misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

I'm heading down to the suburbs in New Jersey for the 4th. After many years of living in cities, the suburbs have become a welcome refuge from the diversity, energy and ambition of city living. Upon reaching the suburbs, I shall partake in some of my favorite activities: Going to Chili's for the cheesy dip with little bits of meat in it, get a peppercorn burger, order 23-ounce glasses of Bud Light, while I hang out with people that look like all the other people that hang out at Chilis around the US. After that delight, I shall attend a multi-plex theater for a movie viewing that exists on the first floor of a building, as opposed to the 20-story theaters one finds here. Perhaps the drive home will find me at a Taco Bell drive-thru. After a good night's sleep involving the sounds of crickets, instead of transvestite puerto-rican clubgoers, I shall wake up and place a chair in the middle of the grassy, suburban backyard, from whence I will not move for over eight hours. This shall give me my fill of suburban life for the year, at which point I will return to the city to once again enjoy concrete-filled streets and people who don't like Chilis.

Last night's viewing of Transformers reminded me of the glory days of summer films--early 90s-- when "summer blockbusters" didn't involve surfing penguins, domestic tales of unplanned pregnancies, and frustrated rat-chefs. In high school, the best summer films always involved the next-evolution of special effects, an epic storyline (usually involving the imminent destruction of earth via aliens, robots, or disease), and a ripped action hero you could get behind (before assholes started trying to convince me that Ben Affleck could pull off the role of a superhero). The importance of these factors didn't mean the movies without them were bad, it simply offered a justifiable reason to go to a movie theater. Movie theaters are, technologically, the best place you can possibly watch a film. Thus, the film you should see there is film that uses this technology to its full potential. Surround sound, digital film, graphics I want to see on a fifty-foot screen (i.e., the first time you see a transformation from car to robot, you truly believe you just saw it. It doesn't even seem digital. For all i know, there might really be transformers somewhere that they hired for this film). Knocked Up which i saw last week as well, had absolutely no qualities that justified the payment of 11 dollars to view it in a movie theater. I would have been perfectly fine viewing it on my own TV, either via Netflix or HBO (actually, I didn't like the movie, so I wouldn't advise that either). The theater experience adds nothing to 80% of today's summer films. Ocean's 13? License to Wed? Transformer's is the first summer movie since maybe The Matrix that merited an actual trip to the movie theater. Game-changing special effects. Epic (and totally ridiculous) plot. Cheesy one-liners. Totally implausible romance. Bad-ass good guy vs. Bad-ass bad guy, reminiscent of that scene in Terminator 2 when Schwarzenegger finally faced off against the T-1000 in the arcade. The kind of scene where the whole theater is yelling out loud at the excitement and anticipation of it all. The action scenes, which were most of the movie, were so brilliant nobody cared that the movie itself didn't really make sense. Being in the theater enhanced the entire experience. You cannot watch this movie at home, no matter what your set-up, so don't try. Stick with Music and Lyrics if you want to see something at home. If you want to watch the next evolution of action films, go see Transformers. And no, I don't have stock in the movie, so, unlike Taj, you can trust my recommendation is not seated in any selfish financial interests, a la eToys.

The past few weeks, while all of us were sleeping, eating, working, Pfizer quietly released a very dangerous pharmaceutical into the market. Without fanfare, they've silently begun the re-engineering of the human world as we know it, a re-engineering direly predicted by authors for centuries, yet the story has barely been covered by newspapers, news shows, or magazines. As a writer once predicted, when the end came, we'd be too busy reading about Julia Robert's twins to even notice.

The drug, called varenicline, was originally developed to help smokers lose their desire for cigarettes. Subsequent research has shown the drug can also help drinkers lose their desire for drinking, gamblers lose their desire for gambling, and on and on down the list of human distractions. Essentially, the drug has the ability to destroy any desire for vice that a human being might have. And before you write this blog off as the desperate fears of a "problem drinker" (that is my title according to a recent Time magazine article, as I depend upon alcohol as a "supporting" element of my social life), keep in mind that this drug is also referenced in use to treat "excessive" fascination with food, shopping, internet, and coffee, all of which can lead to unrealistic detachment from a healthy lifestyle. So if you do any of these things as often as I have a beer (which you all do), then pay attention.

This the quiet first step in society's attempt to modify humanity. In his book, Brave New World, Aldus Huxley warns about the dangers of engineering society into a place of permanent happiness, without vice. He warned that in such a world, humans would be reduced to passive egoists, disinterested in anything but pleasure. There would be no truth, because nobody would care for it. A world without vice isn't human. It's false. And that's where we're headed.

Let's take a day at work to examine the vices under consideration. You start the day with a cup of coffee, which contains caffeine, which is a drug. You take a break from work to take a drag from a cigarette, which has nicotine, which is a drug. After work, you go grab a beer with co-workers. Beer has alcohol, which is a drug. So instead of a beer, you go shopping for new shoes, which excites the same part of the brain as cocaine, which can lead to addiction. You can't eat a bacon cheeseburger (food addiction). Or masturbate (pleasure addiction). The good news is, you can do needlepoint! They haven't found problems with that, yet.

The essential problem is all of these things are part of what make us human. Life, in essence, is often a struggle, and since the beginning, humans have engaged in vices to relieve the stresses of their hard life. Men are defined by their vices, and struggles to overcome them. What if Hemingway hadn't been a drunk? What if Van Gogh wasn't part crazy? Their experiences resulted in the dramatic art they, and others, produced. There is a certain beauty in the impure side of humanity. It is humanity reacting against the plainess of doing the smart, healthy, responsible thing. It is humanity recognizing life isn't always a happy day in the sunshine, and sometimes you need a little relief. If we can all take a pill that eliminates are desire to do these things, what will we all become? A hideous version of Pleasantville citizens, constant, steady, pure, and, resultingly, inhuman.

Although Pfizer is listed on the patent, though it sure sounds like something made directly by a Christian Scientist tucked away in a secret lab underneath a church somewhere in Hollywood.

The most frustrating issue is the medical communities constant insistence that the best way to cure one problem is with another. Take our drug instead of someone else's. And who does that benefit? Me or them? If I buy a drug that makes me stop drinking, but have to take that drug everyday, where exactly have I gotten? I'm still spending money, I'm still putting a foreign substance into my body, only now I am paying Pfizer for that instead of Budweiser. And isn't the end result the same? Pfizer is just pissed that more people spend money on weed and booze than their own supposedly "helpful" drugs. Trade one addiction for another.

And anyways, aren't they taking a vice at wholesale value? It's easy to target the craving of alcohol as a vice, but is it really a chemical dependency? I'll be the first to say that most of what I crave when drinking is the social aspect of it. The relaxed conversation, the comfort, the enjoyment of friendships, the feeling of a cold beer in my hand on a hot day. People don't take shots because they enjoy the taste of Jim Beam tumbling down their throat. They enjoy being with the people that do it, sharing a common experience. Unfortunately, I haven't found that same sense of comradery built by eating shrimp poppers with someone, or getting together in groups of five to read a newspaper.

You can attribute it to any number of factors, the way I was raised, my beliefs on the human condition, my fear of control, but the point is I simply cannot accept that a world without drugs, alcohol, gambling, or any other common vice, would make for a better world. Sure, less of it would be better. And people not being addicted to it would be better. But giving us all pills that makes us never, ever want to do any of it? Never want enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? Never want to buy a new pair of jeans? Never want to play poker when in Vegas?

Tell you what - everyone who wants to take this pill can move to Singapore (which is already mostly like this). There, they can take daily walks in the park, eat salads for each meal, watch Oprah, write bad poetry, and vacuum their rugs. I'll be over here, with the other deviants, recognizing life for what it is, enjoying my time in reality.

Before his departure from my apartment to the endless rains of London, dragonhair used his similarly endless technical talents to reprogram my DVR (ensuring I wouldn't be disturbed, dragonhair thoughtfully did this reprogramming while I was at work). With a deft touch that comes so naturally to him, he added season passes to shows he thought I might enjoy in the future. One such show was Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen, which, after sampling, I immediately deleted. FOX network reality shows are among my least favorite, for one thing. But the show was too staged. Take a seemingly angry chef that likes to swear, bring in awful chefs that give him plenty to swear about, then sit back and watch. In other words, the prototypical American TV show: loud, sensationalistic, simple, unintelligent, crude, and artificial (Top Chef is much better). Turned off, I attributed my dislike of the show partly to FOX, partly to America, and partly to Gordon Ramsey. That was the last of his work i'd be watching, I assumed.

Then, last Saturday night, James Fox (a brit) and I were discussing our DVR list during dinner. I mentioned my dislike of Hell's Kitchen. He concurred, but then asked if I'd ever seen the British show called Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. I expressed my seeming dislike of Ramsey. He told me to withhold judgment until watching Kitchen Nightmares. Luckily, the next day, BBC-A was running a marathon of that very show.

Surprisingly, it was great. And the Gordon Ramsey on that show is totally different than the Gordon Ramsey on Hell's Kitchen, which apparently is all an act for American audiences. Sure he still swears, but he's also intelligent, laid-back, supportive, and generous. The essence of the show is that Ramsey goes around to good restaurants in the UK (sometimes France) that are failing and/or near closure. He acts as a consultant, figures out why nobody is going, and then implements changes, such as changed menus, new design, etc. During this process, he takes the chefs under his wing, works hand in hand with the owner, uses creative team-building tricks, shares his expertise, etc. He works and works until the restaurant improves business. I have total and complete respect for him.

The point is this: what the fuck? Why can't they show something like that in America? Why does Britain get one Gordon Ramsey and we get another? Do we not like optimism? Or do we need our shows to involve constant ridicule, eliminations, and superficiality? Is it impossible to imagine a show like Kitchen Nightmare here in America, as it often time has a positive result? Or do we need to see fat, spoiled 16-year olds planning 100,000 dollar birthday parties and big, fat, obnoxious fiancees? It reflects poorly on our population .. like we are a bunch of dumb fucking chimps sitting in front of our TV, eating fried shit, stomping the ground and cheering everytime someone gets yelled at and cries. I'm not saying our shows have to all be intellectual documentaries .. but give us the other Gordon Ramsey. The one who fixes restaurants, not the one who yells at chefs. It is the ultimate message to our country from another: You aren't smart enough to appreciate this work. You need to be fed little bits of dumbed-down entertainment, while you sit on your obese, grease-stained, oreo-crumbed asses, giggling because someone on TV said a bad swear word.

Regardless, i've been cured. I found BBC-A on demand, and thus always have available to me shows that don't involve 5th-graders, crying bachelorettes, or Americans with (bad) talent. So I apologize, Gordon. You had to change yourself for us. And, I think we can both agree, it isn't a change for the better.

I ate a baby pig for dinner last night.

Because everything is in a name, and to attract otherwise squeamish diners, it is written on the menu as "roast suckling pig". But, make no mistake, it was a cute, newly-cooked, tiny baby pig. And even though it was young, i'm sure that little pig already had lots of dreams of growing up to be a big pig, a lifetime filled with eating corn on the cob and rolling in the coolness of wet mud. That dream was snatched from him, so I could taste his body.

By definition, a "suckling pig" is a piglet of between two and six weeks old, having fed only on its mother's milk, meaning its meat is particularly tender. Think Babe, the pig, golden roasted on a skewer for several hours, seasoned with butter and salt, his skin cracking to make cracklin. It is a level of food detachment I have rarely approached. Technically, veal is even more of a culinary abuse, as it is made from the meat of a two-day old calf (or one that has grown up in a wooden cage smaller than its own body, so as to avoid the biological disturbance known as "muscle").

Think of the uproar if a head chef took a four-week-old human baby, all cute in a little addidas onesie, skewered it through the torso, and roasted him for a few hours (I'm guessing the Chinese probably already do this, as they seem to thoroughly enjoy the most offensive culinary traditions). The collective heads of UNICEF just might explode if that were to ever happen. But a four-week old baby pig? Slice that fucker's throat, so people like me can enjoy the delicacy known as young, tender pork.

I'm not sure where i stand on the subject. On one hand, the baby pig, though no fault of its own, was 100% delicious. Soft, tender pork, filled with dense, yet subtle, flavors, all complimented with a fresh herb brioche and mustard sauce. It certainly created a memorable dinner. On the other hand, well, I was chewing on a six-week old animal's flesh. I didn't technically have to do that. I could have chewed on, say, a six-week old piece of broccoli. Or six-year old fish. It wouldn't have presented me with the same culinary delight, but then again, the cute little baby pig could have kept suckling, grown up, lived out his dreams, and eventually become a couple of slices of bacon on my egg sandwich, after a full life serving his own interests. I wish I were a vegetarian, but if I can't be, I should at least have rules. I can do without the baby pigs. But baby double-western bacon cheeseburgers from Carls Jr.?

Not a chance.

I attempted a novel approach to this past weekend, by staying in on Friday night, sans alcohol (meaning I limited myself to one beer, a Negra Modelo at our local Mexican restaurant, Mezcal, which had great carnitas, the best i've had in NYC to date. Of course, like most great restaurants i've been to lately in Brooklyn, not a soul was in there, even on a Friday night). On Saturday morning, I awoke in a state unknown for the past ten Saturdays - I was clear-headed. Also, note my choice of words here. It was the morning when I woke up, not the afternoon (with an assist to Jill, who makes more noise getting up in the morning than an Alaskan grizzly bear emerging from hibernation in a den filled with kid toys). By noon, I had worked out, sweated out imperfections in the steam room (I can only handle about 3 minutes in there before my lungs start to get pissed off the oxygen they are taking in is 250 degrees), and showered. Last time I made that sort of time, I was in 5th grade and hadn't even started masturbating yet.

To celebrate this thing called "an afternoon", Jill and I grabbed some towels and sunscreen and met Charlie and Kim at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Beach. You have to love New York. Only here will people from a 20-mile radius flock to a parking lot filled with sand, and beach chairs rentable for 10 dollars. Off of the pier, bobbing in the East River, was a huge barge with a built-in pool. It was so popular, you had to get a time assignment in order to enter the pool. Of course, pools filled with a three-year-old puerto rican kid's piss, eczema flakes, and fecal chips isn't my bag, so I skipped that part. But, with the iPal speaker bumping, a full view of downtown NYC, and sunscreen giving me about 7-minutes of free time with my shirt off before catching aflame, it was a highly enjoyable experience. Legitimately felt like I was at the beach for awhile. Who needs the ocean when you have the East river? Plenty of eye candy too. The guys asses, er, I mean, girls boobs, were plentiful and beautiful.

After showering off in the freezing East river-supplied showers, we headed up an outdoor wine bar off of Atlantic for a bottle of Pinot Grigio (I pretty much despise white wine, but Jill loves it, so, being the accommodating boyfriend I am, I shared the drink with her). As we sat in the shade of an Oak tree, we watched as Charlie engaged in his new project: seeing exactly what the people of New York will pick up from a street corner, and how long it takes to be picked up. The initial test, a box of cupcakes from Crumbs, was unsuccessful. Nobody took it, either at the corner of Canal and Broadway, or the corner of 7th and Leroy in West Village. There were plenty of looks, even one poke, but no takers. That is too much to ask, even of New Yorkers. Even after the addition of the "Free Cupcakes" note, nobody took them. So Saturday, at the wine bar, we tried something more tame: a self-pissing doll, in a box, with a bow on it. Placed on the corner of Atlantic and Henry in Brooklyn, we had a taker within five minutes. I'd describe it, but we have video of the pick-up and walk-away. We'll continue the experiment, sort of an amateur sociology project, so we can graph the places, things, and people involved with the pick-up of this sort. What won't people pick up, if it has a bow on it and is free? Anything?

When discussing this with a co-worker, he told of a prank his frat buddies played in college called "poo dollar". Essentially, they'd take a dollar bill, wipe their ass with it on one side, then take that dollar bill, and put it on the street, poo side down. Then, they'd hide and wait until someone picked it up. Upon seeing the poo, he said, most people would put it back down, tho some people would just throw it in their pocket and keep walking. This is the reason people are afraid to take free stuff on the street. It might be free, but then, it might be smeared with poo. And it is this line we want to discover: exactly what products overcome a person's fear of poo?

The bottle of wine finished, we returned home and spent the remainder of the day watching television. And I went to bed having learned an important lesson: Days are longer when you don't wake up at 3 PM. I'll see what I can do with that data in the weeks ahead.

So I guess I've been gone from San Francisco longer than it seems. At lunch with co-workers recently, I was the only one at the table who wasn't aware my creative director was gay. In fact, I didn't even have a suspicion. In my mind, he was a happily married fifty-year-old with three kids. Well, I guess he still might be married, but not to a woman. Granted, I don't expect gay guys to walk around in tight pink shorts sucking on bananas, but I still expect there to be something I notice. Apparently, science agrees, as there is evidence that the genes that makes someone prefer men also manifests itself in identifiable physical traits (more than just a desire to dress up like GI Joe and play with "guns"). At my heyday, I could pick out a gay man from a crowd of 100 people. Now, I can't pick one out from in front of my eyes. Or, rather, behind of my butt.

Because i'm a totally spontaneous and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of guy, who just grabs life by the balls and absolutely refuses to let go, like a testicular bulldog, I broke a rule last night and went to a live "rock" concert at Roseland Theater on 52nd street. Ever hear of The Fratellis? Me either. But Charlie had free tickets, and VIP passes, so I cleaned out my ears and rolled on up. My problem with live music, in addition to thinking the bands never sound quite as good as they do on their CDs, has always been the crowds. Sitting in a sea of people, no matter who was on stage (short of a reunion tour between Jesus, Mohammed, Buddah, and Krishna), has never appealed to me. The VIP passes do a bit to change that, though, as you get access to an area with few people in it, and a chance to sit down. It makes live concerts more enjoyable- though, I can still confidently say i'm still not a "rock" music fan, and never envision myself being one. The whole culture of rock has always been in conflict with my own interests ... Long, Ratty Hair vs. Shaved Heads Electric Guitars vs. Rhythmic Beats, Skateboarding vs. Basketball, Black Jeans vs. White Tanktops, Decal Stickers vs. Graffiti, Cigarettes vs Weed, Lake Havasu Houseboats vs. Montego Bay Villas, Ford Mustangs vs. Cadillac Escalades, Doc Martin Boots vs. Nike Air Force Ones, Rum punch vs. well, Rum punch, Dragonhair vs. Workmonkey ...

By the time the show was over, I mingled among the other rock fans, Budweiser in hand, discussing whether Fender guitars were better than Gibsons, and how to keep your tight jeans black for as long as possible. I then left the concert hall and hugged the first black guy to walk by. Keep the beats coming, I told him. And stay away from guitars.

I then walked into a bar, ordered a bottle of Courvoisier, and drank all of the rock out of me. The Fratellis may be a great band, but until they change their name to Da Fratellis, I'll be sticking with my hip-hop.

The drunk-guy-in-our-apartment situation has reached an impasse, as the ambulance picks him up about every third day. He's taken to passing out on the stairs, meaning we step over him on the way to and from work. The landlord/building owner, Gary, ranted to me the other night about his total lack of options. Social services, adult protection services, hospitals .. nobody gives a shit. There is no place for man like Steven in the system. An alcoholic 60-year-old is unwanted in all circles, as such a person is unredeemable. Social services only accepts people they can help. You can't help Steven. Only death can help him at this point. The job of hospitals is to take someone out of mortal danger. Once they've accomplished that goal, then their hands are clean and the patient is discharged. Essentially, the question becomes, what do you do with a worthless human being? This is why people end up homeless. No real help is available on any level, because help does nothing, except cost money. And helpless people ultimately end up on your corner, because that's the only place they can go where nobody has responsibility for them and they stop costing society money. With other seemingly unredeemable people, lifelong criminals, as example, you throw them into jail to keep them away from society. We need the same thing for people like Steven. There needs to be an island or something where we send people like this. Seriously. Take an island somewhere, airdrop beer and vodka and homeless drunks every week, and be done with it. That's the life they want for themselves, so give it to them. Steven doesn't want a job, or friends, or health. He wants a 23-ounce can of Foster's. So, give that can to him, but just not anywhere around normal people. The one thing Steven has taught me is that when someone doesn't remotely care about themselves, then it is fairly useless for you to care about them. All I want now is for Steven to be gone. Out of our apartment. He didn't make the team. Cut him. In reality, he hasn't really made the society's team either. Every fucking time the ambulance comes to pick him up, it is costing New York thousands of dollars ... and this is happening two to three times a week. I can't help but think if the ambulance is tied up with his fucking worthless drunk ass, what if someone is actually out there, legitimately hurt by something not brought on by themselves? I used to be more liberal about the topic of homeless and alcoholics until meeting Steven. You realize how selfish it is for him to do what he does. He isn't just fucking up his life, but ours. And if you tried to help him, he'd fuck up your life, too. His smell, his blood on the wall, his puke on the doorknobs .. That's selfish shit, and I'm done with it. Get him out of the world, let him lay in his own filth and drink Foster's all day .. But somewhere not of the normal world .. I heard there are thousands of islands off the coast of Maine .. Let's take the money we spend on people like this in a week, buy the island, stock it with a lifetime supply of Foster's, and put these guys on the island. Bot us and them, and the people who make Foster's, would be better off.