Records of Shame

In the spirit of Shawn's recent post about bad movies, I thought I'd write about bad music that I either owned in the past and now repudiate or currently own and enjoy covertly. This can be music that you know in your heart is bad, music that is universally scorned, or music that is so out of keeping with your usual music taste that it is an anomaly on your shelf. It could be music that you used to like but now you hate. Whatever. Anything goes.

My top five bad music:

1. Richard Marx. The first tape I ever bought. You know the one. Sing it with me. "And I remember how you loved me/Time was all we had until the day we said goodbye/I remember every moment of those endless summer nights..."

2. Anything by Warrant. I loved them. I hated them. I still own "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich," although I don't display it with my other CDs. I purchased a Warrant CD as recently as college.

3. I once downloaded a Mandy Moore song. I didn't keep it because I felt dirty. But it was so damned catchy. No, I won't say which one.

4. Steelheart. Do you remember Steelheart? Of course you don't. Nobody does, because they were crappy. They were a cock rock band, sub-Poison, who took themselves more seriously. Don't need nothing but a good time? Not Steelheart. They dealt with issues. I don't remember which ones. Their defining characteristic was that their lead singer could shriek like the violins in the murder scene in Psycho.

5. Dan Fogelberg's Greatest Hits. This should be higher on the list. Like at #1. My ex-fiancee really liked that song "Same Old Lang Syne," so I bought her the CD. Fine, I liked it too. When we split up, she left it with me. I admit to playing it a few times and thinking, damn, some of these songs are really catchy. The used CD store employees laughed in my face when I tried to sell it, so I microwaved it and used it as a coaster for a while.

Rock on.

Ben and J.Lo Split

In a move that is already producing repercussions throughout the entertainment journalism industry, Jennifer Lopez broke off her engagement to Ben Affleck. Celebrity magazines such as People, Us, and Star were predicting massive layoffs due to the sudden dropoff in gossip.

"This is going to send the industry reeling," said an unnamed source at People. "It could get as bad as the dot-com bust."

Cheryl Rostack, the managing editor of Us, said that pink slips were already being inserted in employee paychecks. "They thought they were getting bonuses because the on-again, off-again engagement was providing so much fodder," she said. "I don't know what to tell them."

One angry reporter at The Star vented her anger at Bennifer while she waited in line at a Brooklyn soup kitchen. "How dare they?" she demanded. "Celebrities are so selfish. Sure, they weren't happy, blah blah blah. Tell that to my kids," she said, pointing at her two children, their bellies already distended from malnutrition brought about by the whims of Hollywood superstars.

A source at Entertainment Weekly said that he wasn't sure the magazine, popular at supermarket checkouts, would survive the Bennifer bustup, but he was holding out hope. "Thank God for Michael Jackson," he sighed. "He's always good for cover stories, and it should get better with his trial coming up."

I hope The Onion didn't beat me to this.

I'm finished! Well, not quite.

I have finally finished transfering all 560 of my reviews from my current site to my new site. This was a very, very long task. I've been working on it for more than two months. Sometimes I was in despair, thinking that I would never finish. I doubted my skill, my faith, and my enthusiasm. I wondered if I was cut out to be a movie reviewer. I hoped that God would kill me, even though I don't believe in Him. But now I'm done.

The stats: 2,224 actors, 967 writers, 439 directors, 431 cinematographers, 23 countries, and 17 languages.

Now comes the rest of the job, which is actually making the new site work. Transfering the reviews was just manual labor. This part takes skill. Good thing I'm not in charge of it.

Kings 2, Blackhawks 1

I took my stepfather to his first NHL game this past Sunday. My friend Shawn came with us. It was the most godawful boring NHL game I have ever been to. There was absolutely no flow, only three goals scored, little hitting, and little speed. Chicago managed 35 shots, but none of them were memorable. It was just completely blah. It was worse than watching minor league teams go at it. The game was an illustration of everything that people say is wrong with hockey. There weren't any obnoxious people in the stands near us, which is nice, but that is a small consolation.

Victory!

I got into a minor fender-bender on Sunday. I was in a left turn lane, and I had my blinker on to turn left into a gas station parking lot. I decided suddenly to pull ahead closer to the corner and use a different entrance to the gas station. I hit the gas, heard a loud beep to my right, and got bumped by a car that was attempting to change lanes in front of me, or what was going to be in front of me until I decided to pull ahead.

The very nice Chinese man in the car and I pulled into the parking lot. I was positive it was my fault. I apologized profusely, and he was very nice about everything. I wrote down my insurance and contact info, and he politely verified everything against the original forms. We shook hands and parted ways. I was pretty calm about it. I was in the wrong, but there was very little damage—just some paint scraped off—which my insurance company would pay for.

Then, the phone calls started. My mom, all upset because she heard about the accident from the insurance company instead of from me. I hadn't expected Mr. Chinese Guy to call in a claim right away, so I wasn't going to call her until later that night. The insurance company, recording my statement and questioning me about it vigorously. I started to get stressed about it because it wouldn't go away. For three days, the calls continued. Where was his car exactly? Who was moving where, and who was in what lane? I even paced off the distances and drew an elaborate map of the accident site. I was getting nuts about it by now, again because it just wouldn't go away.

Today, victory. I got a letter from the insurance company, who said that they had determined that Mr. Chinese Guy was the majority party at fault. Illinois state law says that he is barred from any recovery. Accordingly, they denied his claim. Wahoo! Now my rates will go up anyway.

The smell of unemployment

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/bg/01-15-04-200188.html

Chicago-area candy makers Fannie May (not the student loan people) are closing up shop, closing 242 stores in the Chicago area and laying off 625 workers from their west-side factory. Fannie May's owners, Archibald, have sold the company to Alpine Confections. Maybe they'll follow the lead of Brachs, who moved production to Mexico after laying off 3500 employees.

I love the smell of cooking chocolate that fills the air in the west loop in downtown Chicago. That smell will be gone forever soon. I'm sure that's not the foremost worry of the newly unemployed, some of whom have worked there all their adult lives. I suppose this is what some would call progress. Tell that to the workers.

American Gods

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

This is the second novel by comic book genius Neil Gaiman, who proves that he's multitalented. The premise is that there are gods living in the United States who nobody worships anymore. They make a living as con men, prostitutes, and funeral parlor directors. They were brought here by people from around the world, but America is a land of forgetting, so they are forgotten.

The new gods are technology, money, fitness. They are portrayed in a pretty humorous way: there's one fat kid wearing a Rolex who smells like burnt circuitry. They want to do away with the old gods, but Odin wants to lead the old gods in a final battle against the new ones. He enlists Shadow, a mysterious type of guy, to assist him.

The book is full of mythological references that make it a lot of fun for people interested in that type of thing. I'm a little slow on the uptake, so it took me 60 pages to figure out who "Mr. Wednesday" really was. Some of them I got much more quickly, like Mr. Nancy, the dapper African American gentleman.

It's also what my friend Lemont would call "a crackin' good read." It's pretty long, but I finished it in a manner of days. I stayed up too late reading it, and I missed my train stop twice because I was so engrossed. I didn't want it to end. I'm going to buy Gaiman's other novels as soon as I can.

Rejected!

I sent my review of Gothika, with its daring sestina form, to McSweeney's, which has started publishing sestinas. After more than a month, they emailed me back. Here is the text of the email:

Mike --
Thank you so much for interest in the McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Sestinas section and for your submission. Your sestina is definitely skilled and uses the form well. Unfortunately, it’s not right for us. Please do send again, and revisit the Sestinas section to see how we’re doing.

Sincerely,
Daniel Nester
Assistant Web Editor for Sestinas

What a nice rejection letter! It's the best one I've ever received. It compliments me and lets me down easy—it's not right for us, but you have talent, so hey, why don't you send us another? Most rejection letters make me feel bad. This one didn't. I think I'll write another sestina, about something other than the latest Halle Berry flick, and send it to them.

Ray Davies Shot

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4075146

Ray Davies, the lead singer of the British rock band The Kinks, was shot in New Orleans last Sunday while attempting to foil a mugging. He was released from the hospital today.

This event prompted me to come up with the following news headlines:

Kinks singer shot; clutches leg and shouts "You Really Got Me"
Kinks singer shot; files suit against The Doors
Kinks singer shot; to be held for observation all day and all of the night

I couldn't resist.

I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/
chi-0401020271jan02,1,3891847.story?coll=chi-news-hed

This article from the Chicago Tribune looks at some of the tricky ways scientists studying obesity and eating patterns use to figure out how and why we eat so much. My favorite was the stale popcorn experiment, where people ate 33% more stale popcorn because it was available, even though they complained about it.

A lot of it has to do with portion sizes. I know I eat too much when presented with ginormous portions at restaurants. A study we are publishing in March says that portion sizes are a lot bigger in the US than in France, for example, where they eat foods that are higher in fat but they are less overweight than Americans. This is interesting to me, both because I work for the American Dietetic Association and because I can't fit into my old pants.

Atheism Is Irrational

http://hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/Atheism.htm

For my inaugural entry in my Cool Site category, I had to include this "logical" explanation of why atheism is the most irrational belief system. I'm not endorsing or condemning any religion or creed here. I'm just bringing this to everyone's attention.

The writer's argument is that atheism is illogical because it is impossible to prove that God does not exist. He dismisses atheists' argument that it is equally impossible to prove that God does exist, calling it a "lie." How is it a lie? Well, the author provides some false analogies comparing God to pencils and people driving cars to the zoo. His entire argument is begging the question: he assumes that God exists (which is the original point of contention), and then makes his arguments flow from that as if it were undisputed.

The atheists I know don't give a hoot about "proving" that God does not exist. I certainly don't, because it would be impossible. I heartily endorse believing what works for you, and staying out of people's faces about their beliefs.