RACONTEUR ROUNDUP

TRENDING THIS WEEK: A wedding that I actually 

care about, Björk being...Björk, how not to quit your job, aging 

un-gracefully, getting paid to poop, the Brittany Murphy death conspiracy, and more!

MAZEL ALERT

En route to a yoga retreat with oversized sunnies and venti Starbucks cups. Hate us much?

My best friend in the world is getting married. I'm gearing up to be her lap bitch on Saturday. This isn't technically news in the objective sense, but it's my news, and it's my fucking blog.


ICELANDIC TINKERBELL: THERE IS A LITTLE CITY DWELLING IN THE BACK OF YOUR TV SET



I don't know why this was brought up in The Atlantic this week, because I'm pretty sure that this video is from the nineties. But it's timeless. Björk is so totally from another planet! Here's Kristin Wiig brilliantly channeling her on SNL. 



QUITTING

Dear Woman:  I presume that you are a young woman. I understand that you just quit your accounting internship at one of the Big Four because you just couldn't stand another minute of it.  You thought you'd quit in some kind of grandiose way, by sending an email to your entire audit team, offering your resignation in the most crass and idiotic way possible: with poorly contrived hash tags. Listen, you little shitstain: you are a millennial if there ever was one. It's an internship, girl! You should know that more than half of the recipients of this whiny tantrum didn't click on it because they didn't recognize your name! If you really want to send a "shove it" message to your employer that wins the hearts of oppressed workers everywhere, your quitting story must at least be equal to that of Steven Slater. Excuse me, that's Steven FUCKING Slater. All your Beyonce ramblings are meaningless, by the way. Especially to accountants. #ingrate


SAD TRUTHS OF ADULTHOOD

Some of these are really stupid and almost all of them are obvious. It IS hard to make friends after college. I moved to 3 different cities since I turned 22, 2 of which I'd never lived in before. I had the distinct displeasure of trying to meet "couple friends" with my husband. It's harder to make friends when you're married after college. Everyone just presumes that you're a pair of crusty old swingers. I swear we weren't. Although I make no guarantees 18 years from now when my daughter's in college and I'm bored.

I'm going to add to this list. Things you SAY as you get older:

• "If I was that girl's mother I'd tell her to cover up. And also, her ass looks amazing."
• "Why are these freckles still lingering on my face 3 months post-summer?"
• "I just did the Master Cleanse for 12 weeks- and I lost an entire pound!!"
• "Yessir, of COURSE you can see my ID! Do I look that young? :)"
• "So the real point I'm trying to make is tha-- oh shit. Wait what was I saying. I forgot to take my Gingko Biloba this morning."
• [At nail salon]: "Harry Styles is dating Kendall Jenner... who the hell are these people?"
• "Mom and dad, I'm coming over to feed you tonight. And don't forget to take your synthroid medication with your meal."
• "Last night was so much fun. I don't even remember what happened, except that I ate a slice of pumpkin pie, drank a bottle of wine and then blacked out on my couch before I finished this incredible HBO documentary about illegal organ transplants."

EARN SOME LOOT WHILE YOU TOOT

Your dream career: pooping. This is the job posting if you're interested. It's supposed to benefit New York or something. I don't know about you, but if I have to go my first instinct isn't to search on Yelp to read what chatty Asian teenage girls are saying about the closest bathroom. It's usually a bit more urgent than that. I'll save tales of my incontinence for another time- sorry to disappoint- but I do have an observation about West Coast toilets. They are cleaner than any bathroom I've ever been to back home on the East Coast. Maybe it's the toilet seat covers, which I find in every stall here. I thought they were mandated in the state of California given the state's public restrooms law- hey, wait! Maybe I should apply for the job! Should I do it?


THIS WEEK'S NAZI

Last week we had the black white power guy shaming himself on British television. This week's Nazi is the guy who shot Larry Flynt, President of Larry Flynt Enterprises aka publishers of Hustler Magazine aka Playboy with vaginas. Aside: Hustler worldwide headquarters is located in the same building as the Brazilian diplomatic consulate here in Beverly Hills. Coincidence?

Joseph Paul Franklin was a wingnut who named himself after the notorious Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. He was also purportedly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which you'd think would be enough to exempt someone from a death sentence. Nope! Not in the USA.

In addition to being a serial killer, he tried to assassinate Larry Flynt because his magazine printed photos of interracial people doing it. What do you think Mr. Franklin would have to say about Björk? She's not Jewish or Black but she's definitely an alien.


THE SMELL OF SICKNESS

Scientists at Penn are working on detecting the smell of ovarian cancer by monitoring an electronic nose that sniffs the blood of sick people. This reminds me of when I got mono in college. I wasn't feeling well and my throat hurt like it had never hurt in my life. I went to the student health clinic at my university. The person checking me out was a total moron.
"It appears that your glands are swollen," she observed. "I'm noticing a cut on your leg- likely from shaving. Your lymph nodes must be responding to that infected site." 

Sounded like bullshit to me, but I shrugged and left. I returned to my dorm room. Later that week I still felt like death and my friend came up to me. 
"Open your mouth," she said. I was too sick and tired to experiment with my sexuality at that moment but I did it anyway. She pulled her head closer and took a few sniffs. 
"You definitely have mono," she pointed out. "That's what mono smells like. Are you constantly tasting a weird Cheerios taste?" 
"Yup." 
"Feel better." 
My friend was a genius! (She turned out to be an event planner, not a doctor). Now, if you Google "mono smell," it appears to be a thing. If mono has a certain odor to it, I'd imagine that other diseases might too, right? I hope that science gets to the bottom of it.   


TOLDJA

Last week I wagged my finger at Chip Wilson, and the Lululemon CEO continues to be an idiot. He was just selected to be Stephen Colbert's Alpha Dog of the Week.




THIS CHICK IS AUCTIONING OFF HER VIRGINITY...AGAIN

I know I'm straight because I look at this picture and the first thing I think is, "She has amazing hair." Anyway, her website isn't working. That's at least one obstacle in her quest to bank $1.5 million to get freaky for the first second time. She was offered over $700,000 in an earlier contest by a Japanese business man- and, well, if stereotypes are true, after that experience she might still technically be a virgin.


BRITTANY MURPHY WAS MURDERED BY 'SHADOWY GOVERNMENT OPERATORS'

Her dad is insisting that's what happened, anyway. What about her creepy husband? He died under similar, weird circumstances that same year. And after she died her mom moved in with her husband. That's also pretty weird. I hold the view that she died from anorexia. I don't know why I've been so fascinated by this story.

On Mothering

Check out my contribution, 10 Mommy Mantras: The First Year, to the very irreverent and funny highchairsandheadaches.com!

RACONTEUR ROUNDUP - November 15th, 2013

TRENDING THIS WEEK:

Larry David, black Nazis, procreation, being nice (even after you've killed someone), deliciously dehydrated 'food', and more!

Larry David Would Rather Be Selling Cars



...or maybe he's just lethargic from eating a Benadryl brownie.
Either way, this is the scowl of the week.

Life Imitating Art... The Case of the Black White Supremacist



"Racially aware" North Dakotan Craig Cobb appeared as a guest on an English black woman's talk show. These circumstances are odd enough, but it gets wilder when an analysis of Cobb's DNA is revealed to him on air. Highlight: he dismisses his 14% sub-Saharan ancestry as "statistical noise" while a fellow guest clad in an African turban cackles at him.

Comedy Central

Remember the visually challenged Clayton Bigsby? In the end he divorced his wife for being a- well, just watch it. I don't want to kick off my first Roundup by using the N word.

Be Fruitful, Before Your Ovaries Turn Into Raisins


Amber and Jenelle: Teen Mom Alumnae and Members of the Under 25 Club

America thinks that women should have babies before the age of 25. Note that poll respondents who graduated college were more likely to take the view that women should wait "until they are 26 or older."

The inverse relationship between intelligence (and income and education) and birth rates has been widely studied. To summarize: dumb people have more kids.

Take Idiocracy's illustration of this phenomenon:



Graduate degrees are worthless, so stop clinging to your irrelevant, highfalutin diplomas. And the hard-hitting journalists at Good Day LA are currently running a series about how you're totally fucked if you wait to have kids. So for all you upwardly mobile cohabiting yuppies out there, your seed is unlikely to spread very far. Just stick to adopting French bulldogs, as you've been doing.


Reviving The Greatest Slang Terms of Yesteryear

Me and my chuckaboo headed to the benjo for some mafficking, I met a gal who wasn't very afternoonified so we did the bear, after which she let me batty-fang her. Best sentence ever.


Mitzvahs



Two of many affected by Typhoon Haiyan

It's a sad state of affairs in the Philippines. I donated my weekly Cronut allowance to the good souls at the World Food Programme. Please consider doing the same.


Ronald Phillips, saint of death row

The governor of Ohio granted a stay of execution to death row inmate Ronald Phillips, who's execution was originally scheduled for this week. Phillips requested the postponement to allow extra time for him to arrange the donation of his vital organs to immediate family members in need. He was convicted of raping and killing a 3 year-old child in 1993.

I haven't been following this case until now, but organ donation hits home for me. Dad has been kept alive for over 5 years thanks to the liver of an anonymous 18 year old. Update those drivers' licenses, people! Just please don't kill any children.


Dehydrated Delicacies



Contains 100% of the daily three C's: Corn, Chemicals, and Crack.

Did you know that some cheese powder products contain more additives than cheese? I, for one, am shocked- I didn't think there was any real cheese in there at all! I feel vindicated, in a way. I am addicted to Easy Mac. That's lowbrow and disgusting, I'll admit it. Whatever. I ate these yellow chemicals by the family-sized box load when I was pregnant. I even asked my OB-GYN if she knew of any birth defects associated with excessive consumption of industrial cheese powder. She nodded no, and went back to playing Words With Friends on her iPhone. Let's just say that when my daughter was jaundiced as a newborn, I wasn't surprised.



Peanut butter with a powdered cheese consistency? Yes, please!

...And then I moved to LA. I know I've assimilated because I put down the cheesy fairy dust in search of something a less toxic. My friend just introduced me to PB2 and it's really good (for what it is). Compared to my reduced fat peanut butter, it has:

1/4 of the calories per serving
4g less sugar
only 2g less protein
no trans fat or saturated fat

Best of all, it contains real peanuts (or so they say).

Update: If you care, you can read this assessment from a healthy, attractive woman who hates PB2. Do you prefer mold to calories? I prefer mold.


Running: It's For Fatties

How long will it take to work off this KFC Double Down?

This article, on why consistent running can be an obstacle to weight loss, may help to explain why my weight plateaus at times, despite significantly increasing my mileage (I'm an avid runner). I know what you're thinking- "It's the Easy Mac consumption, stupid!" No, it isn't- I quit that for now.


Lululemon 'Celebrates Failures'

Lululemon, the overpriced, yogi-centric, fat-shunning, lifestyle apparel label is in more hot water after founder Chip Wilson read a page from creepazoid Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffrie's playbook by indiscriminately alienating parts of his consumer base. Neither here nor there: a few Lululemon employees live in my building. One is a yoga instructor. As far as I know, all of them drive to work. The store is down the street from me, a stone's throw away. Why aren't they walking? Are they ashamed that their butt cracks will be visible to the public through the threadbare materials that bind their $95 pants together? Now that I think of it, that's probably why.


Speaking of Butt Cracks

Miss Bum Bum 2013 has been chosen. Bow down.

Introducing...Your Weekly Raconteur Roundup!

It's here.

Your life just got better!

At the end of the week, I will post my 'best of' news items from around the web, with added snarky commentary. This is my gift, every Friday, to you.

Bring your green hat- we're going streaking to discuss important zeitgeist-y things!

Sign up to receive email updates, which may or may not be free. And contribute to the conversation.

What's better than receiving a humorous riff from me at the end of the work week? Wait don't answer that- many things are better. Even so, it's just another reason to celebrate Fridays!

Jawbreaker

A conduit of near-death


Did your parents ever tell you that you're not supposed to eat things off of the floor? Mine never did. I guess you could say they shouldn't have had to- but I was the kind of kid that needed serious direction. Plus, recall how all I had to eat in my childhood were bell peppers.

My brother and I were bullshitting around the town pool. My parents signaled to us that it was time to go. We picked up our towels, our cooler filled with stale cream cheese sandwiches, and our thermoses of tap water and started moving. We slowed down after taking note of some abandoned jawbreakers on the floor of the pool cafeteria. I bent down and picked up a big one- it didn't look too slimy so I figured it fell out of someone's pocket before they got to eat it. I know, I'm so discerning. It's what you'd expect from an 18 year old. Just kidding- I was 6. Or 8.

I popped the jawbreaker into my mouth. Mom turned around. I tried to conceal it by tucking it up to the roof of my mouth so that she couldn't see it protruding through my cheek- a task that is impossible because large jawbreakers are like 3 inches in diameter. Of course the thing slid all the way back into my throat. I gasped for air, and- nothing. I stopped breathing. I remember thinking to myself: "Is this the end? Am I going to die?" And also, "I'm a fucking idiot." 

I ran toward my dad and gave him the good ol' international choking sign. He clearly never took CPR, but he had good instincts. He flipped me upside down and punched me in the back. My would-be killer plopped onto the pavement. This time it was slimy. Dad turned me right side up again and straight up backhand bitch slapped me. Then he gave me a hug. Some lifeguards were standing by, just looking on and scratching their nuts and twirling their whistles. This was a debacle of the non-aquatic variety, which meant that it was beyond their scope.

I told this harrowing tale at a job interview. Yes I did. 

It was a post-college, second round job interview at a Wall Street investment firm. My interviewer, a Managing Director, asked me a most irrelevant, off-the-cuff question: "What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?" So I told him about how I was almost killed by a jawbreaker. I think the answer he was looking for was something along the lines of, "One time I created a pivot table and the data wasn't updating or sorting correctly it was HORRIBLE but don't worry because in the end I used my intellectual horsepower and sat in front of the screen for 12 hours because I'm such a diligent worker and I'm so great so I fixed it and everything was fine!" 

When I finished answering, he pursed his lips and said, "OK. Look, I wasn't expecting that. What you just told me is awful, just awful. I'm a parent, I have young children. Twins, in fact. I'm going to go home tonight and hit the sack and have terrible nightmares."

So I got up and he said he'd be in touch and I headed down the elevator into the lobby. Then when I got down to the street I realized that I left my folio in his office, so I had to go back upstairs and ask him for it. Talk about awkward.

I did not get the job.

Blade Trinity

Mr. Wesley Snipes

I dated this guy on the basketball team in college. After a few weeks of hanging out, he asked me to go with him to see a movie! On a good old-fashioned date! He said he'd pick me up outside my dorm.

I put on my plungiest V-neck Abercrombie sweater just for the occasion. He picked me up as promised. We took a nice stroll to the theater.

We were greeted by three men, friends of his. Two were wearing do-rags, and all averaged close to seven feet tall. We got in line to buy our movie tickets. "What are we seeing?" I asked my date. "Blade Trinity," they all answered in unison. Ugh. Whyyyy.

I was the first in the group to head to the counter when the cashier called out "NEXT." I didn't want to be presumptuous about the breakdown of our date finances. "One for Blade Trinity," I mumbled. I collected my ticket and stepped to the left. My date looked at me kind of sideways. His friends didn't seem too pleased either. 

The gang left the counter and approached me in a semi-circle formation. They were pissed. I felt not unlike a wittle mouse. 
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I thought you were treating us," he replied.
"Well... umm... I didn't realize that... well, why would you think that?"
"We got a tournament coming up in Florida and we want to save our stipend for trip money."
"Umm...ok. That's like, understandable. I mean totally. Totally understandable. But like, I already paid for myself. And you guys already paid for your stuff. So like, what am I supposed to do?"
"You tell us," said my Knight.
"You want me to reimburse you for your ticket?"
"That would be nice," he replied.
"Yeah, real nice," echoed the do-ragged leeches.
"ALL of you?"

The huddle got closer. I immediately went to the ATM to get the cash to pay all of them back. I returned back with the money, and my chivalrous companion put his arm around me before saying the scummiest thing of all time.
 
"Thanks, Sexy. You know I'll make it up to you later."

As white girls say, as if. And also, Eww. There would be no later. Except that in an odd turn of events, as I was getting my hair done on my WEDDING DAY, I received a Facebook friend request/message from my long-lost Knight.

"Hi Hun- How's it goin. Been a while. Sorry 4 the past. Would luv to get to no u better."

Meanwhile, my groom was standing at the alter, straightening his tie. All the guests were packed inside the ceremonial room. The air was thick with anticipation for my arrival. My 102 year old grandmother was barely hanging on to the pew, she was struggling with all her might to stand just so that she could see me walk down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams. Groom cleared his throat. Best Man shrugged. "Where IS she?" the guests all mouthed to each other.

Back at the hotel room, I was pacing back and forth, trying to decipher Knight's poetry. I was consumed by thoughts of calling off my wedding in light of this watershed moment. I consulted with my Maid of Honor, who at that point had completed almost 3 years of PhD shrink school at the University of Phoenix.

"What should I do?" I asked her desperately.
"What is it about you that makes you ask me that?" she replied as she scribbled some notes.
"Stop confusing me with your wizard shrinkery!" I yelled.

In the end, it would take more than a careless, misspelled, accidentally-sent to-the-wrong-girl-because-you-were-binge-drinking Facebook message to win back my heart. Sorry Knight, I know you tried (not really). But if they ever make a Blade IV- which I hope to God they don't- tickets are on me.


   

  

A Lily for Me

Yuck

In the process of writing my next post. I'm sitting in Starbucks by the window. On the other side of the window sits a very creepy man. He just turned his chair to face me. He's been staring at me through the window for the past 10 minutes. I keep looking in my periphery. He's still staring at me.  Every time I take a sip of my coffee, he sticks his tongue out and licks his upper lip. He's got real crazy eyes. For some reason he has a single white lily on the mesh table in front of him. Yup, now he definitely has one hand in his pants. He just raised the lily to his nose with the other hand and now he's sniffing it simultaneously. Still looking at me. Remember when I said in my opening post that I had that Special Something? I am a prophet.

Fish Ties

Peroxide hair and a double-knotted seascape

There are two kinds of people in the workforce. The first are Doers. These are people who lead by action, who possess an internal force that drives inspiration and propels productivity, which in turn fuels further action. We all benefit from this cyclical continuum of innovation and output. Doers. Fuck yeah.

The second are Larries. Larry (singular) was some dude I worked with for way too long. We were both waiters at a chain restaurant. Larry's middle name was Doldrums. He possessed the double butt chin and distended midsection of Peter Griffin and the phenotype of a sloth. He also had pockets of deep craters carved into his face. He would sweat profusely when he ate his lunch (pie) in the break room while concurrently trying to roll silverware into linen napkins.

Larry was an alright guy. He was an honest man. He didn't spend all his tips on blow like the other waiters. No, Larry would go home every night from work, lift up the thin mattress in the basement of his mom's house, and toss another $75 under the bed that he never had sex in.

Larry cared about his job, because it was a job, and he didn't want to lose it. He didn't ask questions. He waddled through the day, following mindless instructions and occasionally giving them. He punched in tables' orders into the workstation monitors with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his spectacles at the end of his nose. When Management gave him the section of the floor with the large booths, Larry puffed out his male boobs proudly. And when Larry was tasked with supervising us rookies' post-shift scut work, he'd look for wayward crumbs and residue like he was on a mission to find an old Nazi in Argentina.

All this to say that there were many sad things about Larry. But the saddest by far is that Larry was intelligent. Larry had potential. And yet somehow, somewhere along the line, Larry got lost and settled. He settled in a big way twenty years earlier for this shitty job looking for crumbs that others missed. I know Larry was reasonably smart because he went to a 4 year college (back when that meant something), had a keen interest in worldly affairs, and spoke eloquently (on the rare occasion that he spoke of things other than clam chowder).

A friend of mine and I had grown intolerably bored during one slow lunch shift. The restaurant was adorned with New England-y paintings of individual sea creatures, and the corresponding genus written in Latin beneath it. We drew tiny bow ties, top hats, and cigars on separate sheets of paper, cut them out, and pasted these debonair accessories on every fish picture in the place. The fish looked way handsome. I thought to myself- I'd totally fuck them. My friend and I cackled when we walked by all of the defaced paintings. This went on for a week or so. Best week of my life. (Kidding).

When Larry caught wind of this, he couldn't understand why we desecrated his workplace. He was extremely sad. I can still picture him staying late one evening as he scratched the stubborn Scotch tape residue off of a Thunnus albacares with his fingernail. Voluntarily.

Reader, I must confess that I was a Larry for most of my 20's. I was a cog in the wheel at my previous gigs, mindlessly accepting responsibilities that I cared little about, all so that I could proudly say that I beat the Great Recession by holding down a job. I felt ashamed to think that if I were to quit one day (which I did) my net contribution would be so minimal that nobody would care. I felt extraneous and unproductive. I felt meaningless.

No longer, honey child. I abandoned that life decade. I'm going to do now, in my 30's, what I should have done before- channel my creative energy through mediums such as this blog, a novel, and a screenplay (and that's just the beginning). This is what I was meant to do, and I find myself in the fortunate position of being able to really do it, finally. Goodbye Larries- hello, Doers.

One day, Larry was sitting in a corner in the break room and he gestured for me to come over. He offered to share his sweaty pie with me. I declined. No thanks Larry, you faithful old dog. No thanks.

Check out PinkPangea.com!

Madrid, Times Two

Pink Pangea is a great resource for the avid female traveler. While you're there, read my featured post. You won't be disappointed if you enjoy tales of one-armed Spanish lovers, and meat.

 http://pinkpangea.com/2013/11/madrid-times-two/

Valium Poetry III

Obey your thirst

I feel scared when I think
About where you are now
How I wish I could go back
I would've done anything
If I had known
Pookers
My little man
My world doesn't sparkle
Without you in it

Valium Poetry II

Single malt raid

Eyes so blue
Lashes so long
Cheeks so soft
Thighs so chunky
Nose so buttony
Hair like strawberries
        (the color, that is)
My sweet angel
I miss you so

                                            


You are so sophisticated
Even sigh when
You're bored
And roll your eyes
When you're sleepy
You laugh you cry
You hate to feel lonely
Sleep and cuddle with me
When I return home

Valium Poetry I

I've learned not to follow the instructions

I am the craziest version of myself when I'm on an airplane. I like to travel, I just hate flying. I try to be conscientious and respectful of fellow passengers. So I self-medicate, with Ativan, Ambien, Percocet, or Valium (my fave). And I always throw back some wine post-takeoff to really smooth things over. Immediately before my eyelids turn to lead and I get all slack-jawed and drooly, I feel a sudden impulse to write stuff. Here's the first of many hazy creations:

My Love

Please forgive me

Mommy had a 

...Margarita

A bottle of wine

and 2 Valiums

Because I hate to fly

But most of all 

I hate being

Without you