This is the thread where I write stuff

[Drinking Cap]

I've never laughed at Richard Pryor. I'm torn as to whether or not this is an age thing or a race thing.

My initial instinct is an age thing but that doesn't really make sense. Bob Newhart is older and one of my favourite comedy bits ever is his infinite monkeys bit.

I don't think it's a black thing either. Bill Cosby also fits the bill as one of my favourite comics.

Admittedly, I've only ever heard a handful of Pryor's specials but, I mean, I don't get it. Groundbreaking, I guess, and a lot of comedians I do like cite him as a major influence but there you go.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I'm becoming increasingly wary about the concept of depression. Or, at least, the way all the talk about it lately hasn't really focused on the difference between depression and being sad.

 

[Drinking Cap]

Of all the minor characters on the Wire, I think Shamrock might be my favourite. He's responsible for two of my favourite exchanges:

"You do know what subtle means, don't you?"

"Yeah, like laid back and shit"

and

"Nigger, are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"

 

[Drinking Cap]

In the above post I worried for a few seconds before writing Nigger. I know Mario Van Peebles says in the Hebrew Hammer that I'm allowed to but I've got a sneaking suspicion that Mario Van Peebles isn't the be all and end all authority on these things.

I don't like using the word. I know it gots baggage. But, on the other hand, I'd feel stupider about saying N-word.

Then I worried about using -er to end it or -a because all I was going on is memory. Then I watched the scene. It wasn't much help. I think that's because Idris Elba's American accent wasn't perfect about these things. I know the -a ending is the more acceptable in these things but it really does sound like -er.

I may go back and change it.

 

[Drinking Cap]

At my most recent ski weekend with friends in a rented chalet, I did not ski. I did, however, drink so much that I vomited and fell asleep in the bathtub.

I'd like to think that a decent Christian person would have then simply slept off the drinking but my Jewish guilt actually woke me up to clean the bathtub in the middle of the night before going back to sleep. I remember thinking it was really important to clean the bathtub so that all of my friends wouldn't be mad at me.

I got drunk the next night too. No bathtub though.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm never going to be a father. This was a big blow as, for some stupid reason, I've wanted to be a father ever since I was small. The first time I had a girlfriend have a pregnancy scare I actually was pretty jazzed by it, despite the fact that I was still in school and even less prepared for any of the actual responsibilities that fatherhood would entail.

The reason I'm realistically never going to be a father is because I am abjectly terrified at the idea of a romantic relationship with a woman. This seems to be a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

Anyways, it made me sad for a while but then I realized that any kid of mine would probably be pretty fucked up and that it would either mean a lot of responsibility or a lot of guilt.

 

[Drinking Cap]

At my most recent ski weekend with friends in a rented chalet, I did not ski. I did, however, drink so much that I vomited and fell asleep in the bathtub.

I'd like to think that a decent Christian person would have then simply slept off the drinking but my Jewish guilt actually woke me up to clean the bathtub in the middle of the night before going back to sleep. I remember thinking it was really important to clean the bathtub so that all of my friends wouldn't be mad at me.

I got drunk the next night too. No bathtub though.

I wish I would stop romanticising drinking problems. The funny thing about it is, I don't really have a drinking problem. I want one but it just never seems to work out that way. After I drink too much, I usually feel crummy and don't drink seriously again for a week or so. This has become a serious impediment in my efforts to foster a drinking problem that would pay tribute to so many of my literary heroes.

Also, I've never developed a taste for straight alcohol. The problem with this is that it means that my options are limited to wine, beer and cocktails. I don't like wine, I get full before I get drunk with beer and I can't drink all of the soda I need to in order to get really drunk with cocktails.

Don Draper said on that swimming episode of Mad Men that one way to know you have a drinking problem is just having the thought that you need to drink less. I guess that's true. My drinking problem is I'm just not a good enough drinker.

 

[Drinking Cap]

Don Draper said on that swimming episode of Mad Men that one way to know you have a drinking problem is just having the thought that you need to drink less. I guess that's true. My drinking problem is I'm just not a good enough drinker.

That's probably not true. My drinking problem is that I binge drink. It's a problem that almost killed me back in University and pretty frequently embarrasses me. The problem is that I pass a threshold at some point where my judgment is so poor and my tastebuds so numb I can drink straight alcohol at which point there's nothing to stop me from ending up in a bathtub.

But, on the plus side, I do every now and then have days where I have to meticulously piece together what I did the night before. It's a little like Memento.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I once lived through a situation where I knew that there was terrible stuff going on, under my nose, that was being kept a secret from me. This raised that pretty standard question of whether you'd rather know the stuff that would hurt you or not know, but know that there is something to know, and be left with your imagination as to what it might be. More often than not, I chose to find out, and every time I did it was like getting kicked in the stomach with a steel-toed boot.

The issue, though, is that I still don't really know the answer to the question. Having it left to my imagination was awful, choosing to find out was awful. I went through all of that and it didn't really leave me any wiser. I suppose there's something to be said for the lesson being not finding yourself in that situation again but, realistically, I will.

I just wish I had a better game plan for next time.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I don't remember much french. That's not to say i ever really spoke a ton of french but I did go to a french immersion elementary school and then did the required french courses in high school. This makes me sad from time to time as I realize that I've just forgotten something relatively useful like another language.

But I do speak some french. Enough to not sound completely hopeless should I ever find myself stranded in a french speaking country. That's something I suppose.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I'd like to own an expensive German car one day. A Porsche 911 or Mercedes SLS or something like that. Deep down, I kind of suspect that for a Jewish person, owning a fancy German car is the closest I'll ever get to the feeling a black guy gets when he fucks a white girl.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I think the funniest thing about Eddie Murphy's Raw is the amount of homophobic shit he says while wearing a skin tight purple leather suit. I mean, seriously, what the fuck happened in the 80's?

 

[Drinking Cap]

I think the funniest thing about Eddie Murphy's Raw is the amount of homophobic shit he says while wearing a skin tight purple leather suit. I mean, seriously, what the fuck happened in the 80's?

Although, I mean, now that I think about this there's a kind of funny overlap between the media image of black masculinity I've been hit with and gay dudes. I mean, if you heard that there who paid a lot of attention to how he dressed, wore a lot of jewelery and ordered Champagne in a bar, I mean, he's either gay or black, right?

 

[Drinking Cap]

Although, I mean, now that I think about this there's a kind of funny overlap between the media image of black masculinity I've been hit with and gay dudes. I mean, if you heard that there who paid a lot of attention to how he dressed, wore a lot of jewelery and ordered Champagne in a bar, I mean, he's either gay or black, right?

Speaking of that, what the fuck is up with the shit rappers drink. 99% of what they talk about is the height of machismo, the guns and the bitches and the cars and so on, and then they talk about alcohol and they sound like bitches.

 

[Drinking Cap]

Don Draper said on that swimming episode of Mad Men that one way to know you have a drinking problem is just having the thought that you need to drink less. I guess that's true. My drinking problem is I'm just not a good enough drinker.

That's a little unfair. I can drink a bit. I can shoot whiskey.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I am not coming to terms with my racism.

I really didn't used to be like this. I was raised by white, Jewish liberals in a major city that is more visible minority than it is white. I've had friends of every colour and religion since I was a boy. More than just the actual life experiences that told me racism and prejudice were the heights of stupidity though, I had it drilled into me from an early age that being a racist was one of the worst things you could be. I react to other people's blatant and overt racism with all the righteous anger I can muster.

But it's there in me. There's a specific ethnicity that, nowadays, I can't be around. I hate their language. I hate their food. I cheer against their athletes and have an immediate and visceral dislike to anyone of that ethnicity. I know it's not based on an actual hatred, it's based on a traumatic experience but it doesn't mean it manifests itself any less or that I find it any less ugly. It's easily my least favourite thing about myself.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I wish I'd been born British. They seem like they've got a pretty good handle on things.

 

[Drinking Cap]

You know, if you buy into that whole Sliders idea of the infinite universes spawned by every potentiality, that means that there's a universe out there in which I didn't play Sir Toby Belch in my high school's production of the Tempest.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I miss smoking pot. I used to smoke a ton of pot. Then it started giving me panic attacks and I stopped.

I'm really worried that I'm never going to like anything in life as much as I liked Knights of the Old Republic when I was stoned.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I wish I was the sort of person who could open up and talk to the people I know. Those people always have such interesting haircuts.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I'm a fair to middling guitarist. I know my chords, I can play them clean and I can even play some blues-y leads if push came to shove.

But I can't sing and play at the same time. I really wish I could because I feel like that would give me a leg-up on playing harmonica while I played.

 

[Drinking Cap]

I wish I hadn't written all of my good stuff under a pen name.

 

[Drinking Cap]

The musical acts I feel sad about not being able to listen to anymore without thinking of various women in my life and getting depressed about the way our relationship ended probably rank thusly:

1. Blur
2. Elliott Smith
3. Death Cab for Cutie
4. Damien Rice
5. AC/DC

The musical acts who I listen to and feel absolutely no connection to anything or anyone about and, because of which, have become most of what I listen to these days, probably rank like this

1. The Pogues
2. The Tragically Hip
3. The Libertines
4. Modest Mouse
5. Kanye West

 

[Drinking Cap]

Dig up, stupid.

 

[Drinking Cap]

It's dark where I live. And snowy. And for some reason both of those things make me sad that the new Conan movie wasn't very good.