The Camel

This is my cousin’s rendition of a camel.

You’re probably envisioning a young kid, but no, he’s of drinking age (though we sadly can’t blame booze for this monstrosity) and obviously not an artist.

We were playing a sort of Pictionary-esque game, and he genuinely didn’t seem to notice how phallic his “camel” was when he sketched it quickly. He handed the picture to his sister to guess what it was and she abruptly tried to quit the game. ”You’re gross! This is obscene! I’m not playing this game anymore!”

The rest of us - unable to see the picture - were confused. What in the hell could be so disturbing that she’s threatening to quit?

She ultimately guessed watering can. I guess that’s one way to try to make it family-friendly again.

Paper Mashie

So my friend teaches at a charter school. She's certified to teach Science, but because of the way the school is structured, she winds up teaching some English, too. The district eventually learned that kids were receiving instruction from a non-certified English teacher, so they arranged for an "English specialist" to show up part-time at the school to supplement lessons. Though my friend studied English in college and has been teaching reading and writing for years now, she understands the law that forced the change; it just kind of sucks because the money to pay the supplemental instructor must be taken from the charter school's already limited budget.

Here's the kicker, though: the English specialist the district has provided is only questionably literate herself. Here is the honest-to-gosh assignment she gave to my friend's students to do in conjunction with the Holocaust memoir Night:

What kind of English teacher doesn't use punctuation? What kind of English teacher doesn't write out the word "you"? What kind of English teacher uses the wrong type of "there" incorrectly twice in one sentence?

As much as I am laughing at things like "arty project", "paper mashie", and her botched cut and paste job that repeats part of the assignment a second time, this is actually tragic. In what world is my friend not qualified to teach English while this woman (who has had her job for over 15 years, mind you) is considered a "specialist"? I like her claim that she will take "of" [sic] points for spelling and grammar errors, as if she has any idea what those are.

Granted, when I was a high school English teacher, the essay I assigned in conjunction with the book Night resulted in at least one epically awful student paper. That's still not a good excuse for someone brought in specifically to teach writing to arbitrarily assign an art project rather than an essay. The public education system is fucked. It is so so so so fucked.

Quail-Man

I dressed as Quail-Man for Halloween. I chose Doug Funnie's alter-ego because the actual costume IS a crappy costume and therefore isn't hard to put together. But it was still a hit! I mean, most people seemed to have no idea who this dude was running around with a belt on his head and underwear* as outerwear, but the minority of people who did recognize me were super into the nostalgia and I wound up posing for a couple dozen photos with strangers. I just wish Quail-Man had some kind of catchphrase, because each time people shouted at me, I had nothing to respond but, "Heyyyyy." (What does the Quail say?)

I thought Quail-Man would be an original costume - I've never seen anyone dressed as him before - but wouldn't you know it, I ran into two other Quail-Men in my trek around Hollywood last night. We should probably start an Awesome People/Awesome Ideas club.

* I purchased the tighty whities from Goodwill for 50 cents. Yeah, that's gross, but I washed them twice and they went over my pants so I think it's okay. I hope it's okay, anyway.

Blow It Out Your Porthole

Despite some initial success (meaningless ribbons and certificates) in my earliest years, I believe I officially gave up as a visual artist in 8th grade.

On the one hand, maybe I just couldn't handle not receiving constant praise on my presumably unimpressive artwork from my art teacher for the first time. On the other hand, I think he was a dick who stifled my expression.

I was excited about our landscape assignment because it was the first time I ever painted on an honest-to-gosh canvas. Something about painting on a canvas makes the process seem so much more official than doing it on paper.

While my peers took a traditional approach to the assignment, I chose to paint an island seen through a cruise ship porthole. More than half of the canvas was devoted to the interior of the cruise ship and the landscape aspect of it was kind of incidental in the background.

I thought it was a modern approach to landscapes and showed how removed we are from nature. Most people really do only experience a sight like that through glass on a boat, and I wanted to acknowledge that fact in my painting. Whether I was able to articulate that idea better or worse in 8th grade, I don't remember.

My teacher graded it poorly and called it a cop out. Okay, maybe part of the reason was because it was easier than painting an actual landscape. But all that other stuff I just said? That was a part too - a bigger part. This teacher had one idea of what a landscape could be and stomped on my creativity.

He also didn't like my mixed media collage that incorporate the lyrics to The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony". (Looking back, maybe I was anti-capitalist before I even knew what that meant.) What a fucking buzz kill. Then again, I suppose the true mark of a great artist is not being appreciated in your own time.

I'm not sure where the porthole painting is anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it somehow made its way to an art museum because that shit is genius.

Ashton Kutcher Plate

At the risk of boasting, check out this commemorative art that Ashton Kutcher commissioned of himself that I now own!

In 2005, Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher starred in the film Guess Who - a modern bastardization of the Sidney Poitier classic Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - where a white guy meets his girlfriend's black family and race-based hijinks ensue! I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that none of you have seen it. I certainly haven't seen it; heck, my friend worked on the movie, and I don't think even he's seen it.

It is because my friend worked on the film that I now have this fine art. As a sign of gratitude, Kutcher gave the cast and crew painted decorative plates. You might be thinking "How uncharacteristically awesome of Ashton Kutcher to give the crew a thank you keepsake!" Before you get carried away, take a closer look at the plate.

It's a spoof of the Last Supper and Kutcher has cast himself as Jesus Christ. The black cast, inoffensively obviously, surrounds Kutcher as his disciples. It takes a special kind of ego to deify oneself… and an even greater ego still to pass it off as a "gift" that the crew would have any interest in.

Apparently, it's been my friend's closet for years because what do you do with something like that? I guess just pass it off to someone you know that would find it ridiculous enough to appreciate.

And I do! I would actually eat off the plate, except that on the back it warns: "Food consumed from this vessel may be harmful." Mmmmmm, how deliciously toxic! Guess I'll just have to display it on my mantle instead.

The back of the plate also features Ashton's signature and the word "SHALOM." I googled that, and I guess that during filming, Kutcher improvised that his character was Jewish, but the director ultimately cut all references to that out. It's nice to know that this plate is not just a testament to Kutcher's egomania, but also his ill-conceived creative input.

One day I will sell this on eBay and make TENS of DOLLARS!

I Had a Fake Pen Pal in High School

It sounds more pathetic than it is… at least I hope that's the case. In my Spanish class, we had to strike up a correspondence with someone living in a Spanish-speaking country. It was a long-term assignment, and I was so disgruntled with my tragic pen pal experience from elementary school that I didn't want to do it. That, or more realistically I just procrastinated intensely and found myself days short of a deadline without a pen pal, so I just decided to make one up.

Her name was Ana and she was from Madrid. I chose both of those proper nouns because they were the first ones I thought of that didn't have accents in them. Why annoy myself having to find the accent marks on the keyboard to type something like "María" when I didn't have to? I went about setting up a fake email account for Ana when I discovered a flaw in my plan. How, with just a few years of shaky Spanish, was I going to write an email that seemed plausibly written by a native speaker?

I approached my profesora after class. Since she wanted us to include all of our emails in our packet, I thought I'd take a moral stance, asking, "What if they're kind of personal?" This excited her. "Personal? Vicente [my "Spanish" name], do you have a new girlfriend? Are you flirting with your pen pal?" "I dunno…" I stammered, really thrown by her leap. But it worked! My profesora said, as nosy as she was, that it wasn't her business to read my private emails and that I could just summarize the relevant content in my own Spanish words instead.

Even if it wasn't my aim, I should have known that just alluding to a love connection would be enough to win my profesora over. She taught us a lot of relationship vocabulary words, had us write love letters in Spanish, and even had us to a video project where we filmed ourselves describing our traits and desires in a "dating profile." When she found out we had both a competitive hockey player and figure skater (one of whom went on to play in the minor leagues and the other went on to appear as Pocahontas in Disney on Ice) in our class, she had us watch The Cutting Edge in an attempt to make romance blossom. And she shared embarrassing stories (though she didn't seem to see it that way) about how she would secretly watch her crush by climbing his neighbor's tree.

The Ana rouse wasn't an easy one. I had to invent all sorts of her interests and personality traits to write about, too. Fortunately, her hobbies were things like futbol and fotografia and other vocabulary words that were in our text book. I'm sure it would have been less work if I had just found a real Spanish speaker to correspond with. But then again, nobody said that maintaining a fake Canadian Spanish girlfriend would be easy.

The Exquisite Corpse Project

I was invited to a screening of The Exquisite Corpse Project at a festival last year, and if I'm being honest, I was skeptical about the concept. But since I went to high school with the director, Ben, and my friend Leigh was one of the film's editors, I figured what the hey. I loved it, though. Not, like, "proud of my friends" loved it, but genuinely loved it and would have enjoyed it just as much if I didn't know anyone involved.

The premise is that five comedians write a movie script "together"… but really separately, because each one can only read the previous five pages before contributing his own section. It's a funny idea - and an activity I'd love to participate in, I might add - but I had doubts whether a movie that's humor is derived from inconsistent characters and a disjointed plot could sustain laughter for a full 85 minutes. It's sort of like when someone's like "Read this Madlib we did!" Sure it's amusing enough, but it's never going to be as funny to an outsider as it was for the group of people who played the game.

Don't let that aspect throw you, though. First, I underestimated how funny the movie would be from start to finish. Second, I wasn't aware that the film would be at least half documentary, and that ended up being its strongest component. Ultimately, the story behind the story is more riveting. Plus, it's never a bad time to see a bunch of comedians discuss the creative process and snark on each other.

And while this is going to sound hokey, I feel like The Exquisite Corpse Project taught me something about human nature. Ben's goal with this project was to reunite old friends who had gone down separate paths in the hopes of rekindling the magic. Alas, it doesn't quite work out how he expected: people change and so do their relationships. Thematically, it really resonated with me, and that's not something you find in most comedic films.

The fact that you can purchase it for $5 is a steal, so get on that.

The Bombers Are Going to Get Away with It

Nah, this isn't some conspiracy theory. I'm not even talking about Boston. I'm actually referring to that OTHER explosion that killed a bunch of people and injured hundreds more last week.

Oh right. The news pretty quickly forgot about the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion. I mean, it was reported initially because there was a chance that it was another "terrorist" attack, but then once everyone realized it was just a case of corporate irresponsibility, the mentality was, "Fuck that, we have some dangerous sorta brown men to catch!"

I'm not about to directly equate a terrorist bombing and an accidental explosion because there is obviously a difference in intentionality. But here is a fertilizer plant with over 1,000 times the legal limit of explosives on site that didn't pony up for sprinklers or fire safety precautions. Not only were they maximizing profits by exceeding the allowed output, but they were cutting corners on minor expenses that would keep their own employees - and the whole town, as it turns out - safe.

And then there's the government's role in the ordeal. No inspections had been performed on the plant in 6 years. In fact, on that last visit, the company was found to not have safety procedures in place. As a result, the plant was fined $2,300. That's a laughable business expense, not a punishment, for a company that rakes in millions.

This is GROSS NEGLIGENCE. Although they weren't purposely trying to blow up a whole town, they knew they were running that risk for a long time and chose to value extra profits over attempting to prevent a catastrophe.

For months to come, however, we're going to hear about what we need to do, who we need to kill, and which Constitutional liberties we need to sacrifice in order to keep us safe. Safe from terrorism, that is. No one is going to try to hold this company accountable or vilify it in the media. No lawmakers are going to cry for sweeping corporate safety reforms in order to protect Americans, even though more people were killed/harmed in West.

So when the state starts justifying racial profiling/immigration reform, adds even more invasive forms of airport and event security, and decides its in the nation's best interest to read your emails without a warrant all in the name of "SAFETY", don't believe that bullshit. It's part of a preexisting agenda. If they actually cared about your safety, they'd, you know, pass gun control (which kills an exponential amount of people compared to terrorism) or enact meaningful safety regulations in the workplace.

For the record, the government's excuse is that we are in a deficit and because of budget cuts, we can't afford to conduct safety inspections. Still, they'll find hundreds of billions to spend on a war against a country to get "revenge" for a terrorist attack it had no part in. (Don't act like it's never happened before.)

Oh, and before I'm done, I also want to say "Fuck a terrorist!" Ugh. Dudes, you got gripes about America? You and me both. But violence is not only reprehensible morally, but also, dare I say, counterproductive. If the intention of the bombing was to somehow undermine the United States, all it did was make its population fall more in love with the state and law enforcement, and that renewed trust and loyalty will ultimately contribute to more corruption.

In that sense, terrorists are as dumb as they are evil. Corporations, meanwhile, are as smart as they are evil… after all, they know they can get away with it.

Drink and Drive

Don't drink and drive, drink and Drive.

I finally watched Drive again and it holds up. We played a drinking game with just 3 rules:

1. Drink every time Gosling starts driving.
2. Drink every time Gosling and Carey Mulligan stare at each other for longer than 3 seconds when one of them really ought to be saying something.
3. Drink every time Gosling speaks a complete sentence.

That's it, those are the only rules you need. I think it's safe to say Rules #1 and #2 caused more damage than #3. We tried to determine how many words Gosling spoke, and the best we could find was this internet snippet: "If you think Ryan Gosling is hot, well - you would be right. Granted, he has about 78 words of dialogue in this very non-chatty film, but Ryan's character, like his body, is well-developed." I think the 78 figure is litotes, but point taken.

Meanwhile, I'm standing by initial review of Drive - total camp. I have some friends who are steadfast lovers of the movie that hate that I wish to diminish it to a midnight feature, but I'd argue that I'm going to elevate it to a Rocky Horror-style event. People wearing scorpio jackets, singing along to the most bizarre soundtrack in years, and shouting out lines to fill what is otherwise mostly silence? Like you wouldn't buy a ticket!

The Beacontown Beavers

This season, each of the dodgeball teams in our league named itself after an 80s movie reference. I had two stellar suggestions if I say so myself.

In fact, I did say so myself with St. Elmo's Fire Crotch. Apparently, my teammates weren't ready to do more than shake their heads at the thought of portraying an alleged pedophile as angelic. Plus the team's redhead wasn't wild about it. Fair enough. But Elmo is a fire crotch if I've ever seen one, so it wasn't entirely inappropriate.

When Harry Met Sally Jessy Raphael was much better received. That's three 80s references in one! Despite getting the most support from my teammates, our captain overruled (booooo).

So instead, we're the Beacontown Beavers. That's a reference to the basketball team in the Michael J. Fox movie Teen Wolf. It's not so bad being a beaver:

I had on my full yellow garb and short athletic shorts in honor of dodgeball playoffs last night. The Beacontown Beavers did pretty well last night, no thanks to me. I couldn't catch for shit last night, gosh dam it, but hopefully my sexy legs at least distracted the other team.

I'm optimistic about our team's chances in the finals next week because it's basically been foretold. Not just because our shirts already read "Champions" (boy, wouldn't that be embarrassing if we were wrong?) but because Teen Wolf's theme song is "Win in the End." With a boring tune and lyrics that a second grader could have written, I've really come to like how awful and 80s that song is:


"Win in the end. I'm gonna win in the end."

Photography

Six obnoxious things I wanted to say when I met someone who went to art school for photography:

1. Oh, you majored in Instagram, how trendy.
2. Tell me all about fisheye lenses.
3. Is it still art if every idiot with a cell phone does it?
4. Your selfies must be the best.
5. Anne Geddes: Great or really great?
6. Do you know how I can get a job creating stock photography?*

I didn't say these things, however, because I do respect photography as an art form. Granted, I know plenty of "professionals" who are shitty at it, but that just goes to show that it takes more knowledge/talent than clicking a button. 

* Except that #6 is legitimate. If anyone knows how to get me my dream job of art directing/posing scenarios like "world's greatest mom", "teenager who loves reading", and "romantic couple without PDA", then help a blogger out. 

The Pope Party: Perhaps The Most Offensive Thing I've Ever Done

The departure of Pope Benedict XVI reminds me of one of the most offensive things I’ve ever done: throwing a giant Vatican-bashing bash on the day Pope John Paul II died.

To be fair, it wasn’t intentional. Well, not entirely intentional. Allow me to explain.

At my college, the Suites Around the World party was one of the most anticipated annual traditions. All of the recycling money collected from the student body’s empty cans and bottles (so obviously we’re talking serious $$$) gets redistributed to the students to buy more alcohol (in some sort of circle of life for alcoholics) for this international affair. About 10 suites in the dorm would volunteer to pick a country and serve customary booze and food. For example, Mexico would serve Tecate and tequila, Japan would serve Saki, and Germany would serve various German beers.

I should note that this is a progressive liberal arts school, so don’t equate it with those supposedly “cultural fraternity/sorority parties” that turn into black-face and offensive stereotypes that you read about in the news. Generally, the Asian exchange students would represent their home country, the Chicano students would host Mexico, and the white kids would do something boring like Australia or Ireland. Yes, the party was primarily an excuse to get drunk. I also won’t claim I “learned” much about the countries from these parties. And I won’t argue that nothing about the party was problematic, but I stress that it was about traveling to the different suites to taste the different spirits and foods, not put on costumes and do bad impressions.

My suite, however, did become super offensive… even though we were only trying to be semi-offensive. A month and a half before the party occurred we had to select a country, and we wanted to choose something funny. After searching a map, my suitemates Kurosh and Alice thought it would be amusing to pick Vatican City. It was approved by the school administration, and I was told by a friend on student council that the deans had chuckled at the idea.

A few weeks ahead of time, we received the recycling money and started preparing. We bought red wine for “Communion” and Sprite and vodka to mix as “Holy Water.” Our snacks were crackers, cookies, cheeses, breadcrumbs… anything that was small and round that could stand in as Communion wafers.

We made trips to the local Family Christian store and bought religious paraphernalia to hang on the walls. I printed out a poster-size photo of John Paul II. We dressed the mannequin up as a priest (though on his bottom half, he still wore a speedo – his signature attire). We put red curtains up over the shower stalls to turn them into confessionals. Alex rigged a sound system to play Gregorian chants in the bathroom. It was an amusing set up and we were psyched for the party.

A few days before the party, Alice announces, “Wait, did you guys hear that the Pope is sick?” There were questions about whether it was appropriate to have the party while he was seriously ill. But here’s something you have to remember about John Paul II: in his last several years, he was repeatedly “gravely” ill. I kind of figured they kept exaggerating that nonsense so it seemed miraculous each time he recovered. “He’s not going to die! He’s always supposed to die but he never does!” I argued. We continued putting the finishing touches on the party, all while keeping an eye on the news… just in case.

On the day of the party, the Pope did in fact die. As ironic as it was, the best we could muster was nervous laughter. We had been planning this party for six weeks, back when John Paul was still fine, but most people who attended wouldn’t realize that. There was a major crisis of conscience and we considered cancelling the party. Some tried to quickly formulate an alternative country for us to do. In the end, since everything was already decorated and purchased, we just decided to accept eternal damnation and move forward with the party. One friend wrote “In Loving Memory” over the Pope poster.

I know some people who boycotted our suite that night because they found it offensive. Others came in and toasted to the Pope. But, sadly, a lot of people who attended had no clue what was going on. College kids who live in a dorm aren’t necessarily aware of current events on a Saturday. I remember a conversation between two drunk girls who were holding on to each other for support: “Wait, didn’t the Pope die today?” “I don’t think so.” “Oh, okay.”

As if things weren’t disrespectful enough, by midnight things got pretty debaucherous. I can’t imagine the Pope would be too keen to see people grinding against each other as Missy Elliott played. The Communion wine was getting chugged. Some people (not me) started hooking up in the makeshift confessionals (okay, maybe me.) Even I had to do some Hail Marys when I spied someone do a line of cocaine to the echoes of the Gregorian chants.

Years later, I still think back and shake my head at the party that turned more tasteless than a Communion wafer. It’s the kind of party you would never get away with if you actually planned for it… so I appreciate the 11th hour Divine Intervention that helped turn our night into a tacky-fest. Y’all can judge us for going forward with the party anyway, but it’s not like we covered up chronic pedophilia, so let’s remember to keep the sinning in perspective, okay?

New Spirit Animal

I know it's not polite to take pictures of strangers without their permission, but I couldn't help it; this old lady I saw downtown is KILLING it style-wise. Let's give a rundown:

• purple shirt 
• purple jacket 
• purple necklace 
• purple rings 
• purple earrings 
• purple hat 
• purple oversized glasses 
• purple pants 
• purple sneakers 
• purple purse 

Oh, and she's also holding a purple sweater and purple scarf just in case she gets too cold on this fairly warm day. That, or in case she suddenly needs more purple.

I'm never declared a spirit animal before, but now I'm glad I've held out. This lady is it, this lady is my spirit animal. My life is about to change, y'all.

Valentine's Day Cards for Activists

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 I say that not because I give a shit, but in an act of self-promotion. For my job, I made a bunch of Valentine’s Day cards specifically for activists and you should read them all and send them as e-cards (it’s free and easy!) to your crush. Because really - if you care about someone who doesn’t care about saving the world - you’re probably an idiot yourself.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It's funny how my childhood affinity for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has blinded me from ever thinking critically about the cartoon. As much as I want to respect it as an art, it is nothing if not a blatant commercial attempt to appeal to as many kids as possible:

Teenage - old enough to be looked up to, but not old enough to be uncool adults
Mutant - supernatural in a slightly creepy but inoffensive way
Ninja - kids love karate and fighting
Turtles - reptiles are kind of the best at that age, and turtles are probably the least "disgusting" reptile around

Oh and if the turtles title characteristics weren't enough, they also exclusively eat pizza and lived in a sewer. What kids don't love pizza and bathroom humor? They just piled on as many things as they could think of that would pander to children.

I don't care if I was just five, I'm kind of belatedly ashamed that I fell victim to such an intense marketing campaign. I bought tickets to the movies, the action figures, and even the breakfast cereal. Shame on them for playing into my youthful lack of media savvy.

It no only makes me angry, it makes me want to make my own cartoon. Preteen Radioactive Astronaut Cheetahs. Sure, it's a muddied concept that lacks integrity, but I'd make millions.

I guess I've been right all along: the Ninja Turtles are super gay.

Le Mis? More Like IS LAME!

You see what I did there? I just inverted the syllables and got an accurate critique of the film.

It wasn't entirely bad. Some of the music was cool. Plus, with my activist tendencies, I started getting really excited whenever they featured the French Revolution -- too bad that kept getting pushed aside to make room for more love stories. But what was with the non-stop close-ups? The point of turning theater into a movie is to add some amazing visuals - but this was largely just a bunch of talking (or more accurately singing) heads. And if we - as the audience - aren't supposed to believe that Hugh Jackman is a child molester, then they should have done a better job of establishing that. I mean, I'm pretty sure he wasn't a ChiMo, but it's best not to leave that lingering doubt about your main character (unless of course we're talking about the movie Doubt, which is a way better example of adapting a play to cinema.)

I have no problem acknowledging that Anne Hathaway is pretty darn good. But then she dies really quickly. AND THERE'S STILL TWO HOURS OF THE FILM LEFT! You can't ask people to stick around for 120 minutes after the best part of your movie bites the dust. 

The main criticism I've read about the film is that Russell Crowe really sucks. But honestly, I fail to see how he's measurably worse than most of the cast. Like, you're going to call out Crowe for having a poor singing voice when Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter have multiple musical numbers in the film? And do you really think he's worse than that inbred looking kid who seems to have taken voice lessons from Kermit the Frog? 

Also, when you're promised that everyone in the film dies, make sure you actually kill everyone. Because the young couple left standing at the end? I didn't really care for them. It didn't seem fair to let them live when everyone they know and love dies, particularly since Ginger Kermit played a big role in the demise of all of his friends. 

I was told that even if I don't like musicals, I would get caught up in the tragedy and cry. I fully expected to cry, actually, because I was already crying a lot that week. That was another side effects of being covered in hives - I kept crying at the smallest things. It wasn't the pain, but I felt so vulnerable and hormonal that even the stupidest, sappiest things could provoke a few tears. Here's a list of things I remember crying about while be-hived (not to be confused with beehived): 

• Searching for Sugar Man
• two consecutive episodes of The Biggest Loser
• The Sessions
• The Other Dream Team
• merely thinking about a previous viewing of Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Won't Back Down (and no one should cry over Maggie Gyllenhaal unless they're asked to spell her name or endure a conversation with the woman) 
• this flash mob at an unemployment office in Spain  

And yeah, shut up I watched a lot of movies last week - you try thinking of another way to spend your time when you can't use your hands. 

Anyway, the point is that I cried at just about everything indiscriminately, yet I did NOT cry at Les Miserables. That should say something. Heck, that should say everything. Worst Best Picture nominee of the bunch.

I Want to Be a Brony

How many episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic do I have to watch before I can consider myself a brony?

Two? Can it be just two? Because I don't think I can handle anymore. But I'm really fascinated by the subculture and want to call myself a brony without actually doing the homework.

When I saw the series on Netflix Instant, I figured, why not? I remember watching My Little Pony as a kindergartener, and I know that plenty of 20-and-30-something-year-old men watch its current iteration because I read it on the internet so it must be true. 

I actually quit partway through the first episode, but then Allison - who I think is shaping up to be a pegasister (the female counterpart to a brony) - encouraged me to finish it, and then it was a to-be-continued episode, so we watched the second episode, too.

Even though I want to completely throw in the towel, I keep going back to a quote from a man named Allen in the Wired article I linked earlier: "As a person with Asperger syndrome, I learned more about theory of mind, friendships, and social interactions from this season than I had in the previous 31 years of life."

Indeed, if there's one lesson I learned from the two episodes I saw, it's that friendship IS magic. They really drove that theme home. And maybe if I keep watching, I can befriend guys who hold conventions, dress up like ponies, and discuss a cartoon geared for young girls in detail. Now that would be magical!     

2.5 Beers

I recently posted about bumper stickers I used to own, but I neglected to mention this fourth bumper sticker I also purchased.

A decade ago when I left for college across the country, my sister essentially inherited my first car. I still considered it my car when I came back home, but she definitely saw it differently. She would shriek about how it was her car now and many arguments would ensue.

Finally, she marked her territory. If she were a dog, she would have pissed on the vehicle, but as a teenage girl, she did her own variation on that theme by placing a pink Tinkerbell sticker on the car. I consider myself pretty forward thinking, but I wasn't wild about riding around with a pink fairy on my rear window. 

I demanded that the sticker be removed, but my parents refused to take a side on the issue. And so Tinkerbell continued to survive -- but you can bet I wasn't clapping to make sure it happened. Consequentially, I drove to my summer job every day - a little bit humiliated - with Tinkerbell in tow.

After a while, I decided that two could play this game. While in Las Vegas, I stumbled upon a terrific bumper sticker: "CAUTION! I can go from 0 to HORNY in 2.5 BEERS". If my sister could put an embarrassing sticker on our shared car, why couldn't I? 

It was a bluff, obviously, because how would I be any less mortified to drive around in a vehicle with that thing? But my reputation for being usual worked to my benefit in this instance. My sister was dubious about my intentions to put it the sticker on our car, but also freaked out that I might actually do it. Initially, my parents found it funny, but soon my mom worried I would follow through and declared that my sister would take the Tinkerbell off the car.

It never happened, though. The "horny" bumper sticker was really just meant to illustrate a point. Besides, by then, I was barely even driving the car anymore anyway. But I do wish I knew where to locate that sticker now because I think it would be the perfect thing to put on a nemesis' car. That's right - don't piss me off. I may be pretty affectionate after 2.5 beers, but you wouldn't believe how vengeful I get after 4. 

Overheard at ArtWalk

• College Gal #1: Have you ever seen that movie James and the Giant Peach?
• College Gal #2: I don't think so. Does he eat the whole thing?

Chalk Walk

I wrote a piece on last night’s ChalkWalk debacle in Los Angeles for Care2. Read it, sign the petition.

I’ve seen on the internet that a lot of people thinking chalking is a pretty trivial topic, but they’re failing to see the bigger picture. Chalk is not Occupy’s #1 cause. This is about showcasing how the elite, with help from the police, are systemically stifling Americans’ supposedly protected rights to protest. 99% of the time, the police are not going to bother citing chalk users with trumped up vandalism charges. They are selectively arresting to intimidate and prevent dissent.

The police’s vast overreaction showed just how necessary this type of action is. If they’re willing to go to those extremes to deprive people of the seemingly inconsequential right to use chalk, imagine what lengths they’ll go to to deprive you of rights you’d assume you already have… until you try to use them.

Other critics have said Occupy is responsible for the violence because they “knew” that using chalk on the street would result in extreme police force. Firstly, how is that somehow worse than the police firing at a crowd of people for using chalk? And secondly, good for them if they did know, because it just highlights what an oppressive police state we live in, as well as who the police are really there to serve.

The Occupiers weren’t even in a fight with the police in this case. Most had left the scene. It was the unaffiliated civilians who took on the cause. They watched people being shoved and arrested for drawing with chalk and were angered – angered at a police department that has not endeared itself to its citizens in the past decades. Still, there was no riot… until police showed up in riot gear. People then interpreted a peaceful, yet agitated scene as a riotous one and acted accordingly.

The police got the riot they were looking for, and hopefully more people will come to see through it. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to help them see the light by chalking out messages of oppression. Fuck the arbitrary laws that police are inventing. One LAPD officer on the scene said that chalk wasn’t considered vandalism and another guy said chalking was illegal “for right now” as if they were just making up the law on the spot to make some arrests, which – yep, pretty much. They know that many of these charges don’t even stick. So chalk on, my friends. Plus, given my aversion to touching and hearing chalk, you know this is a firm commitment to the cause.