truefiction.org

Um…so yeah, I have no idea what this looks like. All I know is that the new stuff will start tomorrow, as soon as I get some idea of how to use Movable Type. Yeah. Exciting ain’t it?

I know that I haven’t updated in two weeks. There are a number of reasons for this. First and primarily, it’s nearing the end of the semester and I haven’t exactly had a lot of free time. Second, I’ve been preparing to move everything over to truefiction.org, to which I own the domain rights. The main problem there is trying to find a suitable web provider–this can’t cost too much money and it has to have a certain number of features–Perl 5 and PHP 4 are very important, MySQL less so–but there are other reasons for this as well.

Especially since I started going to afterDinner over the weekend (it’s a site for short fiction and personal narrative, as well as an online writers workshop), I started thinking about other things that could be done with a weblog format. I mean, the majority of weblogs that are out there all follow the same basic structure–short little snippets of ________, with an occasional longer essay or three every so often to mix things up. It’s great, but goddamn there’s a lot of it out there.

So I ask you: what if a weblog were almost entirely fictional?

I’m sure it’s not nearly as revolutionary an idea as I currently think it is (sleep deprivation = bad). There’s a better than likely chance that many websites are already doing something along these lines. And given my predilection towards long essays and linkless blurbs as it is, this site isn’t much different than a novel written up in a journal format.

But a journal formatted novel, set up in a world that’s ostensibly the same as ours but with some really weird stuff going on–I’m currently thinking of having a tron/matrix/neuromancer type of thing going on in the background, but different. Earlier. The first human computer interface in development. Now it gets a little more interesting. (I think. Maybe not. I’ll need to think this through while not tired.) The only major feature of this would be that it would be serialized, with real time updates as i think of them. Short plot twist? I can write it in between classes. I’ll be stuck with what I’ve posted, which could make for an interesting experience when I’m nine months in and I can’t remember which character picked up the flowers for the office party.

Then to get really crazy you could throw in a few other sites to the mix–one of the older characters could have a site on geocities or AOL, for example. There’d probably only be the one journal, but this way I can also get to have other characters in the story be slightly more fleshed out. I don’t know. I have to think about this a lot more before I make any decisions.

But it’s a hell of an idea, right?

Appeared in The Declaration in copy-edited form on 18 April 2002.

In these days of meta-humor, meta-fiction, meta-websites and meta-everything, it can be difficult to figure out what’s original, what’s derivative, and what’s originally derivative. It’s tough to figure out the different levels of meta necessary for full understanding of a piece of data. For example, there’s something like Ben Greenman’s “Blurb,” which is a story consisting entirely of blurbs about the story “Blurb.” This is the first degree of meta and, since it’s self-referential, fairly easy to decipher.

As obscure references begin to pile up, however, it can be more difficult to determine what it is the author (or musician, or artist, or reporter, or web designer, an alia) is trying to impart. Take a look at Dynamite Hack’s “Boys in the Hood.” Originally a song by NWA, it was covered from a bunch of white kids from . . . somewhere. The lyrics are exactly the same, but they’re imparting a different message because of who is singing them. This is the second degree of meta: you can grasp it on the non-meta level (dudes singing a song about drinking and whoring), on a the first degree of meta (white dudes singing a song about drinking and whoring while living in the ghetto) or, finally, on the second degree (white dudes ironically covering a song by NWA to indicate the love of suburban white boys for gangsta rap). This is where it starts to get confusing.

Degrees of meta-ness can continue infinitely though, once you get past the third degree, it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out what the hell is going on. It can hurt your brain as well, which is why we will not follow this definition of meta any further. We will, however, progress on to the main subject at hand.

You see, as meta has progressed on, it has infilitrated mass culture and, with culture, our notions of cool. Remember last year, when you saw all those kids looking like they stepped out of a Sears Catalog, circa 1977? The whole reason for that was simple: these clothes were inherently uncool, even when they first came out. However, because they were so uncool, they became cool in a meta sense. You also saw people wearing bellbottoms again; even though they were cool in the seventies, a love of so-called retro fashion brought them back. This, too, was meta: it was brought about by a conscious decision to look like someone from the seventies (though with a decidedly nineties twist to it). However, this fashion wasn’t considered as cool as the sears catalog look. Why? Because bell-bottoms were only first degree meta, while “the Sears catalog” look was second degree. There’s also the added problem of intent: doing something to be cool makes said something uncool; doing something uncool becomes cool.

See why cool has become so complicated?

If you’re having trouble with this, don’t feel bad: rocket scientists have been unable to figure this stuff out for decades. We’ve prepared a few case studies for you to study. Once you’ve looked them over and feel you understand them, there’s a short quiz on which you can test your newfound powers of perception.

Case One - The Bomber Jacket

Jack owns a leather bomber jacket that he picked up at a vintage clothing shop. Though he normally wears it with the collar down, he occasionally decides to place the collar in an upright fashion. Is this (a) Stylin’; (b) Cool; (c) Uncool; or (d) Meta-cool?

ANSWER: The answer is entirely dependent on his intent. If Jack has not put any conscious thought into his decision to wear the collar up–it may have just happened as he put the jacket on–then the answer is (b) Cool. However, if a decision was made along the lines of, “Wearing my collar up will make me cool,” this makes Jack uncool. The answer is then (c). However, some of you may be asking, “What if Jack knows that actively upturning his collar is an uncool action, and proceeds regardless?” This is when it begins to get complicated. If Jack knows that what he is undertaking is inherently uncool, then the decision is reversed and it becomes cool again. The answer in this case would be (d) meta-cool. Finally, if Jack decides that he is going to wear his collar up regardless of what anyone else thinks, his fashion choice has become stylin’, so the answer would be (a).

Case Two - Smoking

Sarah, like many of her friends, prefers to smoke Camel Lights. She began smoking her junior year of high school, and now smokes three-quarters to a pack a day. Can you classify her smoking as cool or uncool? Does her standing change if she smokes something other than Camel Lights? Explain.

ANSWER: The simple fact of the matter is that everyone started smoking for one reason: to look cool. This would seem to indicate that smoking is, no matter what, an uncool action. Many doctors and parents of impressionable teenagers would agree that this is so. The problem with this attitude is simple: smoking really does make you look cool. Why the hell do you think she started? Besides, by the point of smoking roughly a pack a day, you’re addicted. Since smoking is no longer a conscious choice, it becomes cool without reservation. However, should she begin smoking cigarettes other than Camel Lights, smoking would become uncool. There’s no explanation for this; perhaps superstring theory will one day have a solution.

Case Three - Vintage T-Shirts

Tony buys shirts by the ream from his local salvation army. He prefers to wear shirts with outrageous and/or odd messages on them, such as “Liars Go To Hell” or an old Arena Football shirt. Is this action cool or uncool?

ANSWER: Uncool. No matter how cool the damn shirts look, going to a vintage store means you’re trying to concoct a look. This makes you uncool. Get the hell over yourself, and get some fresh air and sunlight while you’re at it.

Hopefully, you now have some ideas of what cool really is. With everything that you’ve learned, you should be able to answer the following questions with assurance.

The Quiz

1. Juanita is buying albums at a used record store on St. Mark’s Place. She is wearing a tight, plaid miniskirt and a loose blouse. Her boots are beat-up old Doc Martens that she’s had since seventh grade. She has a messenger bag (not from Manhattan Portage) and thick-framed black glasses. What is her cool status?

   (a) Hip
   (b) Hep
   (c) Emo’d out
   (d) Depends on what records she’s buying
   

2. Mona’s mother bought her an ugly new shirt for her birthday, which she begins wearing everywhere. What is her most likely motivation?

   (a) To placate her mother
   (b) Because it’s not cool at all
   (c) To achieve meta-cool
   (d) She actually likes the shirt

3. Brian is listening to Shampoo’s “Uh oh! We’re In Trouble!” What are your feelings about this?

   (a) I love that cheesy song
   (b) Meh.
   (c) Wasn’t that song on the Power Rangers Movie soundtrack?
   (d) Who the fuck is Shampoo?

4. Donald has purchased a Vespa scooter. He begins riding it everywhere–to work, to classes, etc. Discuss all his possible motivations for these actions, and their relative merits of cool.
5. MTV: What happened? Explain your answer.

Answers (Don’t look until you’ve finished)

1: d.
2: a (also acceptible: d).
3: a.
4: Vespa scooters are cool. People named Donald are not.
5: I don’t know, either. The Osbournes is pretty funny, though.

Coolness has always been a relative thing–even more so in today’s confusing post-modern world. It’s complicated down to the words used to describe it. Hip, hep, keen, tragic, ill, and even meta have been used as substitutes for the word. Even with what you’ve picked up from this article, you may still be unable to become cool yourself. We suggest that you just do what everyone else is doing. Emulating your peers may not appear to be cool, but it can never hurt. It’s worked for people for years. So get yourself a pair of tight jeans and some thick-framed glasses, and go out there and rock.

According to the New York Times, lately magazines are increasingly using less and less written content, focusing almost entirely on graphic elements (i.e. photography). This isn’t really surprising to me, having stared at other magazines like Nest and Nerve for hours at a time during the Dec redesig (I also have been known to peruse Stuff on occasion). The most interesting part of the article was this, right at the end:

The assumption is that readers raised on a media diet in which they are presented with a new image every few tenths of a second are not about to wait 3,400 words for the upshot. The glossy publishing industry will continue to serve as the back fence for mass culture. But in these days of postliterate publishing, few in the neighborhood seem to have time to stop and tell stories.

One of the things you have to wonder about is, how much of this can be blamed on the web? If there’s one thing that all the usability guidelines for the web agree on, it’s that you shouldn’t have too much content on any given page. Usually, the amount of text on a page, according to these guidelines, should be between two and four screens on a page (the Times article is roughly five and a half on my computer). This isn’t too exact, especially with all the differences in monitors today, but it’s really not a whole lot of text.

It’s true that you can link together multiple pages for longer articles, but what sites really do that? The Times and other newspapers do so; the New Yorker and other magzines; salon.com and one or two other sites. Most of these sites have real life counterparts; only salon is a web publication. Feed and Suck, which specialized in the longer-form articles, no longer exist. And salon’s articles typically aren’t normally that long on a day-to-day basis (although it’s possible that the premium articles normally are, but I don’t pay for Salon Premium so I wouldn’t know).

Whether it’s a matter of bandwidth or a matter of time for writing and production, most sites can’t afford to put up these longer articles. Those that do, eventually burn out (we all know how many times I’ve stopped updating websites). People who work for one of these sites, or try to run their own, could have developed a dislike for the longer form article. It’s tough to write 4,000 words on a daily–or even a weekly–basis, especially if you need to get other things done. Websites that focus on longer, more literary articles often don’t even want to try for articles as long as the old magazines would carry. McSweeneys specifically asks for articles not more than 1,000 words (though only if you want to be published on the website; the print magazine takes longer works). So writers get used to writing shorter articles; designers get more used to preparing shorter articles for web publication. To believe that there’s no overlap between web and print workers is foolish, so it’s not hard to imagine that web tendencies carried over into physical media over the past six years. Even if any designer that works on the web never returns to print, there’s a more than even chance that print editors would be influenced by stuff happening in an Internet Explorer window.

There’s also the fact that the web is, inherently, a visual medium. Just about every site has some graphic elements, reducing the text to a small column that can be quickly scanned. This isn’t unusual in the print world either; it’s just that, on paper, you can have multiple columns stacked next to each other. You can’t do that very easily on paper. So even a magazine that has a very simple, non-graphical layout in the real world is going to have sidebars, title graphics and banner ads on the website. Again, assuming that designers occasionally work on the both websites and magazines, you’re going to see this type of design flourish in print as well. (Personally, I wanted a sidebar in the Dec’s scene section, but I didn’t get my wish.)

Finally, there’s the influence of weblogs and discussion sites. Slashdot (which is, essentially, a weblog about technical issues) usually has content no longer than a paragraph or two; much more written words are available from the comments, but they are often repetitive and read less often. Metafilter’s entries are typically just a sentence or two. Weblogs vary greatly, from short little blurby things to, well, long essays like this one, but definitely lean towards the former. Now: it’s true that most people probably don’t read Slashdot or make the rounds of weblogs every day. It’s also true that these sites primarily point people to other sites where there is, presumably, more content. However, these “glorified captions” have gotten an entire population to the point where they like to read little blurbs versus long, detailed articles. Is this population directly responsible for the slow evolution from text-heavy to picture-heavy magazines? Personally, I don’t think so: I highly doubt that most of the people who read these sites don’t occasionally pick up and read a magazine or a long article in a newspaper. But for pleasure reading, who knows? Certainly, web readers are picking up a new attitude of “better entertain me in a few screens or else I’m going back to that other site,” and there are a whole lot of people that read the web.

In the end, I’m not entirely sure how much the web is responsible for shorter articles, but I’m convinced we’re somewhat responsible. The Times article doesn’t specify it, but this is a trend that has been carrying on for years. Televison, then Cable, then MTV, then Entertainment Tonight and People (I think I’ve got that order mixed up…whatever, it’s four in the morning)–the shortened pieces have been developing for years, and the web has only hastened it. Web content is almost always shorter than 4,000 words; this article is probably only around 800 or so. Can we say the web hasn’t made our attention spans run out quicker? Can we say it hasn’t adapted us to wanting more graphics around our text? Can we say that we aren’t going to want these qualities in print publications as well?

I don’t think we can. We all knew the World Wide Web was going to change printed media in an unprescidented way; I just wasn’t expecting it to happen by dumbing-down our magazines into glorified picture books.

It’s Easter. For a few more hours, anyway, and I am left with a few questions: Why, for example, does the only Catholic church in Charlottesville get access to University Hall? Why does a Catholic mass–which already awakens a whole mess of conflicting emotions in myself regardless of whatever else is going on–feel even stranger in a sports arena? Why doesn’t Catholicism reinvent itself as the religion for smart people^TM?

I mean, let’s face it: the church is currently in a pretty bad position. The whole pedophilia thing is going to cause huge problems with the church’s public image. Pope John-Paul II’s stated positions on celibate and woman priests don’t fly particularly well with American sentiments, and

could possibly cause a new schism in the church.

The only way for the Church to save itself at this point is to do something the Jesuits have been on to for a long time–make Catholicism smarter than all the other religions out there. They’re already on their way, despite a few missteps in the past fifty years or so. Doubt me? Just switch between the Trinity Broadcasting Network (televangelists, talking in “tongues,” really large pink beehive hairdos) and EWTN, which is the Catholic god channel. The difference is huge. Where TBN is continuously over-the-top and gaudy-as-hell, EWTN (which may or may not be the right name) is simple, down to earth, and doesn’t try to seduce you into giving money to redeem your soul. Catholics learned their lessons after the whole indulgences thing. Catholicism has had education in mind for years–look at all the Catholic schools that abound in this country, the Christian Brothers and Jesuits–and they’ve been getting away from the “Baltimore Catechism” and the mindless memorization that it entails. But there’s more that needs to be done.

First, bring back the Latin mass. There are many people that will tell you that the biggest success of Vatican II was allowing masses to be said in the vernacular language, bringing the common people back into the fold. And it’s true that, in the beginning, the Mass was said in Greek and switched to Latin when no one knew Greek anymore. So what? First off, we need to get rid of the common people–they’re the ones who are going to be chillin’ with little kids anyway and, if they want a vernacular mass, they can go be Protestant or something. Second, the reason Greek was the first choice for the mass had to do with the fact that, even in Ancient Rome, it was the chosen language for Roman intellectuals.

People these days don’t want religion to be more relevant in their lives. Look around: how much trouble in the past two years or so have religions caused? You’ve got Islamic terrorism, those Army of God dudes killing abortion doctors, the Israeli army blowing shit up, the palestinians blowing shit up in response–religion is changing the world into hell. No, what we need is a form of religion that is exceedingly irrelevant to the modern day man or woman. And what can be more irrelevant than a mass and prayers in a dead language?

Next, emphasize the good cultural elements of the Catholic church. The art of Caravaggio and other artists of the counter-reformation still stands up today as some of the best art of the second Millennium. Hell, the Renassiance started in Italy and, though I’m probably wrong about this, was a result of the Counter-Reformation. Then there’s all the architecture of cathedrals, which is fantastic as well. In theory, the church also should be more forcefully talking about the importance of volunteerism–smart people like to worry about social problems and would support a religion truly dedicated to the poor and sick. On the other hand, smart people may realize that they can’t really help cure the world’s problems, so that might not be a good idea after all.

Finally, incorporate modern day works of art into the church. The type of thing I’m thinking is two-fold. For example, why not commission Don DeLillo to do a new translation of the Bible? Critics everywhere would praise it. The church should also acknowledge the work of modern day writers in a major way. Adding the works of Norman Mailer and Flannery O’Connor (at least the stories about priests and religion) to the Canon of divinely inspired books would get all those academics who dislike Catholicism to admit that, maybe, they’re on to something now.

The church could also do some clever, post-modern references to popular culture, drawing in the smart kids who like their entertainment and knowledge meta. For example, consider this part of the Passion, rewritten to match the music of Radiohead’s “Creep”:

CHRIST (on the cross)

I’m the Christ

I’m the Savior

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here

PARISH

He’s rising up again

He’s rising up

He lives, lives, lives

Get the likes of Outcast, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Dave Berman to write new lyrics for hymns and the youth will come running.

You see, right about now, the Catholic church is pretty effed. It might as well just give up trying to be inclusive and going back to the exclusive, snobby religion it once was. At least then I didn’t worry about my little cousin becoming an Altar Boy.

First Tee

Meticulously count and clean your clubs. While counting, you may find it calming to do so with a rhythmic intonation: three-iron, four-iron, five-iron, six; seven-iron, eight-iron, nine-iron, wedge. To clean your clubs, use the classic “wax on, wax off” motion from The Karate Kid. Wax on with the wet side of your towel; wax off with the dry side. Remember! A half-wet, half-dry towel is the key to Nirvana!

Third Green

Once all four members of the foursome are on the green, pull the flag out of the cup. Balance the flagstick on the index finger of your non-dominant hand. At the same time, walk to each of the four golfers and ask to clean their balls. Do not drop the flag or let it touch the ground! After all golfers have picked up or putted out of the hole, hold the stick out at arms length and spin around once in a circle, taking in the flapping noise of the flag. Ignore the disparaging looks of the golfers. This will teach you resilience.

Fourth Tee

That cloud up there looks like a Calloway Big Bertha Driver. Meditate.

Sixth Fairway

Put the golf bags down on the side of the bunker and pick up the rake. Hold the rake in your hand and study it. It has a yellow stem, and a black rubber handle and teeth. Grab the rake by the teeth and lift it to your chest. Focus on the rake. Slow your breathing. Become one with the rake. Let you and it share one consciousness. Now rake that goddamn trap, son, before I have to tell the caddymaster you aren’t doing your job.

Eighth Green

While an older golfer is standing just on the fringe of the green, about to chip, ask him or her whether he or she would like the pin placed back. Repeat over and over, chanting with increasing volume until he or she hears you. Place the pin back in the cup despite what the golfer says. Older golfers don’t see very well, either.

Tenth Fairway

Enjoy the hot dog that your golfer bought you at the halfway house. Sit on a rock one hundred yards from the tee box while you wait for the foursome to finish their beers. You may ponder what goes into a hot dog, but there is the possibility that this will make you nauseous if you have a weak stomach. You’re probably better off questioning why hot dogs come in packs of seven and hot dogs buns in packs of eight, or why orange Gatorade tastes so good.

Eleventh Green

Realize that the answer to whatever question you considered on the tenth fairway is “Marketing and Sales Volume.” This will teach you cynicism.

Thirteenth Tee

There is a group standing on the green of this par three, but do not let their tardiness affect your peace of mind. Rather, stand on a tee marker–the white ball that is stuck into the ground telling golfers where to hit from–with both bags on your shoulders. You must stand on one foot, as there will not be enough space on the marker for both. You may hold out the clubs your golfers have selected to aid your balance, but this is discouraged. Imagine you are flying. Try to hold this position for at least thirty seconds, as it will leave you loose and prepared for the last six holes.

Sixteenth Fairway

Do not let your golfer’s incessant questioning of “Where did my ball go?” faze you. Chant your mantra–”Ummm . . .” is suggested–while you let yourself find the ball. Visualize the ball’s path in your head. Let your inner sight guide to the site of the landing. Do not step on the ball as this results in bad karma, which translates as you losing five dollars on your tip.

Eighteenth Green

You have completed your taxing physical and mental journey. Congratulations! Again count and clean the clubs, using the same techniques you used on the first tee. There is, however, one lesson you must still absorb. When your golfer pays you five dollars less than the average, do not take hasty action. Do not throw all his or her spare balls into the lake to your right, nor “sabotage” his golf bag or his clubs. Most importantly, do not physically attack your golfer. Rather, make a point to get to at least second base with his or her daughter, with whom you attend high school.^* This will teach you self-control and, more importantly, how to be a real man.

^*If you are a dork, nerd or geek and need help getting to second base, be sure to check out another of our pamphlets: Zen and the Art of Getting to Second Base: Four Ground Rule Doubles to a Better You.

So here I am, 2:18 in the morning, and I’m entirely blocked on writing, well, anything. Can’t deal with the fiction, can’t deal with the paper, can’t deal with the responses to the short stories I’m supposed to be writing for later today. I’m screwed, basically.

So what do I do in this situation? Just about what anyone else would do in this situation: work on something entirely different. In this case, it’s my website. Considering I haven’t done anything for it in ages, it’s about time I got back to it. The idea is that the juices will start flowing and continue flowing for a bit longer.

I’ve been working an extreme amount lately, so by the time I get off work I don’t want to do anything but laze around for a few hours. It’s not a good thing at all. By the time I try to crack down and start my work (which, regardless of whether it’s entirely a good thing or not, now revolves around words that describe rather than issue instructions), I’ve wasted too much time to get anything done. Or I’m too tired to put together a coherent sentence. Currently, I’ve had to go back and delete something about every other word I’ve written, which is not a good thing when you’ve got a lot to write. It’s also not a good thing when you’re working in notepad again, which doesn’t have anything fancy like a “spellchecker” to tell you when things have gone wrong.

Anyway, there’s no need for random stuff like this, which is boring. Hopefully I can get my act together in regards to writing regularly, even if it is just more tripe on the web that no one wants to read. The idea is to do more stuff like reviews, fictional stuff and, yes, the Short Humor Essays that I haven’t written in a long time (and has a better reputation than they deserve credit for. Tonight, however, is just playing around with HTML again some. And yes, there’s a very good chance that this is the last time I’ll update this for another month and a half. There’s also a very good chance that no one else is reading this. But whatever. None of that really matters. Stuff always happens eventually, and if it doesn’t happen here, there’s a whole internet full of it that you can go read.

And for those of you who miss the quick, one-line observational humor things I used to do:

Five years and three months since I first posted something to the web and I still can’t get a date.

This article appeared in modified form in The Declaration on 24 October 2001.

Woe to the unfortunate bands whom contract that most horrible disease, Rock Savioritis, especially if they’re on tour at the time. Radiohead, for example, came down with the condition while they were touring in support of OK Computer. They had a horrible time, pretty much stopped caring about their shows (remember the moment in Meeting People Is Easy where Thom, standing still, just held the microphone out to the audience during “Creep?”), and very nearly broke up. It took them nearly four years to come out with their next album, and it was drastically different than anything they had done before.

The Strokes, who played last Monday at the 9:30 Club in Washington, seemed to have been afflicted with the same ailment. Their album, Is This It, has been hailed as one of the greatest rock records in years by just about everyone, including the Dec. Constantly. Insistently. Word of the New York City-based group’s impending greatness reached us from across the ocean over the summer, and built up as the album neared its release date. Hype is a very bad thing, certainly: it creates anticipation beyond what should be reasonably expected from even the highest quality events, which inevitably depreciates the actual product (note the final episode of Seinfeld). The concert was no exception to this rule.

The Moldy Peaches, who also hail from NYC, opened. The Peaches consist of two vocalists who sing odd songs, and over time added a drummer and a few guitarists and what-have you. They came out on stage in costume, doing their best to surprise the audience (like you could get a rise out of this audience, anyway–but I’ll get to that). The two vocalists consisted one really, really hyper guy, who flailed himself across the stage, and one girl, wearing a large, blond wig who just kind of stood there clutching the microphone like it was the only thing keeping her from tipping over. Oh, and they really didn’t sing well. That’s the fun part.

The songs they sung were basically of the inane, gleefully offensive vein, many revolving around the girl’s unpopularity as a youngin. There was one song where she sang about “want[ing] to watch cartoons” with the subject of her adoration, and another called “Who’s Got the Crack?” The group reminded me of nothing so much else as the Bloodhound Gang, minus the Gang’s interesting, dynamic stage presence (an example: pulling a kid up out of the audience and forcing him to drink an entire case of Sprite) and clever wordplay. Compare and contrast: the lyrics of the Bloodhound Gang’s “The Roof Is On Fire” (”Well, if I go to hell / I hope that I will burn well / I’ll spend my days with J.F.K., Martha Raye, Marvin Gaye and Lawrence Welk”) with “Who’s Got the Crack?” (”It’s hard to be a garbage man when a sailor stole my glove”). I’d provide context, except that (a) I don’t remember any and (b) the line had no context anyway. It did have the effect of having the whole audience utter a collective, “huh?”

So that was the Moldy Peaches. They played a rather long set, unfortunately, about an hour and fifteen minutes or so (I might be wrong, but I wasn’t wearing a watch, and thus cannot be sure.) There was a longish pause in between bands; we made fun of odd videos that the 9:30 club played.

The Strokes finally came out. The whole place went wild. Headbanging, crowd surfing, tossing one another around . . . it was wild. Actually, it wasn’t. There was clapping and a few people shouted, some heads bobbing as the band played the first chords to “Is This It,” the first song of the album. But for the most part, nobody really moved. Though there were a few jumping pockets in the audience, everyone else pretty much stayed still. Now, I understand that not everyone comes from a family where dancing, or at least attempting to move in a rythymic to music, is instilled from birth. But rock is an especially energetic genre of music, and nothing angers me so much as people sitting around on their hands.

Julian Casablancas, the lead singer, didn’t move around anymore than the majority of the audience did. His main movement was the act of lighting a cigarette. Other than that, he stood in front of the microphone and let his vocals drip out of his mouth into the microphone. In other words, not particularly enthusiastic about singing his songs. This was a very sad thing. The songs that had so interested me on the album just ran together. Also not helping was the fact that Casablancas wasn’t interested in interacting with the audience, introducing songs occasionally but nothing of note else. All these things combined to give a sense of distance, which doesn’t contribute to enjoyment of music. As one of my friends noted afterwards, they write such great songs but don’t have much interest in performing them.

They opened with the first song on the album, played one song that was on the British release of the album but not the American, “New York City Cops,” and ended with “Take It Or Leave It,” the last song on the album. That was it. Twelve songs, and I, who had listened to the album one or two times prior to the concert, can’t really remember the setlist beyond that. The extreme economy of the set, thirty or forty minutes at best, didn’t help by reminding us that the Moldy Peaches were on for so damn long.

You can’t really blame them. They’ve put up so long with hype and brilliant reviews that, well, they couldn’t live up to the hype and be brilliant. Rock Savioritis is a dangerous disease, more damaging to a band than a CD case filled with anthrax spores. Anthrax can be defeated with Cipro, but there’s no anti-biotic to rock criticism (I suppose this implicates myself, too, in an odd way). But at the same time, I have to wonder: the fact that they’ve only written twelve songs thus far, apparently, and their dispassionate live playing, calls into question whether they’re going to be able to continue on in the future. The concept of the Strokes calling their album, “Is This It,” now seems less like a mockery of everyone wondering if they are The Chosen Band, the saviors of rock, and more a question of: “Will there be any more?”

Appeared, copy-edited, in The Declaration on or about 1 September 2001.

Let’s take a moment to conjure up the magical land of the New Jersey Turnpike. New Yorkers and New Englanders don’t have a problem with this, but since most of the people reading this are from Virginia and probably have not had a great deal of experience with the great jewel of the Garden State, so here’s a little description for you: Imagine a post-apocalyptic world of the near future. Bush has fucked up big time. Saddam Hussein finally got the nuclear weapon for Christmas that he’s been hoping to get for the past twenty years or so. He unloaded it on the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and then everything went nuts. ICBMs were launched across the world, from the United States, from Russia, from China–hell, even France got in on the fun. Every place on earth becomes part of the new global wasteland. Water is scarce. The only buildings left are rotting shells, scattered across the dusty land every twenty or thirty miles.

In this hopeless, desolate world, the New Jersey Turnpike would remain unchanged.

The Jersey Turnpike is 130 miles of asphalt, with service stations scattered about every twenty-five miles or so. Many of these rest stops are under renovation, so you’ve got Burger King and Roy Rogers running out of modified RVs, and convenience stores that are little more than shacks selling stale Combos and warm soda. Add to this mix the Mafia (the opening sequence of The Sopranos is James Gandolfini driving past various “landmarks” on the Turnpike), easily angered New Yorkers, and overzealous cops, and you’ve got one horrible stretch of highway. And we won’t even get started about the smell.

Basically, what I’m getting at is that the Jersey Turnpike is not the most scenic stretch of highway in the Northeast, and also that I’m bitter because I spent far too much time driving it over the course of the summer. Of course, there’s a silver lining in every clich

Originally appeared in The Dec. I don’t remember when, and I can’t look it up because I made such a crappy webmaster.

Neal Pollack is the greatest American writer to have ever lived. He has written for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times, and many other literary organizations that begin with “The New.” He has written over forty books, won the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award (three times!), and has been twice selected as a member of Oprah’s Book Club. He is fluent in Spanish, was close friends with John McCain, and has posed undercover as a transgendered teenager to get the scoop. He is elegant, dashing, charming and, above all else, handsome. He has slept with over 500 women. Wait. You’ve never heard of him? What do you mean? Are you culturally ignorant? Stupid? A pitiful excuse for a human being?

Actually, you probably just don’t read McSweeney’s, the upstart literary magazine founded by Dave Eggers of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Might Magazine fame (and whether or not this makes you culturally ignorant is a discussion for another day). Pollack, a columnist for the Chicago Reader, has been writing extensively for both the print version and the online journal (www.mcsweeneys.net) of McSweeney’s for the past year. He has been writing so extensively, in fact, that many reviewers believed him to be Eggers himself, a situation that slightly angered Pollack, Eggers, and Pollack’s mother, to say the least.

Pollack has now completed a compendium of his work, except that it isn’t much of a compendium at all. The book is, instead, almost completely original, though some of his pieces for McSweeney’s, such as “Europe: the Forgotten Continent,” are mentioned as his literary works of genius. The basic notion behind the Anthology is that, in addition to being a great novelist, etc, Pollack has also written great pieces of journalism, which he is now, finally, sharing with a deserving public in one essential volume.

His writing style is, unfortunately, somewhat difficult to describe. For the most part, Pollack takes freelance writing’s bloated sense of ego to the extreme. To picture this, take your favorite Dec article, and imagine how it would have sounded if the author was twenty times more egotistical than he or she really is (in the event you chose Mark Grabowski as your base, make it just five times more self-important). Then retitle it with something along the lines of, “The Albania of My Existence,” “Introduction to the New Slavery,” or “An Interview with My Sister, Who Is a Lesbian.”

For example, in “I Am Friends with a Working Class Black Woman,” Pollack’s analysis of life in the South Bronx, he writes, “Then I realized: I was friends with this woman, this Cora Johnson, this subject of mine. I’d had black friends before