Based on this picture and article, I have to conclude that Heidi and Spencer are clearly horsepeople of the approaching apocalypse.  But which ones are they and who are the other two?

(Via Videogum)

Is this cartoony thingy from the New Yorker cartoon blog funny or stupes? 

At first I thought it was fairly lolish, but on further examination started to change my mind.  There's something suspiciously SHOUTS AND MURMURS-y about it, which makes sense because it is after all the New Yorker.  And as everyone knows, SHOUTS AND MURMURS is just a bunch of scary old people men (and sometimes Steve Martin) amusing themselves and themselves only with embarassing reheated jokes about yesterday's news.  Anyway. 

Things that I like about this cartoon:

1) Amusing use of bold for emphasis

2) Amusing (to me) use of "biatch"

3) Somewhat amusing concept

 

Things that are dumb about this:

1) Sloppy/annoying/shockingly outdated use of "like, totally."  (Really, this alone can ruin anything for me.) 

2) You cannot actually "fill in the letters in the top row to spell the name MICHELINA" or any other name.

 

By the way, LOL or UNLOL is going to be a new feature here.  I will take votes in the comments, but of course, like Judge Judy, I make the final decision.  I'm the boss, applesauce.

As a former employee of the Gap, I was interested and horrified to read this psychotic Fake Trend piece in the Wall Street Journal, which tells a scary story of the "legions" of former Gap clerks who are afflicted with a strange kind of Post Traumatic Folding Disorder that causes them to compulsively fold everything in sight.  According to the article

"Gap Inc. says it has trained "hundreds of thousands" of Gap store employees in the art of folding since the late 1980s.
Along the way, legions of retail grads have spent countless hours neatly folding T-shirts and jeans and stacking them on tables and shelves.
Now, their peculiar idea of perfection is straining marriages and leading to bizarre behavior ranging from buying clothes based on an item's foldability to straightening up sloppy displays while shopping."

I worked at the Gap for something like five years I think.  Not continuously-- I started when I was a Junior in high school, quit when I got mono, went back when I needed money to pay for whatever it was I spent money on in high school (fast food and Compact Discs?), quit when I went to college, went back for summers, went back when I was broke during the school year, and finally quit unceremoniously and for the last time when I was stressed out about exams.  This pattern lasted between I think 1997 and 2002-- I worked in three different stores.  And yes, I can now fold a mean pair of "denim" if I absolutely need to.  By which I mean I can do it if it's a fucking matter of life and death, so if it isn't please don't ask me to fold shit for you.  Until the day comes when my folding skills can somehow stave off the destruction of the planet Earth, my clothes will be in a crumpled pile covering my bedroom floor, thank you.   

The obvious and overlooked thing about this (by the way completely made-up) article is that, of all the annoying and often degrading things a person must do as a Gap employee, the absolute worst of all of them is FOLDING.  It is a thankless, boring, and truly sisyphean task.  And also: BORING.  It takes forever and you're finally making some progress and then some horrible person comes along and knocks your whole pile over and it's like you never even started.  When I worked at the Gap, I came up with a million ways to get out of doing the folding thing at all.  My specialty was walking around sort of rubbing the clothes in a way that I imagined made it look like I was folding them.  I figured if anyone asked me why none of the clothes I was supposed to fold were remotely folded I could just say they were perfect a minute ago until some bitchy customer ruined the whole thing.  (Not sure if this fooled anyone or not.)  The idea that a person's time in the retail trenches could make them "unable to go shopping without automatically spending 10 or 15 minutes refolding messy T-shirt piles in stores," as the Journal article claims, is insane to me.

That's not to say that I didn't pick up a few things from working at the Gap. The company spent so much time teaching us all about shoplifters as well as trying to catch us-- the employees-- in various forms of theft, including something called "Time Theft", that stealing became a fascination of mine.  The fact that our corporate overlords trusted us about as much as they would trust your average crook-- but surely not as much as they would trust actual proven rich-person criminals like Leona Helmsley or Cindy McCain-- made me obsessed with the idea of taking them down.  In other words: I'm working, but I'm not working for you.

I spent many of my zoned-out folding hours trying to devise the best possible way to steal from the company in the hopes of DESTROYING it from the inside.  The thing is that shoplifting from the Gap is actually really easy-- ask me sometime and I'll tell you exactly how to do it-- but it's running a successful ongoing SCAM without eventually getting caught that is trickier.  You could run a return scam, sell register tape on the black market, be the inside-man for a shoplifting ring... there were many possiblities, and even though I was never going to actually try any of them because I am really just not that kind of guy, it was my number on on-the-job fantasy.  Like I say, if the company was going to treat me like a criminal anyway, it wasn't such a leap to imagine myself as one.

I think a lot of my co-workers were thinking along the same lines, because every now and then, the Gap Secret Police, known as "Loss Prevention," would show up from Corporate and take someone into the back office and that would be the last we'd ever see of that person.  Hopefully people all got assigned to laundry-folding duty in prison.  At least allow them that small pleasure.

Happy Fourth of July.  The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday not only because I am a patriot but also because I enjoy fireworks.  They appeal to my very gay sense of instant nostalgia.  Watching the fireworks inspires a simultaneous feeling of awe and regret: they're over practically before they start.  With fireworks (especially local fireworks versus impersonal big city extravaganzas) you get a visceral sense that your life is passing you by.  This is a feeling I love.  Yeah, I know it's childish of me to find this kind of angsty wallowing so delicious.  I can't help it, but I will try to be more grown-up by next year. 

The other thing about the 4th of July is that there are a lot of great songs about it.  Off the top of my head I can think of Galaxie 500's 4th OF JULY (above, featuring sparklers!), X's 4th OF JULY, Aimee Mann's 4th OF JULY, Bruce Springsteen's 4th OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY), and Elliot Smith's INDEPENDENCE DAY. I think there are a lot more that I'm forgetting right now too. (Oh! The Elliot Smith video on youtube just led me to this great-seeming song.  And who remembers a lady by the name of ANI?)

When I was little I was always concerned about what would happen if somehow the fireworks didn't extinguish themselves as they were falling for the ground-- if somehow you managed to catch a piece of one, what would happen?  Good or bad?  I thought about this for awhile and finally asked my mom and she told me your arm would fall off and you would probably die.  I guess she didn't understand the question or was worried that I wanted to go out and play with fireworks or something.  Whatever-- her scare tactics did not work.  I was generally a skittish and fearful child, but in this case, my mother's dire warning just increased the appeal to me.  It was at this moment that I first understood that it is worth risking life and limb for dumb things that are pretty and short-lived.

Based on the reaction to last week's video it can be surmised that most of my readers not only don't watch television but don't stand in line at the supermarket.  Well well well!  I can't say I approve, but go ahead and do you thing.  Actually, no, don't.  TV rules.  Everyone should be watching more TV.  Even bad tv is better than most people give it credit for.

And maybe truly crap tv like THIS HILLS is secretly genius.  This post from a blog I never read before today puts forth this very thesis quite convincingly.  Seriously, I really wish I wrote this because it's exactly how I feel about reality television:

"Some people take issue with the fact that some aspects of "The Hills" are fake, staged, or scripted, whereas I consider metatheatre the key to the aesthetic success of "The Hills." The complex interplay between the multiple layers of plot is what makes the show so compelling...

On "The Hills," the theatrical device of a play within a play is taken to a new level, with its multiple interwoven layers of fiction and the shimmering thread of Truth that runs through them. There is the surface plot, a conflation of actual events in the lives of the characters and events staged by the producers. There is another plot reflected in the tabloids and gossip columns. There is the plot as each individual character believes it to be and the plot they attempt to portray on screen and articulate in interviews. There is a larger story that encompasses the various stars' experiences with television program itself as they expose their lives and personas to the public, the producers' attempts to orchestrate drama and dupe the audience, and the incredible interplay between fiction and reality. The producers and the audience are all participants in this larger story. And buried among all that, there is Truth. There are real people with real personalities and real emotions and real relationships. And the Truth can be entertaining and amusing and depressing and heartbreaking and surprising, but to detect it at all is exhilarating. Every facial expression or gesture, every interview and every rumor hints at the Truth among the layers..."

Doesn't that sound intellectual?  Duh!  It should!  The Hills is classy/sophisticated pomo metatext.  And Heidi and Lauren Conrad are the Cindy Sherman and Karen Finley of our times.  (JK, Heidi and Lauren are still idiots.)  In conclusion, you should definitely be watching more television if you want to be as smart and cultured as I am.

Okay, I wasn't supposed to post about this until the press release came out, but I'm just going to jump the gun, because I'm so excited!  So, I don't know if you remember this, but awhile ago, my little sister was the star of an unforgettable episode of THE HILLS.  Unfortunately, her scenes didn't make the final cut, but MTV was so enthralled with her that they decided to give ME my own amazing HILLS spinoff!  It's called FOUR CEE (after my apartment number) and it's going to be totally amazing.  The best part is that MTV decided that I am so charismatic that I get to star in every role.  No Whitney, no Audrina, no Lauren, and DEFINITELY no dumb old Heidi!  Just me talking to myself!  It has been focus grouped to death, and everyone agrees that it is going to be MTV's biggest hit of all times.

Check out the super-secret preview clip from the first episode below!

I went to see The Breeders last night.  If you are not familiar with The Breeders, they're kind of like the ladies from Grey Gardens except instead of mom and daughter Bouviers, they're twin sisters from Ohio.  And instead of lying in bed all day singing Tea For Two, they RAWK.  Of course the show was awesome.  This Dutch documentary about the Deal twins is also awesome.  Seriously, it's just like Grey Gardens; I'm not joking. 

This is exactly how I behaved in high school.

Well the New York Times Magazine sure does know how to get their grubby hands on my hard-earned clickies!  First they put one of my dearest friends on the cover, and the very next week they feature TYRA BANKS-- the very woman I consider to be the world's biggest MONSTER-- in the same spot!  Naturally it is Emily and not Tyra who is catching all the the heat.  Unfortunately I cannot link to my old TYRA BANKS IS A MONSTER post because it was lost when my old website was stolen, but I will offer my thoughts on the Tyra article next week after I have time to read it.  I know you can't wait.  In the meantime I would like to offer my apologies that the follow-up to THE BLONDE OF THE JOKE may be a couple months late: I have been mesmerized by Jezebel's brilliant Faces of Tyra gif mashup (at right) and have been unable to do anything but stare at it, Narcissus-like, all day.  (Because, yes, this is what I look like without makeup.)  This condition may persist for quite awhile.

Also, I think the guys at the WoW Report are onto something with THIS.