I am jealous, because the guy was able to fulfill a fantasy that I have never quite had the balls to attempt. Not crushing cop skulls with a bowling ball, but simply dropping really heavy things from a really tall building, just to watch them crunch things, or ess-plode. Long, long ago, when Dave Letterman was still on NBC (and funny), he had a recurring segment wherein he simply dropped TVs off the side of a five-story building, into a vacant lot. That's it, no joke, no punchline, nothing. And its was high-larious. Tell me that you, given the opportunity (and plied with as much alcohol as the Brooklyn man seems to have consumed), would not do the same thing, and I shall brand you a liar.

Elsewhere in Dork News, I was watching CSPAN earlier this week, and caught some archival footage of John Kerry testifying before Congress when he was spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I was extremely impressed by the future Senator's eloquence and subdued but palpable rage at the government that sent him off to kill Charlies. It made me kinda sad that present-day Kerry has little of what 1971 Kerry possessed--conviction, vision, and an anger that informed his words. Compare that to his demeanor in the current campaign, in which he just kinda glares like Lurch and keeps reminding us about how his name is not George Bush.

And if you think the Bush Administration has a "with us or against us" mentality, check out the Prez who invented the pose: Richard Nixon, and his insane vendetta against Kerry and the organization to which he once belonged. Nixon was, apparently, so paranoid that he actually feared a Bonus Army-type rebellion to descend on Washington. No reports whether he wore tissue boxes on his feet and collected his urine in jars.

This got me to thinking about love songs in general, most of which are not really love songs, as in "oh, we love each other so much." No, most of the songs that people think of as love songs are "baby, I'm sorry, whatever it is I did, please take me back, oh god, I fell so alone in the cold, black, impenetrable void of existence." And I'm not talking about songs with obscurant poetry for lyrics. It's pretty much right there, plain as day. Take Motown, for example; almost every single one of those songs that people think of as heart rending love songs are actually "take me back" songs. In fact, you gotta look long and hard to find ones that aren't. Some prime examples of love songs that sound happy but whose lyrics indicate otherwise: "Baby Love", "Can't Help Myself", "Be My Baby." Most of these are actually depressing because either (A) the love in question is gone, or (B) the desperation and neediness expressed within them is almost psychotic. They resonate because of the sad human truth that happiness is not universal, but pain and suffering is.

In writing about how depressing some 'love songs' are, I have succeeded in making myself horribly depressed. I'm awesome.

Last fall I forked over five bucks a week to be in the office NFL pool. There were no spreads (thank god, cuz I don't understand that shit at all), just straight up wins. I won only once, and then by proxy--my girlfriend won with picks she faxed to me. So all week, when the sales guys said, "Hey, man, saw you won the pool. Way to go!" I had to hang my head and admit my girlfriend actually won. My chances for ever being cool in their eyes were sunk forever.

A: The Bush administration creating fake "news reports" to promote the "benefits" of its Medicare bill, inserted into local news coverage with no advance warning of its government-preparedness, coming at exactly the same time that it has been revealed that the administration pretty much lied about how much the bill would cost (a $150 billion lie, no less); or

B: The fact that I never even would have heard about this if I hadn't watched The Daily Show last night.

Wow. Just when you think Bush can't out-1984 himself, BAM! He goes ahead and finds away. Gotta hand it to Big Brother.

And speaking of scary, I actually went out on St. Patty's Day and had a black-and-tan or two, something I have never done, since I find NY to be a scary, suburbanized place on days like St. Patrick's. I made it home unscathed. A tip for you drinkers: try a black-and-tan with Newcastle instead of Bass. This may seem like heresy, but it actually gives it an interesting malty flavor. (My girlfriend compared it to Malta, the Goya malt drink beloved in many Puerto Rican households. I disagree, because I find drinking Malta like trying to down a warm glass of Vietnamese fish sauce.)

I can not think of Avril Lavigne without recalling last year's MTV tribute to Metallica, which, overall, was about one of the most depressing things ever foisted upon the American public. I was never a fan of Metallica--most of the kids at my school with KILL 'EM ALL patches on their denim jackets were either burnouts or psychos, not my biggest fans. (A lot of these kids also wore Misfits t-shirts, and as a result it took me years to listen to a really awesome band. Thanks, assholes.). However, I would not wish on my worst enemy what MTV did to Metallica. They dressed them up in suits, but, like, COOL suits, like, kinda ripped and stuff. And then, they had one lame band after another play their songs for them. They might as well have just gone to Long Island or Bleecker Street, and gotten a Metallica cover band to play; it would have been a lot cheaper, and it couldn't have been any worse. But the worst, the absolute cesspool of the evening, was when Avril Lavigne came on stage. Her pseudo growly, 16-year-old James Hetfield imitation was so bad it made me wish there was no such thing as music. She just stood at the mic and did not move, which I guess was supposed to be intense, but was really just boring. Her only saving grace was that she did a song from one the later Metallica albums whose name I can't even remember, not like it matters. If she had ruined something "Master of Puppets," I think I would have immediately gone out and learned how to scan, so that I could make her head burst into flames.

Even more ridiculous than this non-news is the fact that the Daily News refers to Avril Lavigne as a "skate punk." No one named Avril may be a skate punk--that is the law. I've known many a skate punk chick in my day, and all of them would be more than happy to beat Ms. Lavigne in the face with their boards--wheels first. She's just one in a long series of poseurs who have swiped punk rock fashion and a tiny bit of "attitude" and channeled into easily digestible pop (see: just about any early 80s girl group, and a good chunk of the guys, too). She's about as a punk rock as a propeller beanie, and half as talented. Couldn't she have picked a tougher fight than Lizzie Maguire? Like the Olsen Twins? Or someone dead?

Thanks to LJR3 from Shaolin for pointing me in this direction.

Even more amazing than the designers' seeming belief that the East River is safe to swim in--almost all of their models incorporate beaches, for chrissakes--is the fact that these people believe Long Island City is a blighted community. They even refer to the neighborhood as "Queens West" and say that it "was formerly known as Hunters Point." No, actually, it still is known as Hunters Point, and shocking as this may sound, lots of people live there. I walk through Long Island City every morning on my way to work, and it's a nice, small town-y kind of neighborhood, with some old industry, newish caf?s, and lots of blue bars for the local precinct. It's a great place to run in or take a walk around sunset, to see the sun go down between ancient smokestacks. These designers say they want to revitalize the waterfront, but what they really mean is take a chunk of valuable real estate, dump a bunch of ugly silver-and-glass turds on it that they can convert into condos and charge yuppies a couple mil for when the Olympics are over. Personally, I would be amazed if these things had 40% capacity a year after the athletes are gone--the world is full of cities that polished themselves up for the Olympics, built a bunch of brand new stadiums for it, and found themselves with enormous, useless facilities within a year.

And dig this, hipsters--you'll have your own archery range! The city is planning a stadium on the Williamsburg waterfront for archery and beach volleyball. Says NYC2012, " The Olympic warm-up field will be able to house archery events long after the Games conclude." Just what we need--a bunch of coked out trustafarians wielding bows and arrows.

I'm very old school on this point: Saying you're sorry is not enough. Anyone can roll their eyes and say they're sorry. You have to mean it, and you have to make amends for what you have done, and you have to do it without mumbling about how bad you've had it since committing this horrible act. If you've done something wrong, feeling bad about it is the absolute least you can do, and complaining about how bad everyone makes you feel is straight up bullshit. Period.

On a similar note, 2004 may be remembered as the year of the non-apology. First we had Pete Rose, and his unbelievably disingenuous mea culpa. Now Jayson Blair is busting out the hankies for his self-serving tome, Burning Down My Master's House, which is, by all reports, not even close to being a confession of his fabulist misdeeds at the Times. He apparently blames absolutely everything--racism, cocaine, depression, the Times' management--but the guy who wrote the fake stories (ie, himself). Check out this interview at Mediabistro for a prime example--and this one actually pales in comparison to some of the shit he's said since crawling out of whatever hole he's been in.

1012am: They found Spalding Gray about ten blocks from my house. I went running down Kent Avenue on Sunday, and stopped a bit short of how far I usually go (North 7th). Down a bit further, I could see a few squad cars parked at the rickety chain link fence that ineffectually attempts to ward the public away from the waterfront. Not until yesterday, when the newsreports started coming in, did I make the connection.

03.04

0945am: According to this article in today's Times, the city wants to shut down the Iron Triangle in Flushing. Anyone who's ever been to a Mets game will recognize the Iron Triangle as the snarl of auto salvage shops in the back of the Shea Stadium parking lot. Supposedly, it was built on the site of the "field of ashes" described in The Great Gatsby.

03.03

0759pm:Had a great day. Early this morning,I slipped into a lovely baby blue dress shirt when I was still groggy from sleep. Later in the day, during a bathroom trip, while washing my hands, I discovered that this shirt had beautiful coffee stains just below the collar. Awesome. They were faint, but visible at a range of about no less than five yards. This was also the point at which I discovered that I had performed a comically bad shaving job as well, with ugly black hairs protruding through my throat skin in no discernible pattern.

Then I went to lunch with my friend Dave, during the course of which I managed to slop ketchup on the front pocket of my already-stained shirt. This is why I believe that entropy is the fundamental state of the universe--nothing wants to stay neat and tidy. Given its druthers, existence wants to fuck itself up.

Embarrassed beyond all human comprehension, I decided to go to the nearest Gap and buy a new shirt. One blue polo and $40 bucks later, I step back out onto 42nd Street, feeling a tad better. It is at this point that I am accosted by an earnest reporter from WB11 (whose studios are just up the block) and asked about my experiences with bullying. Um, what? I never asked what this was for, what story it would accompany. I was also never asked for any of my information, leading me to believe that I will not be appearing on the evening news tonight. I can't remember much of what I said, except that, when asked about if I ever fought back against a bully, I said, "Nah, I just rolled with the punches. Living well is the best revenge, isn't that what they say?" The reporter nodded and smiled politely, but I could tell he thouught I was insane.

Dave rushed me away from the scene, saying, "I'm his lawyer, no more questions, please." It was not until much later that it dawned on me that I was picked by this reporter because I must have looked like someone with an intimate knowledge of bullies.

Truth be told, I was never bullied, per se. When I was a kid, there was just sort of a general feeling in the air that I was weird, and the less I said, the better. I obliged, for the most part, and if I could get through a day without being noticed, it was a small victory. In retrospect, much of this was pure paranoia--it surely wasn't as bad as all that. But when you're 14, 15 years old, the idea that you might actually grow up one day and things will not be too terrible then is inconceivable, and not much of a balm in any case.

Well, Merry Christmas everyone...

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1215am:We're turning again. As you can see, the site has been slightly redesigned. I won't get too technical--suffice it to say that this new look makes it much easier for mo to update the site during downtime at work, which is, of course, when everything's a happening.

Regarding St. Mel the Violent, and his opus The Passion of the Christ (the extra 'the' is for the hell?): What good does it do, exactly, to show Jesus being beaten to bloody pulp and crucified in excruciating detail? If you are a Christian, the gory particulars of Jesus' death are not important. What is important is that his death ended the Mosaic Covenant, and opened the pathway whereby all mankind could be saved. Why did God have to kill his son to enable this? Apparently there are rules so complicated that not even God can change them.

Assuming that Mel is not anti-Semitic--which he really thinks he isn't, and bless his little ignorant heart--there is no point in depicting Christ's last moments in such a way, other than sensationalism. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? Wish revenge on his tormentors? No; according to Christian theology, this was just what Jesus was supposed to do--blab about love for a few years, and then, in a piece of violent irony, get killed in the most unlovely way possible. It was the fulfillment of ancient Jewish Messiah prophecy. Everything about his life (if you buy into the whole thing) was the fulfillment of a prophecy, even his betrayal by Judas, and the amount of money he would be given up for. Kanzatkis played this up well in The Last Temptation of Christ, depicting a Judas who knew he had done something horrible, but did it because it meant the prophecy would be fulfilled (so much for free will).

Mel belongs to a rabid branch of the Catholic Church that doesn't believe in the Vatican II--the reform council that attempted to modernize the Church. (He woulda gotten along swell with my grandmother--she hated Mass after they got rid of the Latin; "Takes away all the mystery," she said.) Since he thinks everything went in the shitter since then, I can only assume that he also rejects John Paull II's apology for Galileo's persecution. His next film will be a stunning depiction of the bravery of the medieval inquisitors who put the screws to the astronomer.

Another curious question: If Mel was so up on period authenticity--using Aramaic and such--why did he film a movie at all? Not too many movie cameras in Biblical Palestine, after all.

Just more proof that, no matter what faith you believe in, it will probably make you do stupid things. And no one can argue about it. People who disagree politically can debate, at least, no matter how much they butt heads. But I can't argue with someone who thinks that the earth was created in seven days, or that Israel is the Holy Land, or that women need to wear burkas. I'm sorry, but it should no longer be offensive to go up to religious nut jobs, slap them in the face, and say YOU'RE FUCKING INSANE! AND YOU'RE RUINING THE WORLD! CUT IT OUT!