PEOPLE LIKE TO ASSUME THINGS ABOUT ME AT BREAK-FAST TIME

1) Awhile back, I took the bus to work and stopped in the Au Bon Pain between the stop and my office to pick up a coffee and bagel with swiss/tomato. It cost $3.50. This will be relevant soon.

Down the block, I stopped into a FedEx/Kinko's to pick up a couple of photo mailing envelopes. Found them, took them to the counter and this kind of middle-aged salesman guy was there, seemed disappointed that I wasn't also ordering a huge print run of something. He rang me up, then saw the cup of coffee and bag of bagel. He said, "Au Bon Pain? You must be pulling down a good salary to go there!"

I sort of mumbled something about the breakfast prices not being too bad, got my envelopes and left.

2) Yesterday, I had to go to a store to film something for work before going to the office. It was this place right off of Rittenhouse Square, I had time to stop into a cafe a couple of storefronts down. I went up to the counter, stood behind this guy who was standing at the register. Then, this woman, who I can only describe as "Ann Arbor-esque" comes up to the counter and leans against it the other way. Just as I'm wondering whether or not that's where the line goes and she looks at me awkwardly, the coffee-making dude smiles and greets her, and I realize she's probably a regular. Of course, he takes her order first, so I go over behind her instead.

Lady: Oh- sorry, I didn't know-
Me: Well, I didn't know there was a different way to line up. (knowing that she totally used her regular-ness for cuts)
Lady: Well, I didn't know what you were doing, you were just standing there-
Me: I thought I was in line, but oh well. Of course- he decided to go with you first, anyway.
Lady: (smirks, and in this really shitty way, looks me up and down) What are you, an attorney?
Me: (a little thrown) What... uh... no?

I was wearing khakis, a blue and white striped shirt and carrying a video-camera bag, with my usual messenger deal. I wasn't carrying any law books or set of scales.

I thought for a split second of answering her that, no, I'm actually in public relations, kind of, but realized that would probably have been worse.

Mark Sandman, 1952-1999

I had meant to make note of it when it came around, but completely missed it. One week ago today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Mark Sandman, frontman for Morphine. I remember exactly where I was when I heard, in my bedroom in an odd apartment in Ann Arbor, listening to WCBN. I cried a bit when I heard the news and of course, spent the evening listening to Morphine albums over and over.

It wasn't just the music- the music was amazing, that whole mixture of drums, sax (2 at once?!?) and that weird bass, with those lyrics- the beat poerty-esque riffs thrown in, amongst words that just put you in some dark bar at 3am or someone's apartment hanging out after that same bar had closed, with that weird light on the pavement outside after it's been raining since eight- that kind of thing. It was also that the band had sort of been the anchor of one of the best weekends of my life.

I wasn't- and still am not, to a certain extent- what you'd call a well-traveled person by the time I got to college. In 1996, I was working on a sitcom for a student tele-vision group at Michigan State. The group had a couple of shows nominated for awards at this national conference, in Providence, RI, so a bunch of us loaded up a couple of rented vans and headed out there. It was the first time I'd even been out of the tri-state area around Michigan, so definitely my first visit to the east coast. We hit Boston first and I loved it- actual urban denisty, buildings and parks that had been around for ages- an actual, honest-to-god city. My having to drive a van out of the city at rush hour didn't even dim my enthusiasm about it. We got to Providence late-ish and most of us were just going to just hang out in our rooms, watching tv or whatever, but Shaun McNally asked the front desk folks who was playing nearby. Turns out, there was this band called Morphine, playing at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (in a different location now), a club downtown. I was kind of not feeling like it, he insisted we all go and so we did.

We were a few blocks away- walking at night through Providence's downtown, I loved it- walking the streets of an old, dark city, going to some club- very hayseed-in-the-big (Providence?)-city, but hey, it was my first time. It's always exciting your first time. Then, once we got there, I one of the best live shows I've ever seen, largely because I'd never heard of these guys before and was completely blown away by them. Every song, every note, just amazing. We walked around some more afterward, hit a bar, then back to the hotel. The following night, after the banquet and award show (hosted by Jeffrey Ross, oddly enough), everyone was hanging out in one of our hotel rooms and I just decided to head out for a walk on my own. It was about ten or eleven and I kind of had no idea where I was going, exactly, just wandering over near where we'd been the night before, a few areas I'd seen during the day with bars and junk, just loving it- loving walking around this old city. There was a line at this pizza place, I grabbed a slice and that's kind of when I decided that I really, really loved this- a city. An old, east coast, dense city, with the buildings and alleys and litter and the river and the crime and the mob and everything else.

That's what kind of led to today, to a certain extent- to starting The City Desk, to falling in love with someone who wanted to live in the same type of place, to living in Philadelphia... it was a pretty damn important weekend (ended by cutting my wrist badly on a big rock overlooking the Atlantic Ocean near Newport), thirteen years ago and Morphine looms large in the middle of it all. Oddly enough, though, I haven't been back up to Providence since going there again in 1997.

Back in 2000, they released Bootleg Detroit, from a stop on the tour for the same album. I should check to see if the exact November 8, 1996 show is on any of the torrent sites.

I saw them one more time- 1998, at a Horde Festival stop in some Pine-Knob-type place in Northern Indiana.

On July 3, 1999, he died onstage while playing- a heart attack at age 46. It's a horrible, horrible shame that we'll never get to hear more of his amazing music, but he leaves a nice legacy- a music education fund continues in honor of him and an intersection in Cambridge, MA was named after him. If you have some of their stuff- give a listen today. If not, here's a video of a great live version of "Cure for Pain."

So, thank you, Mark Sandman, for having existed.

Today is Canada Day.

In celebration, over on the Twitter (rj_white, if you are inclined to add), I have been posting True Canada Facts.

A sampling:
:: Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is the estranged father of popular American actors Dermot Mulroney and Jenna Maroney.

:: There is a lounge in the CN Tower in which the speaking of English is prohibited, the Les Français Lèvent le Haut Salon

:: In addition to founding Manitoba, Louis Riel also invented the modern claw hammer.

:: The early CBC broadcast network originally included stations in MI and WIS until a series of bloody skirmishes in 1952.

:: Canadian TV comedy team Wayne & Shuster were the originators of the old "give 'em 20" school of comedy.

:: Admission to the Lesser Houses of Parliament is half-price on Thursdays. The regular Houses of Parliament are full-price.

:: National Post cartoonist chipzdarsky is actually an alias for American humor artist Jim Davis.

:: Hockey legend Don Cherry's collars are constructed in a facility in an industrial park outside of Winnipeg.

:: All Tim Hortons are connected by a network of pneumatic tubes. Through these, coffee flows from a massive central silo.

:: All Canadian schoolchildren can recite the capitals of all 50 US states, plus their Governors and Lt. Governors.

Happy Canada.

calamityjon has most of the items in this-

Friday Facts: Charlie’s Angels Lunchboxes, Roadside Cabbage, Fake Squid

So- at what other 70s licensed properties could that ordinance have been aimed?

Forty of these? Really? Man. Guess we need to start planning for number 50.

Guest panelist Aaron Bleyart joins us to discuss our President-in-Chief appearing all over late night comedy programs of late. THERE ARE EVEN EMBEDDED VIDEOCLIPS, for your home-judging.

Wasted Words Show 40 - All Wheat, No Chaff

So, there it is. Listen away, chumps.

That's right, after a hiatus, The City Desk is sort of grinding back to life.

The Brothel Five Levels Below the Street

It's back because of a couple of conversations over the last month or so- one over email, one in person and this article from yesterday's Times that kind of made me feel a bit ashamed at dropping the thing.

So, we'll see how this goes.

Interesting article in today's Philadelphia Weekly about urban survivalist types here in our fair city.

These folks alternately fascinate me and creep me out a bit. On the first page, the main subject of the story is casually mentioned as a 911 Truther and various conspiracies (and zombies) are presented in a po-faced (to borrow a favorite term of calamityjon's) manner as perfectly reasonable reasons to start stockin' up them guns and MREs.

All very peculiar. Are these people reasonable and others are naive? Or, are they nuts and on the fringe, except for those who are clearly profiting from the unease of these times in which we live?

At any rate, it helpfully informs us about a local firm offering a course for $550. They will kidnap you in Phila.'s Chinatown as part of a class that "provides leading-edge skills to civilians who live and work in challenging urban environments or in urban centers that may destabilize during a crisis." 

There is a new Wasted Words podcast: Show 37 - Party Man Bach and Jameel Bach.

In it, Tony "mrkevincostner" Zaret is very, very drunk; shekb, stephenl and I discuss things; and our "Ask the Bartender" bartender somehow steals a joke from manningkrull.

Truly, a whirlwind affair.

Hey! That new "Space Trek" movie is coming out this week, so the latest Wasted Words has a chance for you to win a very, very special prize!

Listen: Show 36 - Beam Me Up

Also, Olivia ditches us for a bit to watch tele-vision and we discuss the best indicator that a haircut is needed, why we drink on some holidays and not others, your favorite words and those times in life where the rules just do not work. Plus, a very special Word of the Week.

Wasted Words, won't you?

Two things I have on the internet today-

1) The "Hipster Grifter" was arrested in Philadelphia. A guy in a band takes credit on the City Paper Web log and people get angry. I wade through the comments for your sins, over at Get Off The Internet.

2) Dateline: Silver Age is a very fun weblog that posts scans of insane newspaper headlines from insane old comics. Today's is one I sent in, with a joke in the alt-text. Go and look and then keep going and looking at the whole site.

Also, my right shoe is way squeaky today because there's the beginning of a hole in the heel and I feel kind of shabby, so I should maybe go and look for a new shoe or two, huh?

:: So, hey- the Holy Trinity of DISASTERS WHICH FREAK RJ THE HECK OUT consists of 1) Tornadoes, 2) Nuclear War and 3) Global flu pandemic. DING!

:: Sometimes, while walking to work, I get bored and start trying to remember what I was doing five or ten years ago. This morning, I remembered, for the first time in awhile, one of the most ill-conceived media ventures in which I was a party.

There used to be (maybe still is, I have no idea) this annual event at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, called the Naked Mile. Basically, there'd be this night in late April, close to the end of the semester when large groups of students would run from one end of campus to the other while naked. The name of the event sums it up pretty well. In the spring of 1999, I was working for mlive.com, which was the online component of eight daily Michigan newspapers, including the Ann Arbor News. We were based in downtown Ann Arbor, mere blocks away from campus. Our editor-in-chief at the time convinced the folks who owned the site and the papers to purchase a special url ,for which we would produce an entirely separate Web site highlighting the event.

Highlighting meant going out and taking photos of these naked college students, then posting them on the Web.

I had to research and write a history of the event, so there'd be some sort informational component, but the rest of it was pretty much just photos of naked people. The night of, the entire production staff- graphics, producers, editors- were pressed into service, stationed at spots along the route, standing with spectators, snapping away. I have not, and in all likelihood never will, see that many naked people in one place in my life ever again. It was crazy and the whole thing felt a little odd. Once it was all over, it was back to the office to get the site up- downloading the photos from the cameras, adding wacky little cartoon things to cover up people's special areas (as small as we could get away with) and constructing the photo galleries.

The person I was dating at the time was one of the photographers and I had her take one pic of me near the Michigan Union behind some guy, making a wacky face and pointing to someone's butt. The photo was actually on the homepage of the site for a few hours, until the Conde' Nast/Advance Internet folks felt it was too silly. On a site that was basically just there for people to look at naked college students. Right.

Of course, it got spectacular traffic. It also earned reproach for the Ann Arbor News from Editor and Publisher magazine and other industry sources, though they didn't have a hand in it, due to the way the whole paper/Web site relationship was set up. They weren't happy with what had happened and it kind of damaged their reputation a bit, as it did ours with them. People automatically blamed them, too and I distinctly remember one commenter on the forum for the special site (a forum? really? man, that was asking for trouble) calling us a bunch of "Conde' Nasties."

The site is long gone, the photos- who knows? I'm sure someone, somewhere has the originals- I have a couple of guesses. The parent company, though they distanced themselves from the whole affair, definitely learned quite a bit from it, as their site for the Times-Picayune had several "Mardi Gras cams," which were consistently popular for many years, until Katrina seemed to make actual news and information more of a popular selling tool for their online properties. Of course, mlive.com also had the popular "Beach Cam" a couple of years after the Naked Mile site, which featured a user-controllable and zoomable camera mounted at a beach on the west coast of Michigan. Ostensibly, it was to allow people to enjoy Lake Michigan from the comfort of their offices. That one also did really well. I had to go through the user galleries and edit out the most offensive entries. Had to do a lot of editing, there.

Failing newspapers should take advantage of this awful Craigslist killer story while they can. For instance-

"The Daily Chronicle Classifieds - No one's been killed because of them since 1976."

"We'll sell your boat and no one will stab you- GUARANTEED. Craig's-List can't make that same promise."

"Alternative Weekly adult personals - Erotic loners, no psychos."

"The Smyrna Times classifieds - Because the internet is full of murder."

:: I am not watching a lot of regular series tele-vision these days. But, of the things I am watching, 30 Rock is the only one where I just sit there, genuinely impressed week-in, week-out at the construction of the thing. Jumping between the A and B (and sometimes C) plots with ease, having them overlap where appropriate; the setups and payoffs; performances- everything just runs so smoothly on that thing. I think it's easily one of my favorite tele-vision programs of all time, no foolin'.

Seriously- it's a very traditional workplace sitcom, but they bend things into being cartoonish and goofy just enough that it works as a goof on the format. Plus, the whole little mythology they've built up with Sheinhardt Wig Co. and 30 Rockefeller Center, the showbizzy stuff in the background of scenes (a nice pickup from 'behind the scenes sketches at SNL- always a showgirl and someone in an animal costume), recurring gags- it all just works and works well. There was this scene last week- just a brilliant little way of presenting the passage of an entire day- just with a closeup on Tina Fey, as the lighting changes behind her and she's handed various props and all of a sudden- 12 hours gone- just really creative and well done.

It's a shame it's got bad ratings on a 10th place network, so it's likely not going to be around a heck of a lot longer. I hope I'm wrong, but who knows?

Though, the Phil Spector joke last night- that was a little rough.

:: Picked up Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman this weekend. He is 92, it is his first novel (published last year), he wrote the classic screenplay Bad Day at Black Rock and the thing is a delight. It is strange and fun and well, here is the brief description-

Kicked out of Yale at age 14, Judd Breslau falls in with Phillips Chatterton, a bathrobe-wearing Egyptologist working out of a dilapidated home laboratory. There, young Valerie Chatterton quickly leads Breslau away from his research and into, in order: the attic, a Colorado equestrian ranch, a porn studio beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and a jail cell in southern Iraq, where we find him awaiting his own execution while the war rages on in the north. Written by a 90-year-old debut novelist who's also an ex-Marine, a two-time Oscar nominee, and one of the co-creators of Mr. Magoo, Bowl of Cherries rivals the liveliest comic novels for sheer gleeful inventiveness. This is a book of astounding breadth and sharp consequence, containing all the joy, derangement, terror, and doubt of adolescence and everything after.

Yes, it is as awesome as that all sounds. Get it if you can.

Over on the Twitter, I have been posting facts.

Because most of you are not on the Twitter (and god bless you for that), here are the facts:

DID YOU KNOW: There was once a musical version of the 1957 Burt Lancaster film Sweet Smell of Success?

DID YOU KNOW: The Della Reese Death Curse also extended to pets of co-stars?

DID YOU KNOW: Fred MacMurray would shoot his entire season of My Three Sons scenes in a week?

DID YOU KNOW: The sun is hiding something from you?

DID YOU KNOW: James Brolin was originally cast as the voice of KITT (the talking car) in the 1980s tv series Knight Rider?

DID YOU KNOW: French roast coffee takes one minute longer than Colombian to eat through the rust on a screw?

DID YOU KNOW: The term 'spoonersim' is comes from a failed Confederate colonel in the US Civil War?

DID YOU KNOW: I was only joking when I said, by rights, you should be bludgeoned in your bed?

DID YOU KNOW: Maple syrup, mixed with water, can clean up syrup spills. Due to this ability to clean itself, it's known as nature's "cat."

DID YOU KNOW: Early baseball caps were made from pulped newspapers? The tradition of calling games for rain is due largely to this.

It's been something like a month since the last one, but there's a new Wasted Words podcast:

Show 33 - The Thriving Performing Arts Scene Of Downtown Tuscaloosa

Join me and panelists Leonard Pierce ([Bad username: ludickid>), Aaron Bleyaert (<lj user=]), Tony Zaret (mrkevincostner) and Olivia Todd (007donuts) as awful family memories are dredged up, musicals are discussed and Alabama is well-represented well. Fun for all.

Also, you know, there are many, many ways to follow the program:

- There's a Wasted Words facebook page
- There's a Tumblr feed, if that's easier for you
- On the main site, there's also the iTunes link and good ol' RSS.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE, REALLY. Unless, you just don't like the program, which is perfectly understandable. So very sad for you, but understandable.

From a couple of years ago, over at Supermasterpiece- "A Catholic's Guide to Passover," by me (RJ White).

Two new pieces up at Get Off The Internet-

The Gone with the Wind producers pulled almost the same trick with an audience in 1939.
- There was a special surprise screening last evening of the new Star Trek film and nerds are weird and awful people.

“Huh. This turned ugly quick.”
- A guy killed himself at a screening of Watchmen Sunday night and people on the internet are awful and awful people.

New piece of mine @ Get Off the Internet: “i’m sure there’s a star trek re-run on for you to watch”

FRIDAY INTERNET CHALLENEGE: What's the saddest thing you've seen today?

ME FIRST: A couple of blocks from the subway this morning, a very tired-seeming middle-aged woman wearing a Burger King uniform, looking dissapointed and worried at her (presumably losing) scratch-off ticket, not two steps from the cigarette/lottery stand where she'd just bought it. In the rain.

NOW YOU.

Currently, I'm reading Hard Times, Studs Terkel's oral history of the Great Depression.

It's a 1986 edition (with a foreward written then) of a book with late 60s interviews of people about their experiences during the late 20s-mid 30s.

And you know what? There have been an astounding number of times where I just sort of stop and think, "Gee, that sounds rather familiar right now." Every part, no matter when it was written or when it took place.

Because WE NEVER SEEM TO LEARN THINGS.

Seriously, the talk of Ponzi's scheme, people buying up things in the market with money that didn't exist (and they didn't even really have on paper), titans of finance saying they never saw it coming, people being amazed that there wasn't any sort of organized outrage in the streets, the 1986 portion speculating that increased deregulation could possibly roll it all back and let it happen once again- well, it's just an interesting read for these times, if you have either the time or the inclination.

Okay, in the Detroit News article about this morning's announcement by the president of strict new policies for GM and Chrysler, was this [emphasis mine]-

"What we are asking is difficult. It will require hard choices by companies," Obama said in the Grand Foyer reading from a television monitor as dozens of photographers snapped.

Now, am I reading too much into the casual mention, there? But was it really necessary? Or, is the whole teleprompter storyline now finally breaking out of its shell, able to mature and survive on its own in the wild, showing up in the darnedest places?

Via brandawg, INSANITY-

MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for "The Three Stooges."

Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans to gain 40 pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Jerome "Curly" Howard.

The studio is zeroing in on Benicio Del Toro to play Moe.

The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts.

Is this real? It can't be.

How do you while away those last couple of Friday hours? Why, by reading a new item over at Get Off the Internet, that's how!

Philly.com commenters react to the tale of a couple of salesmen who chased down a purse snatcher.

Oh, and I forgot- Gene Keady's Hair is back at the ESPN Tournament page, for your joining.

The other week, I heard a new song, "Furr," by some neo-folk outfit called Blitzen Trapper.

Here is a video.

Listening to the lyrics, I thought- "Oh man, there are going to be some of those fursuit freaks who will LOVE this, like some kinda anthem."

You know- those livejournal people who have userpics of cartoon wolves wearing t-shirts.

I kind of want to write it up for Get off the Internet, but I am afraid to do the research and find that I am horiffically right.

Ohmaoman.

The latest episode of Wasted Words fetaures-

- A recording of a Song of Toil on a wax cylinder
- A new guest panelist, Jess Lane
- A horribly copyright-unfriendly film-sharing Web site
- Watches
- Bad job interviews
- Idea for Andrew's soon-to-come foyer
- Fradulent cold rememdies

Also, we really want our bartender, Deke Zibinski, to be able to come back and answer questions from listeners, so please send them in, either at our Facebook group or through our email, both of wich are at the link. GO. LISTEN. NOW. AWESOME.

Wasted Words No. 31 - "Okay, Ann, I'm Awake"

The last entry for The City Desk for awhile comes from Jon "calamityjon" Morris-

Nice Work If You Can Get It: Fighting Faux Mormon Corn

Very funny, bringing back a nice previous bit and expanding upon it.

So- in a couple of reviews of Watchmen I've read, they use the point that - Yeah, but isn't it great to finally have an adaptation? Isn't it neat to see the characters moving around on a movie screen?

And that just kind of seems like Woody Allen's friend in Annie Hall saying "And the women, Max, they're like the women in Playboy magazine, only they can move their arms and legs."

Still not 100% sure about seeing it. I'm curious, but yeah.

Also, there's a new Wasted Words- No. 30 - “50 cents a ho ho?”

It is snowing. Here are two things to keep you warm.

The City Desk: Mysterious Giant-Food Thefts Continue. By Sean Fraga. I added a nerd reference in there. If you can find it, you are as sad as I am.

Classics Alive!: The Caine Mutiny, crushingly depressing like we all enjoy.

Shovel that, shovelhoffer.