Elroy Hirsch Ran Funny

Date: April 24th, 51 days

Current Shape: lackluster

Goal: Split the difference between 25 and 40. 32:30.

Possible?

Pretend I'm Don Draper

but keep your pants on. Excerpt from a “write an ad pitch” assignment (concerning ASICS shoes) and a complete cop out to blogging original content:

……My cell phone is clean, polished, and trendy. Just like my body wash, my laptop, my four-door sedan, my razor, my overpriced suit, and every other piece of my monotonous day-to-day life…….

………Running is raw.  Running is pure emotional release.  Running doesn’t happen in a pair of thigh hugging polyester leggings against a monochromatic backdrop.  Running happens on the coarse, abrasive streets of empty cities.  Running happens on moist spring grass, through fresh puddles, and over yesterday’s lawn clippings.  It’s rough around the edges, every shade of grey, and delivers the most natural, freeing feeling the world has to offer.  You’re not offering a means to capture these feeling and experiences with these shoes.  You’re reminding them that it’s out there – that the stresses of their daily lives can be thrown aside in an instant – and that you want to be a part of that.

The One Where I Complain

I’m tired and these library Nazis won’t serve me coffee until 10.  And when they do, I’ll get a 16oz (because I’m a man) and it will be way too hot to drink.  When I set it aside it’ll betray me, defy the laws of physics, and blow all of its hot load into the library air at once. There’s no point in which the coffee is just right. That little blond would have been mighty disappointed in her porridge choices had that shit gone down here. In all seriousness, she’d probably get mauled by that family of bears either way, but her tongue would have been burnt something fierce in the process.

My left calf is sore. It cramped up in the morning a couple days ago. Bascom Hill says this is significant.

I have a Stats test on Thursday and a paper due Friday. My desire to do things other than sleep will out weigh my need for sleep during the weekend. I will inevitably snap at people I like and throw objects I’d rather not throw. Though, with my new found talent in finger snapping, I shouldn’t ignore the opportunity to snap at objects and throw people.

At the end of the semester I will not understand the Sociological Theory notes I recorded an hour ago. I don’t even understand some of them now. For example, I don’t know why I wrote “He knows, asshole” in the left margin halfway down the page. And somewhere between all of the nodding off I decided that “Bourgeoisie” was much too difficult to spell and that I should just go ahead and write “The Beatles” in its place. I also recorded a lovely little poem of sorts at the top:

Charlie was a brilliant squirrel

wealthy, noble, full of guts

then he met a pretty girl

and poor Charlie lost his nuts

Week in Tweets (1)

My lower back is the kid in the front of the class who can’t stop bitching and asking questions. You’re holding us back, buddy.

or….you’re not holding us, back buddy. huh.

Decision of the day on a ridiculously busy day: Do I strip down to my underwear and run down State Street at 5 o’clock?

drugmonkey Nation’s 5 largest insurers made $12.2 billion dollars in 2009, up 56% from last year, while dropping coverage on 2.7 million people.

#AmericanGhetto out on March 2nd BTW.

French Toast in full effect. Time to study/tell myself to start studying (Good morning)

@fifiraye If you found my coat anywhere near your bed, I have good news - you can keep the coat.

oh. @portugaltheman was on chatroulette last night. John Gourley could have watched me eat Chicken Alfredo. #missedopportunities

watching Brenna Gasper eat ice cream. Who’s creepy now, @brenn_lynn?

sarah mclachlan is such a downer. “Oh hey guys, looks like you’re having a good time. CHECK OUT THIS MUTILATED KITTEN”

I would rather have a cold shower than a luke warm one. That was such a tease. #notasexualmetaphor

Trying to casually stick my toungue to catch snowflakes. Probably not working.

@fifiraye I always add a little oatmeal to my bowls of brown sugar

I had nothing but ‘walk’ signals to AND from class. That’ll probably be the first sign of the second coming of Christ

#autobiographyplottwist

No, phone, you’re not fully charged after 5 minutes. Off to marketing group meeting.

@fifiraye Come to the lib and order pizza. I’ll give you money and you won’t have to dance on any tables. But really, come to the library

@fifiraye And really, no tables.

This spoon’s dip is too deep. It’s probably making me and my cup of library pudding look ridiculous.

Game Plan

I saw this:

Then I saw this:

No, that would be creepy. If we enhance that second image, I think the cause of such a foolish suggestion will become clear:

Let’s draw up an elaborate web of lies, deception, and sprinkle in a little obsessive planning instead - like any self respecting man should. This advice is coming a bit late so it will have to be executed during your next hot girl lecture, or HGL.

Step 1: I hope you’ve noted where Hot Girl was sitting during HGL and if she sits there consistently. If she’s a shifty seat swapper, I don’t have a plan for you that doesn’t involve rope and industrial grade duct tape. Assuming she sits in the same spot, arrive 10 minutes before class starts and sit in the same area.

Step 2: You wait. This could take days, maybe even weeks.  You have to wait until she happens to sit an appropriate distance away from you. This distance can vary widely depending on the seating of surrounding students, but it should probably be somewhere between 1 and 4 seats. If she sits on your lap, ignore all further steps. She is a prostitute. Congratulations.  You can facilitate closeness by choosing the 3rd or 4th seat in the row. Naturally, most people won’t try to squeeze around you so she’ll probably opt for a seat at the end of the row.  It’s very important that she’s in your row, though. If she’s in front of you and you approach her from behind, as a woman she will instinctively assume your intentions involve rape and/or strangulation.

Step 3: OK, so she’s next to you. Be cool. Take notes, even if you don’t usually take notes.  Text a friend and tell them to send you texts every 5 minutes or so. Nothing says “I’m really fucking awesome” like a vibrating phone. Only answer a few of the texts, look slightly annoyed with the rest.

Step 4: At the end of class, or during the unofficial ‘everyone make shuffling noises and pack up at once’ time, lean over and ask her which color combination would look worse…

“…A pink tie on a yellow shirt, or a red tie on a maroon shirt?”

She answers and or asks why.

“Oh, haha, I kind of have a date with a girl I’m not at all interested in, this Friday. I didn’t have the heart to say no and I just think it would be easier if I was as undesirable as possible”

She thinks it’s funny and sweet, tells you the clashing red and maroon would be “just awful”, and wishes you luck on your big date.

“Thank you. Just needed a girl’s perspective. Matt, by the way”

Now, don’t look at her as if you’re expecting her to tell you her name. She will, but you don’t want it to look like that was your intention. In fact, you don’t want her to think you give a shit at all. What you’ve done is established yourself as a desirable, thoughtful, funny guy who just might not be interested in Hot Girl - making Hot Girl moderately interested in you.

Step 5: Continue sitting in the same spot, but ignore her for a week. If she talks to you in that time, skip to Step 7.

Step 6: It’s a new week and your imaginary date with an imaginary girl went imaginably bad. Give her the entire class period to ask about how it went. If she doesn’t, tell her it went terribly and that imaginary psycho girl’s sent 5 unanswered texts within the hour. Laugh it off, but make a small layer of pitying compassion visible with an “aw, I just don’t know what to tell the poor girl”

Step 7: Begin striking up conversation about the professor’s inadequacy or especially difficult material, after class. Utilize a healthy balance of dominant eye contact and distant, uninterested staring to play with her feeble girl emotions.

Step 8: Ask her if she wants to study for an upcoming exam with you. Study before the studying. Be super impressive.  Use the latter half of study time to subtly mention your interests and hobbies, then ask her about hers. Use a combination of the eye contact and distant staring techniques to focus on the upcoming NCAA tournament while appearing to have genuine interest in her interests and hobbies.

Step 9: Continue study dates. Remove more study and add more date every time. This is as simple as having your friend call you about an “impromptu sledding party” and inviting her, or buying her a bagel at the library. Get her number. She’s probably already given it to you. You’re probably Facebook friends too.

Step 10: Invite her to actual, night time parties. Don’t go with her at first - have her meet you there. Being the only one she knows there, she’s sure to stay in your company. Don’t make any advances, exercise patience.

Step 11: I’m tired. Make moves. Start dating casually. After months of emotional coldness, tell her how much she means to you. Continue dating her throughout college. Graduate. Be there to support her in her career search and the rough patches when the job starts. Ask her to marry you on a boat on Lake Mendota during a surprise fireworks display. Rock the boat. Use her baby receptacle to make yourself a few awesome little people to play with. Get rich. Die happy.

Alternative Steps (not recommended):

1: Kiss the back of her neck everyday and hope she caves into her sexual desire in the middle of the crowded lecture hall.

11: Leave her for your youngest son’s 20-something tennis instructor at age 52.

Notes: I don’t hate women. They’re pretty neat. Most of them are smarter than me.

How to Become LEVIMILLS

*I’m about to turn this in.  The prompt was simple - “How to Become…”, and the style choice was our own.  Never missing an opportunity to write casually or sound like an asshole, I chose to write about myself.

How to Become Levi Mills

(A comprehensive guide for the aspiring infant)

First and foremost, you should probably just completely erase that birth thing from your memory.  Seriously.  The chubby, track suit wearing lady you’ll call your “Health teacher” will explain my reasoning with a haunting video when you get to the 8^th grade.  Question her concern with your health.

Welcome to the world.  The next two years will be the best years of your life.  Start crying, eating, and pooping immediately.  All at once.  Your servant lady will comfort you, feed you, and clean you.  It’s wonderful.  Don’t use this time for anything productive, you’ll spend plenty of time pretending to do that later.  I can’t stress the eating enough.  Everybody loves a chubby baby.

Don’t fight the servant when she forces you into a little navy tuxedo to have a strange man flash light in your face.  The photos will stay four car-ride-naps away, at the house that perpetually smells like pumpkin pie, until you’re in college – when you’ll have the chance to post it as your ‘profile picture’ on a website called Facebook.  On the Internet.  From a computer.  All things you don’t know exist.

Toddler.  Stop crying and start using the room with the bath for processed cookie deposits.  You’re a man now.  Don’t complain about the hundreds of viewings of We Sing in Sillyville you’ll be subjected to.  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – A reward for the future flashbacks of creepy, singing children with a not-so-subtle message against racism towards rainbow colored people.

Skip most of your Pre-School days under the guise of missing the servant.  Don’t miss ‘ants on a log’ days.

Enter the public elementary school ready to use every bit the wisdom of your first five years.  You’ve entered social hierarchy in its most refined form.  You’re shorter than most of the other heathens, but you’re fast, deathly afraid of authority, and know your numbers.  You have the opportunity to establish yourself as the quiet, well behaved, athletic kid. Take it.

Most importantly – and I can’t stress this enough – get a bowl cut.  Rock that bowl cut.

Gain the respect of your peers through such heroic acts as doing an above average amount of pull-ups and being the first to complete your multiplication tables. Wonder why you’ll ever actually need multiplication tables.  Discover Math 24.

At this point, you may think you’re ready to take on the next challenge.  You’ll hear terrible things about this “Middle School” – the worst of all being the absence of a milk break – but you’ll think you’re ready.  After all, you’ve been doing long division for two years now.  You’re wrong.  It’s not your fault, though.  There’s no way anybody could ever prepare themselves for that vulgar, awkward, torturous, hell cocoon of a three years.  I can’t give you advice here.  I’m sorry, but struggling through this time on your own is a necessary evil.

OK, one thing.  For the love of god, lose the bowl cut.

High School.  Be completely shocked that you didn’t instantly transform into Zack Morris.  Be even more shocked that there’s no Kelly Kapowski.  In fact, nobody here looks older than 16 in TV years.  You are a slightly pudgy Sam Weir.

Sign up for football and wrestling.  The former will be coached by your sophomore year English teacher.  He’ll have the nerve to regularly give you congratulatory slaps on the rear and expect you to look him in the eye the next day in class. The latter will make you tear up every time you see a starving dog in a Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercial.  Physical activity will help relieve any kind of stress that comes your way.  Remember that when your Chemistry Honors teacher makes you angry enough to club a baby seal.  In regards to the working out: listen to the chiropractor your senior year.  Believe it or not, beating a neighboring city of 7,000’s football team won’t seem so important when you’re older.  Like, three months older.

Your grades will be fine.  Teachers will continue to mistake your unnecessarily wordy research paper writing for genuine effort, and your rushed, procrastinated essay techniques for creative humor.  Take full advantage of this and use words you’d never use in conversation, like “perpetually”.  They like that.

Apply for college because nobody else in your family did.  Choose Milwaukee because it’s bigger and farther away from home than most of the alternatives.  Both factors giving you the oh-so-essential ability to play Whitesnake’s, “Here I Go Again on My Own” in your head as you walk onto campus for the first time.  Enjoy yourself.  The academics aren’t too difficult and the extracurriculars are aplenty.

Transfer to The University of Wisconsin.  You’ll want a better education and a chance to live in the same building as your best friends. Yellow didn’t really vibe with your skin tone, anyway.  Apparently, you’ll also want more homework, residence at a library, and to rarely see said friends.  But you’re happy being busy and busy being happy.  You’re Levi Mills.

Reconsider the bowl cut.

TL;DR

Interesting news stories: Linked to, and summarized poorly

With all of the commotion about Obama’s recent Presidential Address, his much more telling Q and A session at a Republican retreat might have been pushed aside. While the Address was impressively candid after an initial bout of motivational rhetoric, this open debate with a room full of GOP House members is golden. The President played the roll of professor, answering the inquiring students as if their questions weren’t backhanded attempts to catch him in a lie.  And he didn’t stumble once. It’s beautiful to see a president fact check numbers on a House member who had obviously assumed that, out of the thousands of documents the president must read every day, he hadn’t read his.  And he didn’t leave his criticism to the GOP alone. He chastised both parties’ political leaders for what’s become the political norm in the last 6 months;  basing political activity on partisan, campaign minded goals instead of the interests of the people who elected them.

Here’s a few of the best moments and the full video:

On the Health Care struggle:

Component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year. Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker and Tom — and certainly you don’t agree with Tom Daschle on much — but that’s not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate, and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.

An appeal to Republicans:

So all I’m saying is we’ve got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re going to agree on everything, whether it’s on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, “This guy’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.”

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CBS rejected gay dating website, Mancrunch.com’s Super-bowl ad. And they’re going to air a Pro-Life commercial featuring Tim Tebow, his mother, and a solid factual inaccuracy*.  There goes their excuse of not airing advocacy campaigns. Reminder to CBS: The FCC still has you by the balls, CSI in syndication is just as good, and the internet exists.  A couple quotes from the United Church Of Christ (very accepting to gay members) and the GLAAD:

UCC:

“[w]hile CBS is reportedly saying that a bad economy now necessitates changes in its policy on so-called advocacy ads, this decision only underscores the arbitrary way the networks approach these decisions and the result is a woeful lack of religious diversity in our nation’s media,” says the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC’s director of communications. “Because of its own economic circumstances, CBS is affording time to one religious organization while having suppressed another. This sounds as if the broadcasters think they own the airwaves when, in theory at least, they do not”

GLAAD:

“CBS’s decision to run a Focus on the Family ad during this year’s Super Bowl can’t and shouldn’t be considered in a vacuum. CBS spent years denying a platform to an LGBT-inclusive church that wanted to share a message of inclusion with a national audience. Now, when it happens to be financially inconvenient for CBS to hold to the standard it had previously imposed, the network’s expediency benefits a virulently anti-gay organization whose advocacy on these issues is the antithesis of that of the United Church of Christ.”

Link:http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/29/news/companies/mancrunch_ad_super_bowl/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=T2

*In the commercial, Pam Tebow’s going to say that, during her pregnancy in the Philippines, doctors urged her to have an abortion. That cry-baby/man-child producing cow is probably lying. Abortion was illegal in the Philippines.

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A very interesting article from the BBC featuring a foreign prospective on the current political state of America. Look out for the great quotes from GW from the 2000 presidential debate.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm?

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743 pounds of marijuana was found in a septic tank on a truck presumably traveling from Mexico. Over $400,000 in street value, the bags were found buried beneath human waste. Honestly, is digging through thousands of pounds of poop really worth it? Did that guy go home that night and tell his wife, “yeah, I’ll smell like other people’s feces for weeks, but nobody in these Southern Arizona suburbs ‘ll be gettin’ high for a month”

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/29/arizona.marijuana.bust/index.html?hpt=T2

'Shirtless and Unshowered' - The Motion Picture Soundtrack

I can only hope my future documentary on PBS (or Lifetime. I’m not picky) has a musical score as wonderful as the collection of songs that got stuck in my head this week. Not so much because they’re good - In fact, some of them are terrible - but because it would be so damn confusing it just might be deemed artistic. Trust me, When these songs transition to and from each other, you’re on a roller coaster of emotion. And not the bad ass, ‘Son of Beast’ at sunset kind, either. But the, ‘here, get on this giant vibrator of a cart and let us whip you around for a few minutes’, ‘Iron Wolf’ kind.

1. Portugal. The Man - Created

No complaints.

open up your arms and hold on too.
every thing you own that owns you too.
and just let it all go.
cause we do as we please.
and that’s all we can do.

Backstreet Boys - Drowning

This would play during the ‘lock eyes momentarily with the pretty girl across the room, get scared, trip over my own foot, awkwardly jog it out’ scene of the movie.

Fat Joe/Ashanti/Ja Rule - What’s Love

You can’t prepare yourself for the horror of Ja Rule spontaneously appearing in your head as you innocently exit the library. I didn’t deserve that.

Whitesnake - Here I Go Again On My Own

Break the imaginary girl’s heart. Walk away as she falls apart in miserable sadness. In slow motion. With wind in your hair.

The Beatles - Hey Jude (Specifically, the Across the Universe cover)

It’s been in there all week, and it’s still there. No problem with that. I’d just like for somebody in one of my classes to finally notice my finger drumming of “naaaa naa na, na na na naaaa….naa na na naaa, Heeeey Juuuude”

I had a good week.

Wiki Wednesday

Not Wednesday. Not important.

How it works: I’ll start with a topic of interest, note the most interesting things I see on the page, then click on a link on that page. This is not the wikipedia game. I don’t have a destination.

• Dave Chappelle: Both of Dave’s parents were professors. Dave turned down the roll of ‘Bubba’ in Forest Gump because he thought it was racially demeaning.

• Home Improvement (TV Show): The show’s title is a double entendre: it refers to physical improvement of houses, as well as to improving life with family, friends, work, and school. Top rated show in 93-94.

• Jay Leno: Appeared as a defense witness in the 2005 Michael Jackson trial. Jay is dyslexic and has a prognathic jaw, often described as mandibular prognathism. Has no children, just a lot of cars.

• Conan O’Brien: At it’s current state, wiki says Conan attended Satan’s boarding school for young girls. He then went on to graduate with a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University. Conan will provide the voice of Santa Claus in an upcoming episode of The Backyardigans.

• Beard: Beards were almost non-existent in America between 1920 and 1960. During WWI, soldiers were forced to remove facial hair to fit into gas masks and protect against lice. After the war, the film industry perpetuated the trend with a push from one of their top sponsors, Gillette Safety Razor.

• Sigmund Freud: Freud spent 4 weeks in university unsuccessfully searching for the male eel’s sex organ.  He regularly used cocaine and recommended it to his close friends and family.

• Female Hysteria: Widely discussed in Victorian medical literature. Women considered to be suffering from hysteria would sometimes undergo “pelvic massage” — manual stimulation of the genitals by the doctor until the patient experienced “hysterical paroxysm”

• Hysterical Paroxysm: orgasm.