The Social Networking Question

Facebook is to MySpace as Google is to Yahoo.

Is it true, or is it false?

Or is it both, with a little bit of who-gives-a-crap thrown in for good measure?

I would tweet the truth on Twitter but I’m no goddamn bird.

…

This is how people will write in the future, because everyone will be stupid, mad!, or, likely both. Everyone will be like me!

Obviously this is true.

…

Like a peek-a-boo glance at your bleeding 401k statement…

…ibiteyoureyes!

Pull Up Those Britches, Whipper-Snapper, Or Pay The Consequences

Some of you may remember me. I am the eyebiter.

Some of you may remember my droopy pants-ed story.

Some of you, if you be Floridian readers sportin’ a reckless disregard for belts or suspenders, be in trouble.

I Think It’s Time We Talked About Ending Your Therapy

Note: This post also appears on TheFuriousRomantic.com.

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There are a lot of good things about HBO’s new series In Treatment. I won’t be sharing my thoughts on any of them, however, because HBO has pissed me off.

Having watched the very first episode of In Treatment while visiting family (I cannot afford cable at home, a result of “the artist’s life”), and having enjoyed it enough to want to watch more of the show, I did some research when I got home and was surprised to find that HBO was offering the show online, for free, via an iTunes podcast. This seemed too good to be true, but I tried downloading the episodes from the podcast, and it worked, so I shrugged and decided to just not worry about it. This was a pleasant feeling, and I privately congratulated HBO on the marketing move. I was still convinced that something fishy was going on, but my naive prediction was that I would be allowed to watch the first season of the show online, in this manner, before then being cut off.

This prospect did not bother me. I understand that even when your total production budget has been dramatically reduced – due to the fact that you shoot 90% of your show in one room, and that the majority of your cinematography consists of filming two actors sitting across from one another, at only a few different camera angles and under the same lighting arrangement – that these things cost money.

So on my merry way to therapy I went, for approximately three weeks. Due to the different sort of format they use for the show (each week features five different original episodes, but I am not going to go into any more detail, because I’m pissed off) I was able to watch fifteen half hour episodes, online, for free. That’s seven and a half hours of free premium entertainment. More than just a taste, this represents several separate meals. They might have been good meals, too. Actually, I can’t remember. I’m pissed off.

The Law Won (Twice)

I had two run-ins with the law this past weekend, one direct and the other not so much. Before I go any further, I should say that both were extremely minor, and probably boring as well. But seeing as how this is The Internet, I will elaborate anyway. Someone, somewhere, might care about these run-ins, and for this reason both stories are important. I will keep telling myself this for as long as you support the delusion.

The second one first (so backwards!):

I was driving. A strong rain began to pelt my car, and all the cars around it as well. My windshield was dirty, my wiper blades were dull, my tires were bald, and I hadn’t driven much over the course of the past six years (a result of living in Poor Person’s Purgatory New York City). Six years ago I would have taken the situation for a challenge. But last weekend it made me nervous. My future wife was in the passenger seat, and I didn’t want to hydroplane and possibly get into an accident because then she might get hurt. This would have been no good. Her face is too pretty and I love her and besides that I need someone to pick my nose. So, anyway, a strong pelting rain. A rain that bit my eyes.

As we got closer to The City, the rain stayed strong and the amount of traffic increased by about a million percent. This obviously made things even more difficult, and I soon ended up in an EZ-Pass toll lane instead of a cash toll lane when it came time to pay the man (for the privilege of independent movement). My ass was fresh out of EZ-Passes, so I couldn’t pull one out of there, and so not knowing what else to do when we came to that toll barrier, I put the car in park and looked (sheepishly!) around. Very soon, a tall, angry police officer approached the car.

I won’t go into specifics about what he said to me, except to say that it was comprised mostly of abusive questions as to why “it’s so hard to get into the right lane,” and angry professions about how “it’s not his job to collect money from people.” Being somewhat empathetic to his situation (as well as towards angry people in general) I apologized more than once, and attempted to explain to him what should have been pretty clear – that it was fucking raining like hell and I hadn’t done it on purpose. But that really only made him madder.

Partially he got madder was because I was right, but I think his problem with me also had a lot to do with the general fact that some angry people are going to be angry and abusive no matter how you choose to deal with them. Hit them back with a smile and a calm voice, and they’ll get madder. Give them some of their own medicine, and they’ll get madder. There’s no winning with them – they are angry not at you but at what you represent, a reflection of their own dissatisfaction with their life and situation. These feelings are only somewhat offset by shiny badges. A much better choice, for the unfortunate soul that finds himself subjected to them on a regular basis, would probably be to subvert all of these feelings, ball them together, and then plug them into a bureaucracy. That way more people – and their families – can pay the price for their emotional issues.

Anyway! My conversation with the toll booth police officer ended in him saying “don’t speak,” in a tone of voice that made me want to get out of the car and punch him in the face while speaking incessantly. I didn’t get out of the car, though, and I didn’t speak – because my future wife advised me to just stay silent and listen to him, and because had I done anything to piss him off further I most probably would have been both beaten up and arrested. This would not have been fun.

In the end I paid five dollars for a four dollar and fifty cent toll, the entire amount of which probably went into his pocket. I was also made afraid to exercise one of my rights as an American citizen because “I didn’t want no trouble” after making an understandable mistake while driving in pouring rain.

So that was fun.

The Super (Musical!) Friends

I spent some time with an old friend on New Year’s (Rockin!) Eve who I hadn’t seen in too long. His name is Halfabottle Ascotch and he sometimes wears a Ginger Ale hat. To make matters even better, my girlfriend really hit it off with his twin brother, Otha Halfabottle (who on that night was wearing a taller Ginger Ale hat). To top all this off (with Ginger Ale!) the party we attended was also a lot of fun.

So fun, in fact, that I…socialized. Halfabottle always seems to bring the party out of me. He’s a swell guy. So swell, (in fact!), that when you wake up the next day and he’s gone all you can do is clutch your head and moan and groan and poop.

Sometime during the socialization (of medicine!), another happy partygoner asked me what to him probably represented a very simple question. He asked what kind of music I liked.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. It is a simple question! But here’s the problem…

No Country for Old Men Disappoints

NOTE: This review is reprinted with the permission of The Furious Romantic, who happens to live in the same brain as Ibiteyoureyes. For a “dueling review” see dailysalad’s post No Country or No Old Men? Pick ‘Em.

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I had been trying to think of a good way to start off a review of No Country for Old Men, and today I found one, courtesy of Peter Travers from Rolling Stone. Says Mr. Travers:

“Misguided souls will tell you that No Country for Old Men is out for blood, focused on vengeance and unconcerned with the larger world outside a standard-issue suspense plot. Those people, of course, are deaf, dumb, and blind to anything that isn’t spelled out between commercials on dying TV networks. Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel is an indisputably great movie, at this point the year’s very best. [It is] a literate meditation (scary words for the Transformers crowd) on America’s bloodlust for the easy fix. It’s also as entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.”

Despite having what Mr. Travers might call a “more or less well-guided soul,” I was fairly pissed off by his use of such fightin’ words as “deaf, dumb, and blind.” I was greatly pissed off by the last sentence of the previous excerpt: “It’s also entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.” While Mr. Travers is entitled to his opinion, there are a few problems with taking a swipe at both the “misguided souls” of the film watching community and the “elitists” of the film watching community…in the span of a few sentences.

1. It sort of implies that only a small group of really special people (super-elitists with well-guided souls?), led by Mr. Travers himself, can truly appreciate this movie.
2. It puts the writer in the difficult position of defending an indefensible point (an opinion) from two fronts: The Stoopids is gonna yell at you in between commercials on their dying TV networks, and the Snark-Attackers are going to band together at the local bar to get drunk and skewer you…in between being clever and complaining about society and the misfortunes of their lives…before then setting off to the local indie theater to watch unentertaining movies films! full of pauses and poetry.

It’s a good thing Peter Travers is completely wrong when he says that No Country for Old Men is an indisputably great movie. I dispute, home skillet. I dispute. No Country for Old Men is a good, but ultimately disappointing, movie.

No Country or No Old Men? Pick’ em

No Country for Old Men is probably the best movie you will see this year; it is also the most unsatisfying. The Coen brothers have always been praised for their artistry and technical brilliance, but No Country is a significant leap forward. Earlier Coen brothers’ films have dealt with similar themes (Miller’s Crossing, for example, or Fargo, which had heretofore been their most highly praised film), but none of them, not even Blood Simple, the first stitching of the thread, have anticipated No Country. The only thing simple or easy about blood in this movie is the cool ease with which Javier Bardem dispenses with his villains. His bullets and air-capsules are as cold and terrifying as the Coen brother’s cinematography and mis-en-scene.

This review will be a positive one, if only because I promised the eyebiter that we could write dueling reviews. But any honest review of this movie should itself be a dual or dueling one, all reviews of No Country for Old Men should take on the different reactions the movie elicits without hiding behind a veil of technical artistry. I’ve thought more and more about the movie since I left the theater, and not only because I knew that I would have to collect my thoughts in code. And in that time everything has faded (Bardem’s killer is just too cinematic to be horrifying when you leave the theater) except my sense of confusion. No Country for Old Men was a movie. Something to be seen and admired, something even to be studied. But beyond that? Like David Byrne suggested, I ask myself, “Well, how did I get here?”

No Country for Old Men is first and foremost a movie about storytelling. The first ten minutes of the movie play with the idea of perspective.The movie is introduced with a voice-over by Tommy Lee Jones that summarizes something. It perhaps describes the whole movie, or perhaps only the pre-history. Either way, by the time the movie proper begins, the the story is already in the middle. Javier Bardem is being arrested by the police; what has he done? A dramatic, horrific shootout has occurred, yet we only see the bloody stillness. There are two minor characters who look alike, two deputies, such as to introduce the possibility of confusion and flashback, before Tommy Lee sets the story straight, coolly describing the events so far. “That’s very linear of you,” the deputy tells him, and Tommy Lee tells him that when you get to his age you prefer things that way. Linear storytelling; no jumping through time, playing with narrative forms. Tommy Lee Jones is not a narrator like Sam Elliot in The Big Lebowski, inserting himself into the story. The movie is a defense of old-fashioned, A-Z film-making, while also offering a corrective. Dramatic, important moments are told off camera, elided in a sense. It’s direct storytelling, but there’s nothing cut and dry about it. The Coen brothers might have matured into more classical film-making, but they haven’t abandoned everything that made them who they were.

Hottest Cartoon Redheads

1. Jessica Rabbit. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise either thinks its pathetic and creepy to discuss the hotness of cartoon redheads, or is just plain crazy.
2. Jane Jetson. Jane Jetson is not as hot as Judy Jetson, but then again Judy Jetson is not a redhead.
3. Erin Esurance. Technically a pinkhead, I allowed Erin Esurance on this list because she’ll kick the asses of all my robots if I don’t include her.
4. The Little Mermaid. Ariel is pretty hot, but certain physiological unknowns cause her to drop a few spots.
5. Jean Grey. Technically a comic book character first, and a cartoon second, otherwise she would probably challenge Jessica Rabbit for number one.
6. Mary Jane Parker. Again, she’s technically a comic book character first. But Jean Grey is a little hotter, plus I have a lot of respect for Spider Man so I wouldn’t necessarily move on Mary Jane unless he did something really awful… like wear his hair down and dance with another woman right in front of Mary Jane (at her place of business!) just to make her jealous.
7. Louis Griffin. I originally had Lois higher on this list, but my girlfriend talked me out of it. Also, the woman who voices Lois is also the woman who played Ms. Swan on MadTV, and Ms. Swan is about as unattractive as she is hilarious.
8. Daphne Scooby Doo. I’m not that into Daphne, but shepicksyournose thinks that she is cartoon sexy.
9. Wilma Flinstone. I like the bod that Wilma “Rocks,” but a woman’s eyes are important to me and Wilma’s share a little too much of a likeness with Frosty the Snowman’s.

I Pledge Allegiance, to the Bank of America…

This is the story of how one poor man (me) was electronically stolen from, and then verified, transferred, and “yes sir”ed by his bank to the point where he was forced to question his own humanity.

Last week, I received my first paycheck for the month of December. A day after that, my health insurance payment (paid for entirely by myself) hit my account, and then half of my paycheck was gone. I had just enough money left to get me through the week without feeling like I couldn’t buy at least one sandwich or Mac-Donald’s value meal – or maybe that two dog and small ice-with-a-little-drink special at Gray’s Papaya – during the week, in addition to making a small contribution towards those monthly expenses necessary to life (rent, groceries and television). Then another day passed. At the end of this day, a visit to my online banking center showed me that this “just enough” amount of money had become a “negative number written in a red font because it’s not a real” amount of money. A Chinese thief had charged the entire amount left in my account (plus a little bit more!) to my check card.

Probably, plus another clause, the thief was not even Chinese. The charge was made to the PayPal account of a Chinese man, but I’m decently sure that the thief is really some pimply-faced, nerdy white kid from the suburbs who when I find him will have brittle bones and will not know karate. As of now, I haven’t found him, because I never will, because the beauty of the internet is also the beauty of internet crime: identity and location are mostly relative. As far as I will ever probably know, the thief is who he appears to be, a Chinese man with a PayPal account.

Needless to say, I called my Bank (of America!) immediately upon noticing the charge. Here’s how my customer service experience went down:

A Bright and Sunny Post

I was riding the good old New York City Subway a few days ago when I came face to face with a scary looking character. This character was a man of average height and build, his clothes and his face both appeared slightly worn, and his eyes were swollen and about as red as his jacket. The jacket was old and too big for him. He had a beard, too, which needed a trim, and his hair had needed cutting two weeks ago. He looked tired and he looked beat and at the same time I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him snap or explode then and there.

This scary looking character was me. My reflection in the train window.

Part of the damage was done by insomnia. There’s really no describing the effects that prolonged sleeplessness can have on a person. The best explanation that I can come up with: it gives you a taste of insanity. Real insanity. Not pleasant. Insomnia bites my eyes.

The rest of the damage is less easy to explain. I don’t think it’s separable from the insomnia. It shows up with relative frequency, and is the result of an ongoing beating that I’ve unfortunately gotten a little too used to taking. This is the beating of artistic circumstance. I am a writer, and there’s no changing that. There’s no arguing against it, there’s no fighting it. There’s no being anything else.