become household names to America-at-large, it's usually a sign that you'll soon be cast off into obscurity. Larry Craig, Eric Massa, Mark Foley, Scooter Libby: Where are they now? (Answer: Consulting, Tickling, Florida, Unemployed.)

The only sure way to stave off that unfortunate fate is to have a talent. In other words, the Salahis are f*cked.

In fact, they're so f*cked that I think no mortal being would ever want to intentionally create such a hell-on-Earth for themselves. Which means the Salahis seem like an outsider's attempt to keep DC down. These outsiders wonder, "If DC were to ever get legitimately cool, then what would happen to the the status of cities like New York and L.A.?" Indeed, it's brilliant! What better way to make sure DC stays an uncool Hollywood for ugly people than by treating uncool ugly people like they're Hollywood?

Aha! I ask you, why did Bryant Gumbel invite the Salahis on his show? Clearly, it wasn't just to talk about polo! Yes, after exhausting myself trying to find out where Tareq stood in the world polo rankings and failing (I'm talking, like, five Google searches, people!), the Internet gave me the impression that Tareq is as influential in the game as a baby sloth is at not being cute. FAIL!

O! You sneaky bastards, other towns! You almost got us! But get this -- most of us here don't want it. We don't want to be New York or Hollywood. If we did, we'd move there. Proudly and defiantly, we are and shall always remain a place where the less attractive get the most TV time. (The Anti DC Show ain't gonna be a success 'cause it's easy on the eyes!) However, we beg you to let DC remain a place where we can forever be smarter than you. Slopping up the airwaves with the Salahis representing Washington is not only like throwing salt in our unattractive wounds, but it's like crashing the whole salt truck into our hideously deformed eye sockets. Now, we can't even see. And if we can't see, not only is DC f*cked, but the whole damn world is. It's like Hollywood's slipped us a mickey and now we're the company CEO at the office party with his shirt off and the lampshade on his head. As much as I hate our usual buttoned-up demeanor, it still beats being the formerly respected boss who wakes up the next day in a pile of his own vomit; he staggers over to the bathroom mirror only to find out he joined the PEN15 club via a magic-marker tattoo on his forehead. The whole thing's a disgrace.

So please, let's sober up and forget this notion that we, ourselves, or any outsiders can ever rid us of our image of being the NPR nerds. My friends, just like you cannot polish a turd, you also cannot tarnish it. A turd is a turd is a turd! Now, if you'll excuse me, I must see what that Real Housewife Diane Rehm is up to.

*ahem*

Hey, I'm back! Where did I go? Well, besides taking a day off to go to King's Dominion to ride Volcano the Blast Coaster -- THE GREATEST ROLLERCOASTER OF ALL TIME! -- I also took a day off to recover from *Cough*Blargh-o* the Phlegm Sneezer -- THE GROSSEST COLD/FLU OF ALL SUMMER. Ironically, both resulted in the loss of my voice, which also explains why I failed to follow through with the lowly anticipated second episode of The Anti DC Show on Friday. And depending on your view of that project, allow me to either say, "I'm sorry," or, "You're welcome." However, if you're glad episode two didn't pan out last week, then clearly your tastes are far too high-brow not only to be reading this blog but to be living in a society where there exists a television series entitled, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant." Good luck, everybody...

I'd also like to wish good luck upon the newly launched "hyperlocal" news site TBD.com, with which, as I'm sure you've noticed if you stop by here with any regularity, I've become affiliated. While I'm sure the vast majority of you don't give two sh*ts (or even a smidgen of just one sh*t, I suspect) who I team up with, I know at least a couple of you have noticed enough to ask whether this is a sign of me finally selling out.

First of all -- I wish. But the sad reality is that I'm still not getting paid to write. Now, if you're as appalled as I am about that and wish to remedy this situation by either advertising on this blog (which has enough readers to be worthwhile, I might add), giving me a book deal, developing a sitcom with me, or offering me my own humor/cultural criticism column in your magazine/newspaper because, ACK!, someone needs to fill the space Cathy left behind, then email me now. Please. (Theantidc at gmail dot com.)

Because as of now, the best I can monetarily hope for in the near future is that a lot of you are interested in calling federal prisons, buying a Speedo or clicking through to some such other randomly generated service offered up in my weird Google ad in the upper-righthand corner. If 1 million or more of you do, I might just be able to buy myself a beer in six months...

So, if cold hard cash isn't the appeal of joining TBD.com's community network then what is? I mean, there's gotta be some benefit, right? Certainly, I'm not just letting them link to my brilliant material out of the shear goodness of your heart...

Duh. Of course not. If there's anything we should learn from living in the United States of America, it's that knowing you're pregnant volunteering is for suckers. Yet, while I realize TBD.com is probably making more money off of me (if not directly, then certainly indirectly by using more unpaid bloggers instead of more paid reporters to create content), they're providing me more exposure than I'd be able to buy had they paid for the content they've used from me thus far, which has included two blog entries and an interview. In short, we're both ripping each other off. It's a wonderfully American thing.

Yet exposure is not the ultimate goal for me. Instead, like the flasher in the park, it's simply a means to an end. Except while that creeper wants to molest the world, I want to caress it...with ideas! Words! Near limitless unsettling similes and metaphors! O, dear world! You are the sun to my moon! (See?)

So, yes, while TBD.com isn't reaching out to slap my moon's big, white bottom, it's certainly turning a spotlight on it so that others, such as advertisers, literary agents, television developers and editors, may. Hey, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz gave it a tap (UNSETTLING!), so this partnership must be doing something right! Now if only someone would grab it properly and hold on. And pay me. Like a prostitute. Like a hooker. Like a strumpet. Like a working gal. Like a whore. Like an escort. Like a streetwalker. Like a lady of the night. Like someone who performs sexual acts for reasonable amounts of money. (Hey, I said NEAR limitless...)

But seriously, TBD.com is a pretty cool new site. And I say this not just because they've been generous in linking to my page. I say this because they've tapped into something other local news media outlets often miss these days -- relevance. That, and it's nice knowing The Anti DC Show isn't the lone program on the meta-channel in all our minds known as Shamblesvision. FUEGO!

not quite an obit...

Disgraced-then-undisgraced coot-off runner-up Ted Stevens, the former Republican Alaskan senator who was indicted then unindicted on corruption charges, has died. And while it's always sad when someone dies, I'm sometimes a little skeptical of the public mourning surrounding the deaths of politicians. Why do we suddenly forget all the unscrupulous career moves deceased politicians (most of whom are probably psychopaths devoid of normal markers of humanity anyway) ever made and only remember the good? I mean really, when Hitler died, should the world have looked back and noted how "passionate" he was about Germany? Bitch please.

Now, clearly, besides being a politician, Stevens has absolutely nothing to do with Hitler (please, let's not get that twisted), but the comparison helps me underline a larger point -- it's unfair to the public for the news media to suddenly fawn over someone simply due to the fact that he died.

Luckily, we here in DC don't fall for such sentimentalities, especially when dealing with a man who, according to Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post, hated this city so much that he thought it was unfit for representation in the federal government. The reason? Apparently, because of the federal government.

"This is a company town," Stevens once said. "This is a federal government town."

Uh-huh. And because of that view, this blog exists. As long as people like Stevens spew that kind of drivel upon our city, DC will continue to be what Stevens, himself, once described as "gone to hell." Yes, it's people like Stevens (i.e., the federal government, which views DC as nothing more than a giant office building) who make DC suck, who make sure we're still being nationally taxed without having a national voice.

So, are people who think like Stevens just stupid or are they willfully ignorant? That is, do they understand that they are the reason why they hate DC so much? And if they do, then what the f*ck is their motivation? I mean, really, it blows my mind when someone working within the system they claim has made DC so horrible has the gall to say something like, "God forbid that someone should tell me that the city of Washington is my home. I can't think of a worse city to have as capital and I don't care who knows it." Stevens said that in 1982, after about a decade-and-a-half in Washington serving as a senator. Dead or alive, that's a f*cking douchey thing to say, especially when you were/are part of the motherf*cking problem.

And trust me, I understand the irony of criticizing Stevens's hatred of the city when I maintain a blog call The Anti DC, but there are several key differences between our views that make one of us completely out of his element and the other spot on in her witty, thought-provoking prose. And considering my purposeful use of distinctive possessive adjectives in that last sentence, I trust you can figure out to whom I'm saying what. (Hint: I'm not insulting myself.)

Not to mention, it doesn't hurt that with all my vitriol, there's also a heavy dose of affection for this little cess pool of a city. (I mean that lovingly, of course.) Indeed, I am the Hugh Honey to my own Vic Vinegar. In fact, I think it's my recognition that DC is under such a cloud of douche that makes me able to truly appreciate what little this city actually gets right. Those few things are like the couple of turtles who made it through the BP oil spill. They should be loved even more because of it.

And so, here we stand, hopefully with a better understanding of why everyone (that is, the natives, the feds and people like me who, "God forbid," have come to adopt the District as their home) hates DC. Recognizing the problem is always the first step.

But getting back to the reason I wrote this in the first place, I hope wherever Stevens is now suits him better than the place he chose to spend nearly half his life. R.I.P.

just imagine this was written with a quill pen

OK, so I guess that was actually four parts. But whatever, the point is Twitter has eliminated my need to blog...at least about particular instances. What Twitter hasn't done, however (and will never do), is eliminate my need to write extensively about concepts and ideas. One-hundred and forty characters be damned!

So, here's the idea: There are people who aren't complete assholes living in DC. I know it's shocking; I know it's wild, but hear me out because I think I know why...

Here's a fact: I'm a jerk. (I mean, really, this blog is built around me being an asshole, come on.) Here's another fact: But I'm not a miserable bitch every second of every day. Why? Because of this blog -- it's my creative outlet through which I vent to the world why I loathe it so much. It keeps me from being hooked on drugs. (Huffing doesn't count.) And more importantly, it keeps me from acting like a total dick to everyone I know, total strangers, and probably small children and puppies. (I'm still quite a dick to large children and kittens, however.)

What I'm saying, I guess, is that I think that woman who gave me her reusable green bag either has a blog or is engaged in some other form of creative expression that allows her to air her grievances elsewhere other than at individuals she happens to encounter. The guy who then tried to run down two pedestrians because he really didn't want to wait at the red light to turn right, probably does not. Ass.

I mean, think about it. DC is such a stuffy town. A lot of people come here solely to pad their resumes. Like a reality show, they're not here to make friends. They treat DC like a giant office, keeping personal thoughts and feelings to themselves and staying stapled securely to the straight and narrow. Really, it's like being surrounded by a half-a-million Dexters, except the only people they're murdering is themselves. Slowly.

Seriously, how many politicians do you think aren't psychopaths? Most seem to care little about the people they claim to serve, which they show so often by engaging in risky scandals and unethical behavior.

Then again, not everyone here wants to be a politician. Some people here want to be lobbyists [insert exact same psychopath analogy here, I guess], others want to be lawyers, humanitarians, consultants, restaurant owners, reporters, writers, hairdressers, bartenders, engineers, and the list goes on. What this list shows is that not everyone in DC is a born psychopath (just the people in power are). So why does it seem this city's residents (and the surrounding area's residents, as well) are so often completely devoid of emotion or empathy? Why do so many people here seem to be on the dick spectrum?

I really do believe it has something to do with a lack of creativity. Like fashion, it seems having anything to do with the world of arts and letters is frowned upon here as frivolous. That really is a shame. Not only does it prevent DC from ever becoming a true community, but it so often makes it generally unpleasant to live here.

Creativity is an aggression valve. It keeps people who are capable of feeling feelings from imploding and/or exploding. It makes people more pleasant and places more beautiful. Spic and span concrete certainly has it's place, but so do street murals. And I mean that both literally and metaphorically. I mean, just think of what DC could be if it one day decided to loosen its tie and undo the top button -- just for a few hours a day. I think it would have the potential to be one of the most unique, hospitable, greatest city's of the world.

I urge everybody to paint something, sing something, write something, photograph something, rhyme something, play something, act something, or maybe just give someone your extra grocery bag and think of it as performance art. In other words, make friends, you assholes. :)

before you put your pants on smarty...

Someone please tell me that I'm not the only person who pontificates about what would ever happen if we reached the end of science. Is that even possible? I mean, even if we discover all there is to know, won't there always be a couple of unanswerable questions because of the conditions with which we're surrounded? For instance, without the aid of greater perspective, how will we ever know that what we think we're seeing is really what's there? For instance, what you're seeing as a computer screen and keyboard may actually be specks on some tiny part of some hard-to-even-imagine-how-big-or-small-it-could-be gravitational horizon that reflects light in a certain way to mimic shapes. No really, some scientists think THIS COULD ALL JUST BE A F*CKING HOLOGRAM!

Your hand on the mouse guiding the pointer toward the "X" right now? ILLUSION!

But seriously, please don't click that "X." I swear I'm going somewhere with this in that it will soon become a metaphor for something we perceive to be real within the parts of the world we think we're able to detect through our current science-based "facts." Or whatever.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that even if we do come up with a theory that more or less "proves" (or at least what we perceive as proves) a certain theory, how do we know that's the end? What if that hologram universe is part of a larger hologram world? Or what if that larger hologram world is balanced on the backs of a million stacked-up turtles? Or what if those millions of stacked up turtles are actually located in a marble being knocked around by some 8-year-old kid in some other world where up is down and down is up? Or, God ironically forbid, that we discuss the possibility of the existence of God or Allah or Krishna or Xenu (well, maybe not that last one...) or some other traditionally divine possibility! Or maybe it's not anything anthropomorphic at all! Maybe there's still some supernatural force -- for the atheists in the crowd let's call it Science 2.0 -- that our mysteriously conscious minds don't have the faculties to even begin to comprehend! Perhaps, all we are is dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wi-i-i-i-i-i-iiiind! (You're my boy, Blue!)

And I joke (as signified by my nod to "Old School," the greatest film to ever be produced on hologram Earth), but maybe that's literal! Maybe a Science 2.0 blob-god flipped on a fan, causing the dander (which is really tiny hologram us!) on his pet blob-cat to careen off into the far corner of his blobpartment in an ever-expanding mass. Maybe THAT'S the "big bang!"

(Give me a minute. OMBG! My head's about to explode.)

Phew. The point is, no matter how much we think we know, we might be totally wrong, at least in the grand scheme of things. And sure, some will argue that if there's never going to be a possibility of proving or disproving a set of possibilities, there's no point in trying or even caring. They say, "I'll just stick to what I can see, thankyouverymuch. The rest doesn't matter because I can't quantify it with my TI-89!"

Fine. I get it. Facts (or what we perceive to be facts) are important. So are statistics and data and everything else that can tell us more about the immediate world that we can see. After all, hologram or not, the way our senses work (whether they were evolved or designed or pooped out by evolutionary forces within the intestines of blob-god), we're forced to operate within the parameters we can detect through sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Sadly, those are all the faculties we've got, which means we might still be missing things we can't merdop, zangle, puffuffle, lorp and vulkem. (I assume those are the totally reasonably named senses of the future.) In other words, we're probably missing a lot.

And so is this Brookings Institute study that led the Washington Post, which I love so much, to proclaim, "Washington region ranks as best-educated area in the country." Mainly, it seems to be missing the data, which they apparently gathered from some mythical "2008 Census."

Judging from the 2010 Census PR campaign, I'm guessing the 2008 return was probably pretty paltry and, more importantly, probably pretty lopsided. For one, I don't even remember receiving a census form, and also I'm guessing that there was probably a disproportionate number returned from the suburbs where people simply have nothing else to do but get rich, go to school and fill out government paperwork. (And spy for Russia.)

But even if I was the only oddball in DC proper not to receive a form and this 2008 data is more or less correct, having the highest number of post-high school degrees isn't necessarily something we should be bragging about. These days, most people in middle-class-to-affluent suburbs go to college because that's what they're supposed to do. You don't have to be extraordinarily smart to get in anymore (George W. Bush went to Yale), which means when you graduate, it certainly doesn't signify that you're smarter because of it (again, George W. Bush went to Yale). Really, college is the new high school, but with a lot more grade inflation, so in a weird way, it's actually easier. (GEORGE BUSH WENT TO YALE!)

More importantly, college doesn't make you interesting. And in fact, going to college because "it's what's expected of you," actually just makes you boring. What do you do? Oh, you're a [insert serious occupation here]? That's great. What else do you do? You act like a douche because you let your college-degree-necessary serious job define your entire personality? That's fabulous. Good for you.

Seriously, think about how many parties (and I use that term loosely here) you've been to in DC or Arlington or Alexandria or Bethesda, where you find yourself saying, "I need to be drunker to be here right now." Why do you think that is? It's because besides talking politics and policy (which, I concede, we are very good at here in DC) party conversations here are about as stimulating to the mind as blob-god's legs are long. (Get it? BLOB-GOD DOESN'T HAVE LEGS! Or does he? Or she? Or it? Or some other pronoun our brains can't even conceive of yet?)

DC is very good at maintaining the status quo, which is fine I guess (it's better than being below average), but it's certainly nothing to be proud of. Great, we all went to college. Great, we all have stable 9 to 5 jobs (well, most of us...). Great, we all watch CSI and go to Home Depot on the weekends. Woot.

It comes down to this: What we lack in DC in adequate stimulation, we try to make up for in our boasting about how book-smart we are. While that's great (I think a certain level of erudition -- although not necessarily that which can be acquired through traditional schooling -- is necessary to create stimulation), if we're always reading the book instead of writing it, we're destined for nothing more than normal, adequate, so-so, meh, peppered every-so-often with a truly great policy discussion.

So here's my unsolicited advice: We need to break out of the constraints we've trapped ourselves within and look at the grander picture. Life isn't all about staying in line with what's expected of us given the circumstances into which we were born. It's high time we here in DC began to see beyond our own myopia and puffuffle the numinous that could be. Or at the very least, stop being so damn socially boring, wonks, and start realizing there's more to life than networking. There's blob-god. Or something.

About the author: The Anti DC not only went to college but somehow convinced another school of higher learning to give her a Master's degree in Russian foreign policy, which she will talk about if asked at parties until your ear falls off. Literally. Then, in humanity's quest to get to the end of science, she will conduct an experiment to discover how many hologram cocktail napkins it takes to plug the gaping hole left by your missing ear. Talk about being socially awkward at a party! This girl!

tweeting accidents deliberately

Anyone out there use Twitter? (I'm looking at you, Dmitry Medvedev.)

Me too. I mean, we're not animals. We can communicate in more ways than simple barking.

We can tweet.

"You mean like a bird, Marissa?"

OK, so maybe we are animals. And not even cool ones like barking seals, but little scrawny ones like that group of annoying warblers outside your window that won't shut up when you're trying to sleep...tweet...TWEET...TWEEEEEET!

OK, so Twitter can get a bit stupid sometimes, maybe even a little irritating, but it's also what elevates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (except maybe for seals -- seals are awesome). I mean, think about it, we're the only animals who can use the qwerty keyboard, and I'll be damned if we can't turn that useful invention into something superfluous, such as a conduit on which to exchange ironic procrastination links. But I mean, what is this? The Industrial Revolution? F*ck that. Long live Twitter and long live on-the-job unproductivity!

"But Marissa, some people use Twitter because of work!"

That's a myth, I say!

"Is it, Marissa? If it's a myth then how do you explain why fellow DC blogger LivitLuvit (@livitluvit) is about to snag a job from MTV via Twitter or...or...or why @dcfireems exists? Really, Marissa, pull your head out of your incredibly firm, bicycling ass and get a clue..."

I do have a clue, you meanie! (Although, thanks for the butt compliment. *smiles*) LivitLuvit is going to get that gig because MTV knows she's the only one who can save the network now that Justin Bobby cut his hair! And...and...wait, what was that second thing you mentioned? AND DON'T ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME!

"*rolling eyes* I said @dcfireems, Marissa. It's the Twitter handle of DC Fire and EMS. Can't you read? Nevermind. Just go look at it."


Well, I'll be damned. I'm so glad the Internet argues with me from time to time, as seen above. I mean, if not for the Internet's ability to pistol-whip me with information over and over again against my lesser judgment, I'd still be the monkey feeling up the big metal slab wondering what it is, rather than just f*cking Googling it. Thank you, technology.

And honestly, thank you Twitter. The existence of @dcfireems is, I think, the first time that Twitter (a.k.a. technology's 'tard-revealer) has proven useful for something other than keeping tabs on Iranian revolutions. (I call it "technology's 'tard-revealer" because I'm pretty sure you can tell how smart someone is by how stupid his or her tweets are; see: @ricksanchezcnn, whose tweets make him sound less like a CNN news anchor and more like an illiterate 12-year-old girl.)

But returning to the phenomenon that is @dcfireems, how awesome (albeit macabre) is it that in between receiving "party tips" from @AndrewWK, we can receive real-time alerts about how big of a-holes DC drivers are? (Really, pedestrians and cyclists are getting hit WAY too much in this city for it to be purely accidental...) Not only that, but I wonder if, over time, the log produced by the @dcfireems Twitter account could somehow be further aggregated to produce for us a map of the most dangerous intersections or streets in DC. I, for one, would love to pull up a grid on my phone that could alert me to the street dangers of the city, or even better, use it as part of a route planner.

Of course, then we'd lose the element of surprise. And I suppose, when it comes to bodily harm, there's nary a worse feeling than realizing impending doom is about to befall you.

Speaking of...I'm going for a bike ride.

Also, read this and if you haven't been tested, get tested.

And lastly:

washington post vs. @buttscratcher69

What do Joel Achenbach, Anne Applebaum, David Broder, Jonathan Capehart, Richard Cohen, Petula Dvorak, Jackson Diehl, E.J. Dionne, Michael Gerson, Fred Hiatt, Kevin Huffman, David Ignatius, Robert Kagan, Al Kamen, Colbert King, Ezra Klein, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Ruth Marcus, Robert McCartney, Harold Meyerson, Dana Milbank, Matt Miller, Courtland Milloy, Kathleen Parker, Steven Pearlstein, Eugene Robinson, Robert Samuelson, Marc Thiessen, Katrina vanden Heuvel, George Will, Jonathan Yardley and Fareed Zakaria all have in common?

They're all opinion columnists at The Washington Post. Hmm.

Now, perhaps it's just my cynicism as an underemployed journalist, but doesn't it seem a bit suspicious that the opinion section of the paper has 33 employees/regular contributors (most of whom aren't original and/or worth the read anyway), while meanwhile, the paper has fired actual news reporters from its other, arguably more important sections? I mean, it's called a newspaper, not a dick-with-an-opinionpaper, right? Right.

Seriously, when I go to the local section to read about a man getting sentenced to jail for tossing a lizard or ferrets being found in the mail, I expect in-depth, original reporting. But instead, all I get is a blurb and a footnote that the Post jacked those stories from NBC4 and The Roanoke Times, respectively. What?! That's ass-backwards! Shouldn't it be the other way around? (Um, backwards-ass?) Especially with broadcast news! How embarrassing to bite stories from television news, especially since broadcasters now have no qualms about acknowledging that they get most of their reportage from Twitter.

According to CNN's resident Tweet 'tard, Rick Sanchez, "This is the first time we can connect directly with citizens who could be a reliable source aside from the talking heads and pretty faces that serve as news anchors."

Yeah, Rick. I'm sure most of us are more apt to trust @buttscratcher69 over you. Well, actually, um, maybe that's true. Rick Sanchez is an idiot, so yes, actually, I guess I'm with @buttscratcher69 on that one. But are we willing to trust @buttscratcher69 over the Post?

Maybe. I suppose as long as the Post keeps propping up its editorial columnists, often at the expense, it seems, of on-the-ground reporters, I don't see any reason why Michael Gerson's or Dana Milbank's version of "the news" should be any more trustworthy than @buttscratcher69's, or hell, even Rick Sanchez's. They're all opinions, after all.

Of course, this is not to say the Post is a total rag. In fact, calling it "a rag" at all is kind of ridiculous. While it may fail in its often yawn-and/or-cringe-worthy opinion pieces, the Post's investigative unit is one of the best in the nation. I'm not sure if that's solely because Dana Priest's sh*t is tight as hell or because Post management actually gives that section a workable budget. Maybe it's a combination of the two. But whatever the cause, as long as the Post keeps breaking news (the CIA 'black site' story of 2005) and publishing Pulitzer-worthy sagas (the Walter Reed story of 2007), I'll continue to read it every day. Also, it doesn't hurt that the Post's Sunday crossword rivals the New York Times' in its level of difficulty, both of which I am capable of crushing, by the way, because I'm an idiot savant.

But getting back to my original complaint: Why the f*ck does the Post need 33 opinionators? Are five right-wing voices better than one? Or five left-wingers? Jesus. Maybe if they expanded their voice pool, you know, by hiring a sassy, local blogger who kowtows to no side (ahem, just sayin'), they could justify having more than, say, 10...

But no. I'm afraid @buttscratcher69 is probably the next in line. He'll be hired next year when the Post and all other news outlets decide to publish pieces that are no more than 140 characters in length:


Alas, I guess that's just the way of the world. Maybe people aren't as interested as they used to be in muckraking reporting and understanding issues from the inside out. Maybe people really do want just headlines, snippets and the 140-character opinions of the @buttscratcher69's of the world. If that's the case, then I fear my outrage is misdirected. If it's not the news organizations that are at fault for killing news reporting (whether it's print, broadcast or otherwise), it must be us. Or maybe it's some sort of symbiosis of suck between we, the people, and the major news outlets.

Who knows. And, really, who cares? Because the chances of newspapers returning to what they could have been are about as good as the chances of your computer self-immolating after you finish reading this sentence.

See? Nothing happened, which I guess means it's time to say farewell to the news and hello to @buttscratcher69. Can't wait to hear what he says about the Goldman Sachs debacle.

no money, no problems!

I am a natural born blogger. I know this. I'm f*cking really good at it, which is kind of depressing because of all the skills I could have been given, doling out cleverly written anecdotes sprinkled with fart jokes unfortunately has yet to earn me a billion dollars. It is days like today when I wish I could do basic math. But then again, that's what helper animals are for. However, I don't bring this up simply to depress myself. No, I bring this up because someone brought up a similar point to me yesterday. "I'm really surprised you haven't been getting more comments. Your posts are really good." And while I would've been flattered in the past, yesterday I just shrugged. "Duh. I know. I'm an idiot savant on the Web. (I'm a plain, old idiot offline, however.)" The conversation continued: "I think it's because Obama, our Lord and Savior, has become president and people are in better spirits here now and they might not be able to relate to your hilarious hatery as much." At that point, I regurgitated in my oral cavity just a bit, making me thankful I always have my pimp cup emesis basin on hand when people say such ridiculous things to me. "Really? You think one man can lift the veil of blarg off a city like DC, where the blarg flows deep and strong into the very roots of this big village's half-assed concept of community? For the love of everything outside of this cess pool, the new 'hot spot' in DC is The Cereal Bowl! Because everyone needs to drop $4 on a bowl of Lucky Charms served up to you by a douche in footie pajamas! WHAT?! CAN I GET A WITNESS?! CAN I?!?!" Cowering in fear, my conversation partner quickly hid his Cereal Bowl receipt behind his back and stammered, "W-w-w-well, then what do you think it is? Why haven't people been commenting on your totally engaging, irreverent and thought-provoking posts?" "Because they all moved! Duh! Do I need to have a helper animal come over here and spell it out for you?!?!" I added a retro Howard Dean scream at the end because I'm bat-sh*t insane. But besides proving that there should be a lot more padding in this room I'm in right now, this exchange brings up another point: DC is a transitional city, which means the sense of community will always lag behind that of other cities, which means DC still sucks. While, I admit I too have sensed a change for the slight better with the opening of ventures like The Passenger and U Street Music Hall, one still can't ignore ventures like The Cereal Bowl. (By the way, I call dibs on a canned fruit stand and a Capri-Sun bar. I'll make tens of dollars!) I've also sensed a slight change among the people. Perhaps, I'm progressively going blind, but people seem to be dressing slightly better here these days. I purchased a smartphone with a camera on it in hopes of engaging in a little spontaneous Shambles P.I., and I haven't found one outfit worthy. Sure, if you go to the Hill, you're going to see bad Ann Taylor and Men's Warehouse on display, but no longer do a handful of people (which is better than none) seem to be keeping this aesthetic on the weekends. For example, I know for a fact I'm not the only kid on the block with a pair of jorts anymore. But, unlike my aforementioned conversation partner, I don't think Obama deserves all the credit. If he starts wearing jorts then we'll talk. But guess who does wear jorts? TAKE A WILD GUESS AT WHAT EGOTIST WEARS JORTS! COME ON! Indeed, my mockage of douche and love of jorts came so hard last year that when I left to travel, this city scrambled to better itself before my imminent and predictable return. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a natural evolution. I mean, let's not go carried away; after all, the other pair of jorts I mentioned didn't even have awesome fray on them, which technically means they're not even jorts, but simply denim shorts. Yawn. So, you see? Obama or not, there's still a whole lot to bitch about in DC. Unfortunately, when you leave for six months, most of your longterm readers inevitably leave, too, meaning people stop commenting. And while I'd like to think they all left because they couldn't bear living here without my knowledge being dropped on them like proverbial bird turds from a sickly pigeon, I think the real reason a bunch of them left was because it was in their plans all along. Like I said, DC is a transitional place. And so The Anti DC, the one thing I'm naturally good at, is fatefully left to wiggle like a fish out of water, forgotten about in your grandpa's rickety old fishing boat. Will anybody find it before it inevitably dies a painful, suffocating death? And if so, will they eat it or throw it back? Or will they simply use it for decoration then exploit it in an annoying McDonald's ad? I'm hoping for the latter. I want a billion dollars and a lifetime supply of milkshakes.

we built this city on...

I apologize for the lack of blog post yesterday. I'm sure you all cursed the e-gods that be and then proceeded to cry all day wondering about the fart jokes that could've been. Or maybe you were drunk all day because you think St. Patrick's Day is a holiday worth celebrating. Xenophobes. I don't see anyone celebrating the existence of Belarus with me!

Anyvay (said like an ex-Soviet), I've got a really good excuse this time and it's not because I'm sick or lazy. It's because I needed my jorts. I drove about 300 miles round-trip yesterday to pick up a f*cking pair of cut-offs. I rule. So do my jorts.

But before I went to retrieve my awesomely frayed cropped pantaloons, I met up with my friend Libby aka Lazerbitch, whose music career is about to skyrocket because she's the f*cking T-I-T-S! I mean, how can you not love this?



ICE CREAM IN YOUR FACE!

Also, did you notice the Claire Hux cameo at the end when she steals the mic??? I did. *sigh* I really should move to Baltimore...

Or maybe not. DC has demonstrated in the past that it has the potential to be a leading producer of awesomeness for the ears. I mean, this city produced the likes of Fugazi, Wale, The Dismemberment Plan, The Thievery Corporation and John Philip Sousa (!), so there must be something good in the water here (lead), right? RIGHT!

So what the hell? Why isn't all that lead in the water working its magic here? For the answer, I'll turn to DC's premiere music journalist and DC-ite born-and-raised, Marcus Dowling, who posted this note on his Facebook a couple of weeks ago:

So, I recently moved back to Washington, DC. The less said about the seven years where I didn't live in DC proper the better, but, I'm here, back to my city of birth, and I couldn't be happier. Yes, as always, if you read the page you'll read where I have rather extremely pointed things to say about the nature of the development of culture here, so, with that being said, I've decided to do my part to bring some DC cultural folklore back to the table. See, I love DC [editor's note: wait, give him a chance], and I think there's depth and worth here on a musical level on the level of, or comparably better than other cities in the US, and let's even extrapolate that to worldwide. But I think the city's lost its way. I'll posit this theory here. DC has become completely a city based around satiating the desires of a transient population. I think we've finally hit the tipping point, to the destruction of a unique DC culture. Yes, there are bands, acts, food, artists, etc., but none of it feels truly and uniquely organic as go-go, hardcore or even on another level, Cool Disco Dan felt 30 years ago. If people come and people go with alarming regularity, where's the need for creating concepts, styles, sounds and ideas that have any permanence, roots or truly soulful reality? I argue that there isn't one.

All the emphasisesses (that's the correct plural form) were added by me to, well, emphasize certain points where I think Mr. Dowling has hit nail on the head punched the jugular on the neck.

I mean, look what happened when I left last September. Everything turned to sh*t!

"Um, Marissa. That's complete balderdash. Everything stayed the same and, in fact, some new stuff opened that doesn't suck so hard."

OK. Fine. Whatever. Which brings me to my new point. Is DC changing now? Have the people who have remained here noticed this "tipping point" of suckage and grown sick of it? Are the collective "we" who've lived here more than two years going to start demanding a community again instead of passively letting crap be the password to pass for passable while we all wait to move somewhere else? I think maybe we are.

There are new bars opening up (The Passenger) that are making DC look like they know what they're doing liquor-wise. There are new music venues opening up (U Street Music Hall), which will hopefully encourage local acts to sharpen up and play more. And, most of all, I'm back.

"Seriously, Marissa. Your narcissism knows no bounds, you asshole."

OK. Fine. Whatever. But to borrow the words of Starship (not from DC), before we start building this city on rock'n'roll (save for a local band I've never seen but can't get enough of the name, Animal Genital, who will be playing Wednesday, March 24 at Velvet Lounge), we'll let Lazerbitch do it. Libby and her band are rolling in for a gig at The Hotel on Friday, April 9! Be there or be, uh, not there. It really is your choice. However, there is a right one and a wrong one.

Now if only Claire Hux would show up, too...

in which i get all meta

What's worse than blogging about blogging? Blogging about blogging over at another blog!

Of course, it's a little less repugnant when you take into account why I blogged about blogging on another blog. I've come to hate Why I Hate DC, a site that used to make me laugh, sometimes even think (although not often). Most importantly, it's a site that I help upkeep, a term I use loosely as I think I've only blogged about five times over there.

So why would I bite this proverbial hand that doesn't feed me? (I don't get any compensation.) This photo lifted from Sucka Pants via BikeSnobNYC sums it up:


To read the rest, CLICK HERE. It's sort of a letter of resignation, my Jay-Z style retirement from that site, if you will.

But speaking of Jay-Z, this video is a bit dated, but it's still effing cool:

i'm getting a bailout bonus!

All this talk about AIG is a little annoying. In fact, it's downright offensive. Why can't we just let those who failed to do their jobs adequately get money from the government? There's nothing wrong with a little welfare. Even if that welfare means getting a bonus for $6.5 million for totally f*cking our economy. So what! As if AIG employees were the first ones to receive money for failing! Just look at me!


What a fine screenshot capture...for a hawk. For those of you without the eyesight of an accipitridae, allow me to retype the "NEWS!" printed in red that popped up from the DC Office of Unemployment on my account summary this morning:

"It is our pleasure to announce that your weekly benefit amount has increased by $25.00 as a result of the Federal Stimulus Package. This increase is effective the week ending 02/28/09 and ends the week ending 07/03/10 and is based upon your continued eligibility for benefits."

While I hate to talk sh*t about money I'm receiving for no good reason (i.e., apparently this blog was just too cool for school, or rather too offensive for the workplace), I can't help but draw a parallel here. In essence, aren't AIG employees and I both getting rewarded for failure? Granted the former's failure affected the entire state of the nation, while mine simply affected the state of my personal finances, but, really, if you warp your brain a bit, drop any modicum of common sense and maybe get a little drunk, you'll see that these situations are simply two sides of the same devalued coin. We're both getting money for doing absolutely nothing!

Why is it OK to give a bunch of unemployed hobos (I can say that because I am one of them) stimulus money while we're seemingly embarking on a modern-day witch hunt of the rich? In fact, to really get all libertarian-crazy on you, I'll take it a step further: The former situation is possibly even more unjust than the latter. After all, the government is not contractually obligated to give me my $25 bonus each week. AIG was. Had AIG not paid those bonuses (or as I prefer to pluralize it, boni), the government would have probably had to spend more on a bailout to settle several thousand lawsuits than it did to simply follow the law (flawed as it may be) and do what modern American capitalism is designed to do in the first place, that is to make the rich richer. Good ol' freedom...

So where does this leave me and my reprehensible welfare? Well, I still have $9,000 more to collect and, considering I possess no true morals, I'll easily be able to ignore everything I just said and continue to happily cash your checks. (Thanks employed taxpayers!)

However, just because I'm raking in a fat $359 a week doesn't mean I'll continue to laze about rationing beans and watching Tyra Banks all day (I only do that from noon-1 p.m.). Oh no, I'm intrepid. I will continue to look for work. In fact, I just applied to work as a bike messenger. Why not? I own a bike. I own a bag. I use both on a daily basis. I might as well cash in on that.

Yet while delivering sh*t in a timely fashion sounds like a good temporary fit, I think my more permanent path might be peddling the SlapChop. And yes, I mentioned the SlapChop yesterday, but fear that not all of you clicked on the link. Even if you did, this clip bears repeating. Firstly, because of Vince, who, unlike derivative traders, is definitely earning every dollar he makes, and secondly, because of the SlapChop. It's not just about chopping sh*t, it's about making your life exciting via tuna salad. Also, it's about listening to what Vince says 55 seconds into the video and then listening to it again 50 more times (100 if you're unemployed).



"YOU'RE GONNA LOVE MY NUTS!"

e-lost and found

For those of you following me on Twitter (by the way, I almost "tweeted" this last night: "I like popcorn."), you may have caught onto the fact that I love the show LOST (and hate The View, but that's another non-story for another place in the space-time continuum). Anyway, LOST is truly a smashing television program because it's not simply just another show to me; it's a work of art. Unlike normal television shows not catered to freaky geeks who love weird science, LOST's complicated plotline finds its base in theoretical physics where time is malleable, magic dudes with a knack for eye-liner application never age and, well, finally I prefer the blond to the brunette when it comes down to who's hotter between two of the main protagonists, Sawyer or Jack. Sawyer, hands dastardly down and shirts heroically off, is WAY hotter than Jack. In fact, every (non-morbidly obese) male character, save for Benjamin Linus, is hotter than Jack because Jack, as it turns out, is a major tool. (As is Benjamin Linus.)

Jack's problem is that he's conventional, boring, an uncreative thinker and, most importantly, way too goddamn serious all the time. Jack is DC. Sawyer, on the other attractive hand, is the antithesis. He's unconventional, entertaining, extremely creative and funny. He's also apparently an avid reader of actual books and not just The Economist on the metro, which makes him representative of some sort of far-off magical island where all of your dreams come true. Wait. No, that's John Locke (not the philosopher, but yet another LOST character). Which means Sawyer is simply other-worldly. He's representative not of some place, either conventional or strange, but simply of himself -- a quality that seems to be becoming increasingly rarer these days and not just in DC.

People no longer follow their dreams or pursue happiness the way that I believe it was intended in this country. And while some modern-day folk may be perfectly content with their lives as they exist (whether it be because they can afford the high-end call girls, have the all-access badge to Congress or something equally as douchey...or maybe they're just genuinely happy...you bastards!), judging from most of my conversations with people (including many in-depth ones with myself...), many of us are not. I'm not. Or at least I wasn't. But I'm working to change that, which is one of the reasons why my blogging has become rather irregular (unlike my bowel movements -- thank you, beans!)

While I was toiling away in a job I felt no real connection to (like so many of us do), blogging was my main creative outlet. I set aside about an hour or two a day to let my mind flow freely and my fingers tap out rape jokes aplenty. However, since I stopped working my day-job, I now have 40+ more hours per week to focus on what I truly want to do, which so happens to be (probably unsurprisingly) creative writing. Weirdly, with these new projects (one of which happens to be a sitcom pilot, so if anyone has any experience/connections/etc. to that business, please feel free to contact me), the blog -- my once-upon-a-time primary creative outlet -- has become almost unreadably secondary.

And for that I apologize. But what can a girl do? I can't waste all of my A-list cancer jokes online. After all, if you give away the milk for free, who's going to buy the cow? (Yes, I'm pretty sure that's exactly how that phrase was intended to be used.)

But I digress. What this all means is that I'm probably not going to be blogging every day anymore. Last month, as you probably noticed, my posts were subpar at best. I am actually even e-ashamed of some of them. So, let's put those duds in the past, shall we? And instead focus on the future, albeit a more sporadic future, but still a future nonetheless. And a bright one at that. Hopefully brighter than that of Timbuk 3, whose one hit is so apropos right now that I can't help but post it in all of its "VH1's Where Are They Now?" glory:



But for reals, thanks for sticking around with me despite that I've become a sh*tty blogger. And, no joke, if anyone knows anything about the sitcom industry or is possibly interested in comedic acting in what may eventually become a DIY pilot (hey, that's how "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" got picked up!), email me here: theantidc@gmail.com. It's time to get legit. Or at least as legit as this: