Domestic Violence? More like Domestic Vi-LOL-ence!

Recently, 92.3 FM in New York changed it’s format from an all-rock station (K-ROCK, as it was formerly known) to Top 40 (Now FM). I have to say that if there’s one thing New York needed more of it was Top 40 radio, because it’s already impossible to turn on your FM receiver and not hear Flo Rida’s “Right Round” playing on four different stations at the same time. Why not have a fifth, right? I digress; this post isn’t written to be a rant about the saturation of the airwaves with terrible music.

This Thursday evening, I was sitting in my car and eating a burger while flipping through my car radio presets. Since 92.3 is still one of them, I happened to land on it for the last few moments of a song I actually liked and, since I didn’t immediately change the station, caught the two DJs having a conversation. It was the usual inane radio DJ fare, except this time it caught my attention because they were encouraging women to text message them with hilarious stories to see whose boyfriend had the worst temper.

The DJ’s were already very amused by the responses they had gotten, and one of them read the following text message they had received (this isn’t word for word, but I’m paraphrasing here):

“My boyfriend has the worst temper. One time, he threw a coffee table at me! Crazy European temper!”

Now, without getting into a big thing on the relationship that this girl (or the next girl I’m going to mention) has with her boyfriend: what the fuck? I’m pretty sure having a “European temper” doesn’t normally excuse throwing coffee tables at women, and I’m pretty sure that this makes your boyfriend a colossal fuck-up at life. It’s really not funny or cute that you date someone that does this (unless the person lied to get themselves on the radio, in which case they’re in dire need of attention). Of course, what I’m saying here would be the rational response to someone telling you that they’re dating someone that throws coffee tables at them, but the DJs didn’t seem to think so, no; they thought it was fucking hilarious. Yes, a woman practically told them that her boyfriend commits acts of domestic battery, and they encouraged other women to do the same for their amusement.

Amazing.

They weren’t done, though. As I mentioned earlier, there was another girl who texted in and got her text message read on the air as well. This one went something like this:

“My boyfriend has a really bad temper; he throws all sorts of things at me. One time, he threw his cellphone and broke it!”

Another brilliant example of a winner (sarcasm, for the dense) and another story the DJs found uproarious. These weren’t shock jocks; they were just two no names on a Thursday evening in New York taking examples of spectacularly fucked up relationships and having a chuckle about it. It was mind boggling/

I’m aware there’s a market for these things, of course. There’s shock jocks, and we’ve all watched Jerry Springer before; there’s a certain train-wreck fascination people seem to have with the bottom of the barrell of society. I’m not always above that (who hasn’t watched an episode of Jerry?), and of course we all have tempers and all do stupid things; I’m not under the impression throwing things at your significant other is a normal thing, however, or something that should be made light of. There’s plenty of fail to go around here, from the relationships themselves to the no-name DJ’s that probably used it as an idea to get people to go “OMG!” (and the fools like me that probably took the bait), but I couldn’t help but have this feeling afterwards:

“What the fuck is wrong with you people? Throwing coffee tables? Funny? Acceptable? Fucking hell.”

Through my own experiences I’m starting to find that trying to explain or rationalize a lot of human behavior is a pretty fucking frustrating task, but it’s always great to get little reminders of just how screwed up we are. Sometimes, I think there really isn’t much hope. Sometimes, I just think things are kinda fucked. Thanks, NOW FM, for that sobering reminder of human failure. But hey, just put on some more Flo Rida, and let’s all keep pretending that it’s all good.

Dan’s Papers, Now With More Webpage-iness.

A while back I wrote a post about the inanity of Dan’s Papers, a “newspaper” dealing with the eastern part of Long Island. Dan’s Papers is a free publication, apparently subsisting entirely on advertising it gets from high end East End businesses as best as I can tell. It’s interesting and a tad puzzling to me that as the obituaries are being written for print media everywhere, a paper who’s mere publication is an affront to the existence of trees everywhere continues to succeed. Part of the problem for newspapers has been adapting to the internet era. However, if you’re looking for a reason why a lifestyle paper with no apparent redeeming qualities continues to be omnipresent in large parts of the Island, it certainly isn’t their not-so-cutting edge website. I discovered it after losing the most recent paper copy that a friend gave to me as some kind of gag, and it was more or less whatever I expected it to be: terrible.

Now, the website is functional. It appears to have been made in Microsoft Publisher by somebody who just got one of those introductory Microsoft Office CD’s that they sell to old people that have never touched a computer before, but it’s functional. Lucky for us, it contains the same quality material that you can find in the printed version of Dan’s Papers. I would say that this renders the newspaper essentially superfluous, but since it was superfluous to begin with, I can’t say that. What hard hitting journalism do we find in this edition? Let’s find out!

One of the charming things about Dan’s Papers is that it gives Dan Rattiner a platform to spew out brilliant ideas on pressing issues, like how the absurdly wealthy travel from their expensive midtown apartments to their expensive weekend homes in the Hamptons:

With the current economic downturn, even the rich are finding they need to cut costs on their day-to-day expenses. Last year’s 50-minute helicopter charter between 34th Street and the Hamptons could cost as much as $4,500 per charter if you were the only passenger. This year, with the price of gas down, it might be $3,900. It’s still a lot.

What if you could take the same trip for half the price, without all the noise on board, with much more comfort and still get there in the same 50 minutes?

I propose Hampton Zeppelin. This is not a joke.

Could’ve fooled me. And yes, even the rich have to cut down on their helicopter rides! How will they ever tough it out? Not mentioned is anything about how the FAA feels about zeppelins docking in the middle of Manhattan (we’re not talking the Gunga Diner thing from Watchmen here), but there is some mind paid to the potential downsides:

In Manhattan, choppers take off from the Wall Street helicopter pad and the 34th Street helicopter and seaplane pad on the East River. A zeppelin could be based at either of these, though I would agree that when searching for a Manhattan location there might be objections from neighbors who fear it might block their view. The zep is as large as a 25-story building on its side.

So you’re telling me people might have a problem with a massive fucking zeppelin flying by their windows? Crazy! Plebian concerns, I say. Also, note also the ZANY cartoon depicting a fictional zeppelin attendant who appears to be a World War I era German man. Take that, you krauts!

Another pressing issue to the life and well-being of Dan Rattiner? Space debris.

In all the years I have been writing this newspaper, I never have written about all the space junk thrown off by the various rockets and satellites. The first ones went up 40 years ago. That’s a long time. Since January, however, I have written about space junk twice, both times because of problems with it.

In all of the years writing this blog, I have never written about Dan’s Papers. It was written a long time ago. That’s a long time. Since last year, though, I have written about Dan’s Papers twice, both times because of problems with it.

From what I have been told, there are now millions and millions of pieces of junk circling the earth every day. It looks like a junkyard up there. And unless somebody goes up there leading a team of Cub Scouts armed with sharp sticks and plastic garbage bags, it’s only going to get worse.

Remember that this gets printed. And distributed. Widely.

Good news? Well, space aliens will be deterred. Who the hell wants to try to get through all that junk. What? To bang up this very expensive intergalactic flying saucer? And for what? To land down there and meet the idiots who did that?

Fire all thrusters. We’re doing a 180. And we’re heading home, Axoxxheh.

“Actually,” Axoxxheh noted in his journal, “the real reason we left was because we tapped into some kind of intellectual wasteland called ‘the internet’ and found some crazy man talking about me in his paper. We assumed the planet was populated by self-indulgent morons who wanted to fly zeppelins between these places called ‘Manhattan’ and ‘the Hamptons’, so we returned to our utopia on Tyxhamannoax. Also, there were bad jokes about us.”

You’re getting the jist of this by now. There’s one last article that caught my attention, and it proves that Dan’s Paper isn’t afraid to TAKE ON THE MAN YEAH:

Used to be you just went down to the ocean and went swimming, fishing or surfing without worrying about interference from bureaucrats. The air, water, sky and beach were free. You can still do those things for free if you want. But if you do, afterwards, you’ll go to jail.

Not to fear. I imagine a jailbreak would be easy, given some space debris to distract the guards and a zeppelin to make a steady, highly visible escape. I was down at the beach last month and, interestingly, was not arrested and thrown into the county jail. I even breathed air and made footprints in the sand! Surely I fought the law and won? Actually, no; the first paragraph just has nothing to do with what he’s actually talking about:

For example, the State of New York last week passed a law that will prohibit you going fishing for fluke aboard a boat from a harbor in this state from June 15 to July 3. That’s right. If a captain takes you out, you get the ticket if it’s you who caught the flounder and it’s he who gets the ticket for being an accessory to the crime of catching a flounder between June 15 and July 3.

First paragraph: you will go to jail for using the beach. Second paragraph: you actually only go to jail for fishing during a very particular time period. Also, replace “go to jail” with “get a ticket.” That’s close enough though, right? The rest of it is kind of a confusing commentary on a confusing law that doesn’t really make sense:

One expects that the beaches will be swarming with ticket issuing employees on the lookout for surfers surfing when they are not suppose to or for surfcasters surfcasting when they are not supposed to, or surfers surfcasting when they are allowed to, but without a license.

These lucky State employees, probably laid off from their paper pushing jobs in the downturn, are now back in business, and out on the beach getting some rays while doing it. How about that! We wish them the best. Thus does the State use its stimulus money for new shovel ready jobs.

Fuck me in the ear, does that last sentence even make sense? I guess they don’t do well enough to afford an editor. This one also ends on a hilarious and somewhat ironic note; after complaining about the threat of tickets the entire article, Dan offers this sage tongue-in-cheek advice: shoot people.

Anyway, the good news is that there are still a whole lot of things you can still do for free. You can breathe the air in and out. You can lie in the sun. You can go hang gliding at Napeague. You can go rowing in Lake Montauk and out in the Pecocnic Bay, you can … wait a minute. I forgot to say this. If you see anybody who works for the State of New York reading this last paragraph over your shoulder, shoot him.

Of course, you’ll need a license for that gun.

You’ll also need a defense attorney, because “murder” is, I believe, another one of those pesky laws New York State tends to frown upon. You could even plead insanity after reading Dan’s Papers! Zinger!

Speaking of insanity, I don’t think I want to do this ever again, so please don’t encourage me. Dan Rattiner: master of the helicopter-flying demographic, crack journalist, and apparently immune to the decline of print publications. If there isn’t a better example of the ridiculous fantasy world mystique surrounding the Hamptons than his publication, I don’t know what it is.

The Day I Became Popular On The Internet

The above is a line chart showing this blog’s daily hits for the past few weeks; it is not doctored in any way. As you may notice, it is almost completely pointless to look at, as most line charts are when one set of data points is in the 10’s and another set is in the 1,000’s. Also, as you may imagine, I became very confused when logging into my blog and seeing this. I was also briefly excited; had my audience of ten of so somewhat regular (meaning annual) readers blossomed overnight? Why the hell would my visitors jump overnight from a whopping 4 on April 5th to 3,904 the next day, and 7,805 the day after that? I hadn’t suddenly become more interesting, that much is for sure. Take another look:

Over half of the visitors to this blog, ever, have come here in the past three days. Depressing, yes, but also hilarious. What did I have to credit for this sudden success? The reason why became evident very quickly:

Lady Gaga.

Oh, the irony. My one paragraph blurb on Lady Gaga in my last article, along with the accompanying picture, apparently took hold in some search engines and became a top search result. In particular, the image of Lady Gaga I used has now become the 4th result on any Google Image Search of her. Google Image Search happens to be the same way I found the photo, in case you cared to know. I assure you it’s not a Tino Exclusive (TM).

You may also notice that while I now have in excess of 16,000 hits, I (hilariously) still have only 85 comments (and about 82 of those are from two different people). I’m thinking people are just searching for images of Lady Gaga in one of her trademark CRAZY outfits and don’t care much for the context it’s in, and certainly wouldn’t take the time to write a comment scolding me for what I wrote. In that case, whatever Lady Gaga is doing is working, because she’s clearly a big deal right now, and in some weird way I’m playing into it by making light of her CRAZY CRAZY act.

I’m actually somewhat relieved that my nightmare scenario of hundreds of angry Jason Mraz and Lady Gaga fans flooding my comments or e-mailing me or whatever to tell me what a horrible person I am for badmouthing their crappy musical heroes hasn’t come to pass. Should I be surprised Lady Gaga is blowing up? I guess not, certainly not at a time when Fast And Furious is the biggest movie in the country, but still, I feel this place is sort of tainted by all of these hits. The message was lost; an image of Lada Gaga in a blue one-piece, however, was not.

Oh well.

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #11

Hello reader(s)! This time I’m just going to do a point-by-point discussion of whatever comes to my mind. Think of it as the McLaughlan Group, except with fewer old white guys. Also, no Pat Buchanan. We can all agree that this is a good thing.

Let’s get right to it.

Jason Mraz

Yes, I know. The “Jason Mraz is a terrible musician” horse has been beaten to death, resurrected in a zombie apocalypse, and then shot in the head for good measure. However, this story bears sharing: I had a half-day substitute teaching assignment last week and walked into the school’s office to sign in. After much confusion, however, I found that out my assignment had been canceled that same morning and my services were no longer needed. I woke up after a terrible night’s sleep, dressed up, and rushed out the door to school, all for nothing. Guess what song was playing in the office when my error became apparent?

Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”, of course.

Beyond proving my long-held belief that any background music played in a room full of 50 year old secretaries has a 0% chance of being any good, it was completely and totally appropriate. I wasn’t done, though! On the way home, I stopped to pick up a couple of things at the supermarket, and I dropped a bottle of tomato juice in the one of the aisles. It exploded all over the place, making an ass of myself and continuing my shit morning, but at least Jason Mraz was still happy with his millions of dollars and LEGIONS OF FANS AND GOD DAMN IT ALL.

I believe there is only one rational and realistic explanation for my unfortunate Thursday morning: Jason Mraz and his satanic army of 15 year old girl fans (Oh snap!) have begun to put a hex on me. The song was an omen. This laptop may explode before I finish this posting. If it does, you know why.

Lady Gaga

I’m going to quickly break down every Lady Gaga video I’ve ever seen for you, all two of them. Ready? Go!

1) Introducing Lady Gaga, wearing some CRAZY outfit. What a CRAZY gal!
2) Here come Lady Gaga’s CRAZY friends. What a CRAZY group!
3) Lady Gaga and her CRAZY  friends are having a party. A CRAZY DANCE party.
4) DANCING DANCING DANCING DANCING CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY.

Directing her videos must be an astoundingly easy job. All you need is a couple of rooms, some Cristal, and a ridiculous outfit for Lady Gaga to wear. Also, throw Akon into your first single, because he’s already in every song on top 40 radio and he gives you instant cred, amirite?

Team USA Baseball

If there’s one thing that’s become obvious about American team sports, it’s that it takes repeated embarrassment and disappointment for us to start giving a shit about how our teams do in international competition (see: 2001-2007 men’s basketball). That means we’ll be ready to win the World Baseball Classic just in time for the 2017 tournament, assuming the incredible amount of indifference towards it in the United States hasn’t torpedoed the entire thing by then. Then what, Japan?!

And finally…

Facebook

The new look sucks, yes, I think we can all agree on that. However, I find it infinitely amusing that anytime there’s a change to Facebook there’s literally thousands of outraged status updates about it. I’m tempted to say there’d be less anger if Mark Zuckerberg went around the world and personally crotch-kicked everybody on Facebook. Every day there are literally a million fucked up outrage-worthy things that happen in the world that don’t get noticed*, but they decide to change the Facebook home page and suddenly THIS IS WAR MOTHERFUCKERS!

Here are all of the relevant facts on the matter:

1. Mark Zuckerberg does not care about what you or I think.

The truth is, I won’t stop using Facebook. You won’t stop using Facebook. It’ll slowly become more of a tool for commerce to the point where it will make Zuckerberg more money than even he could imagine. And no, he’s not going to sell it to people that will start charging for its use, stop inviting me to that stupid group. Paying billions of dollars to buy Facebook and then charging the millions of already existing users for its continued use would be proximate to lighting those same billions of dollars on fire for shits and giggles (insert topical and snarky economic commentary here).

The real downside of the faux-twitter interface is that you see literally everything your friends post. Every inane quiz or application, for example, spams your news feed which is very important because you’ll be the first to know which one of your friends is most comparable to President Martin Van Buren (hint: whichever one has mutton chops). It’s not like I want everything on my profile to get vomited out onto the news feed, either; I’m well aware most people will not be interested in what my favorite video games are.

On the bright side, the Facebook home page changed after this meme craze passed:

What the fuck? I didn’t get tagged in one of these, but that’s okay. I don’t know how I’d feel about getting compared to an apparently asexual two-dimensional creature only capable of one emotion (but if I did I’d totally be the grumpy one LOL). I got tired of looking at this stupid-ass thing in my newsfeed. It’s not funny and it’s not cute. Enough.

Unfortunately, there’s an entire blog dedicated to these stupid things, but luckily none of the others have caught on…yet. I would say that anyone who tags me in one of these risks getting de-friended (oooh snap!), but let’s face it, I’m too lazy to follow through with any kind of threat like that. Just don’t do it.

* I realize the irony of complaining about Facebook users complaining about a relatively insignificant event. Don’t bother pointing it out to me.

That’s more of less all I could think of for this edition. Baseball season starts next week, which for Mets fans means this is the part of the year where we talk ourselves into believing that we’re not embarking on a months-long trek to Disappointmentville. Sports Illustrated even decided to get in on the joke this year and picked the Mets to win the World Series, almost certainly ensuring that it won’t happen. But hey, baseball! Enjoy.