RACONTEUR ROUNDUP

TRENDING THIS WEEK:

What Jesus and Santa have in common (it's not just Christmas!); your cab driver as Mr. January; morbid tweets; an especially creepy plastic surgeon; revenge porn, and more!

SHIT MEGYN KELLY SAYS

I'm sure she approved of Time Magazine's choice of its actual person of the year for 2013, Pope Francis. I never trusted her because her name is spelled with a Y for no apparent reason and I'm prejudiced against people who do that. If you're name is Jennyfer- or even worse, Yennyfer (that's Spanglish for Jennyfer)- or Megyn, you're not to be taken seriously. 

Here's what TV anthropologist MegYn Kelly had to say this week, in response to Slate's Aisha Harris's assertion that Santa Claus should be portrayed as a penguin:

"Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?"

As is Santa. Her kids must've been watching and she didn't want to ruin the charade for them. In defiance of the white St. Nick archetype, I photoshopped a picture of rapper DMX wearing a festive red cap not unlike this one:

and hung it around my house. I told my daughter that his reindeer are called Ruff Riders and explained to her that he has over 10 children living in multiple houses so he really is a Santa Claus. The only difference between St. DMX and Cracker Claus is that you can't ask St. DMX for what you want, he chooses. You just better hope it's not a murdergram.  

TAXI CAB CENTERFOLDS

If you read my last post, you'll know that I have a thing for cab drivers. And if you're anything like me, I know what you're thinking as you read this in the back of a cab on your way to work this morning: "I really want to see my driver's nips." Well, done. 

You're in luck this year because Mr. January trimmed down his pinky finger coke nail, Mr. March added some shimmer to his unibrow, Mr. April wears an even bigger turban, and Misters June thru September shaved their back hair.

WANTED: CHARACTER ACTOR TO PLAY MICHELLE OBAMA/OPRAH/BEYONCE

After Kerry Washington suffered from exhaustion after having to play every famous black female from DC to Hollywood in the course of one Saturday Night Live episode, some notable comedians who also meet that description were invited to audition for the show in LA. How lame that they all stood around and prayed in a circle. I had to squint harder at that picture to realize that it wasn't a joke. 

I'm available to be on SNL! I'm not African American, but I've been told I look ambiguously ethnic (must be the brown hair). 

Also, can everyone please stop saying ish? I get that it's now supposed to be a euphemism for shit, but I liked it much better when it was a synonym for semi. As in, semi automatic weapon =  automatic weaponish. 

IRRESPONSIBLE TWEETERERS

Some crappy driver killed a grandmother trying to walk along a crosswalk in the Bronx. The driver, 19, first tweeted after the incident, “All I really need right now is to clear my head and find peace of mind.” Unmoved by this teen's gravitas? Well she then tweeted a closeup of leftover lasagna. All this while her victim slowly slipped into the afterlife. I hate Twitter and everybody on it, except for me and the people that I follow. 

REVENGE PORN: STILL LEGAL!

As per this article from aptly titled British weekly magazine The Week, revenge porn (n.) is defined as, "...Photographs or video footage of a person, which are uploaded to the internet without the subject's permission and usually without their knowledge. The material is often put online by a former lover although there have been cases where hackers have managed to obtain pictures and uploaded them in an effort to humiliate or blackmail the subject. The images are often accompanied by personal details such as a person's Facebook and social media profiles, an act which compounds the sense of violation felt by the victim." 

A guy in San Diego was arrested for having an entire website devoted to this ish shit. This reminds me of a story I'm familiar with. As legend has it, Guy and Girl were high school sweethearts. Guy and Girl both got into college. Guy, fearful of prospect of losing Girl, proposes. Girl says yes. Guy and Girl are promised to each other but go to school in different states. Guy arranges to visit Girl. Guy catches Girl in act of cheating. Girl makes Guy sleep out on the street. Guy exacts the perfect revenge- creating a mock Mastercard commercial which was the most zeitgest-y thing ever back in 2002- and distributes it all around. It went something like this: 

Prom corsage: $50

Engagement ring: $500 (hey, the guy was still in high school)

Train tickets to Girl's university: $100

The perfect revenge: priceless

...and then cuts to raunchy crude footage of Guy and Girl boning, to the tune of Nas's Oochie Wally Wally (obviously- is there any other song to bone to?)

I felt for Girl. But I felt for Guy too. Who was the real winner? Me, because I got to watch the video without consequence. Yay!

THANKS DADDY!

This doctor got off to a bad start when he named his daughter Charm. But then he started doing really crazy things like sculpting her breasts and injecting all sorts of biohazards into her skull. You can watch the family video here. And after all that time and money (I guess services were free. Or at least I really hope they were free for the girls' sake, if you know what I mean) Charm looks like a cheesy porn star version of Kristin Cavallari and Brittany looks like a Brazilian tranny. Which is to say that they look like they live in southern California, which in fact they do, so it's all fine.  

PUSSY RIOTERS SEEK AMNESTY, PUTIN SHRUGS

How long until Urban Outfitters starts selling these balaclavas? I want one! It might scare the bejeezus out of my one year old, but she's used to Santa Claus looking like DMX, so she'll be ok. 

I recently watched a documentary on the group, their alleged crime ("hooliganism", which I'm guilty of every Thursday through Sunday) and trial. You can read more about them here, here, and here. There are a couple of reasons why I like this band, namely 1) that I've appointed one of the singers, Nadia, my Slavic doppelganger; 2) while on trial, when their attorney told them that Madonna had recently written FREE PUSSY RIOT on her back during a concert, they sort of dismissed it. They were just like, "Meh, ok." That's the same reaction I would have, I think. They take themselves way seriously and all seem like they have Aspergers but they're also fearless and lovable. I'd say that they'd be great role models for my daughter except for the whole thing about the group orgy in the biology museum. There will be none of that! 

95 AND SINGLE

This video, actually entitled 35 and Single, was in NYT's Op-Ed this week. It's just... I don't like it, but at the same time I think she's cute. I watched the video again with the mute button on and I liked it much better. I know that's mean, but it's the truth.

Her tag line is, "I’m 35, Argentine, Jewish and single. And these four categories don’t seem to go smoothly together." Don't we all have some "categories" that don't mesh well together all the time? And when these categories don't mesh well, there's conflict, which I'm sure most of us have experienced a good deal of. So why make an autobiographical video borne out of that idea, specifically? And why am I supposed to feel bad about the fact that you've been switching hot guys every two years? Who cares about you and your cracked iPhone and your scruffy Greek boy toys (are they still single, most importantly)? And why is this in the Op-Ed pages? 

My tag line is, "I'm 29, Agnostic, Jewish, and I love bbq spare ribs." Discuss.

FLO PURCHASES RAPE INSURANCE JUST IN CASE GEICO WEREWOLVES HAVE TO MUCH TO DRINK

That was either the best or worst headline I've ever come up with. 

Legislators in Michigan don't have much to do now that Detroit is bankrupt, so they just passed a bill requiring women to purchase rape insurance if they want their post-rape medical treatment (read: abortions) covered. I gather that any number of crackhead squatters wouldn't have had the wherewithal to purchase insurance in the event of an abandoned back alley rape. I also gather that this kind of rape happens in Detroit. Didn't they fire two-thirds of their police force? Women of Detroit: never leave home. 

My Driver, Ali

I used to have a driver. His name was Ali.

Ali took me wherever I wanted to go, whenever I wanted him to. The best part was that his services were free. No matter the traffic conditions, distance, or how many times I offered to pay him, my ride was complimentary. And I called him almost daily. This went on for over two years.

Ali was fiercely loyal to me for reasons that I never quite understood. I met him one rainy night during the beginning of my freshman year. My roommates and I were headed to a bar in Georgetown, and we hailed a cab outside of our dorm. It was like any other cab ride, until we heard sirens and saw blue and red lights flashing behind us. A cop car was fast approaching. My first clear memory of Ali is of him panicking. He sharply turned the steering wheel toward the curb and slammed on the brakes.

I can't remember why the cop pulled him over, but it started to seem like a much bigger deal than a busted headlight. Based on Ali's reaction the cab might have been a stolen vehicle. Or he committed the third of some kind of 'three strikes and your out' violation. Perhaps he was involved in a hit and run. Maybe somebody put out an Amber Alert on his plates. Or he could have been the leader of an underground ring of terrorists. Whatever he was guilty of, Ali was shitting his pants.

And then something magical happened. One of my roommates, a very pretty girl who had a striking appearance with jet black hair and a white complexion, rolled down the window. She got the cop's attention, and they started talking. The cop put his elbows on the window frame and leaned all the way in. He was young, probably in his early twenties. He was smitten.
"Will I see you again?" she inquired flirtatiously. She was being very deliberate.
"Here's my card," he replied. "Write down your number for me."
My four other roommates and I exchanged uncomfortable looks, wondering whether cops normally had business cards. I imagined that he did this sort of thing fairly often.
"Sure," she smiled sweetly, "but before I do, I'd love it if you did me a huge favor. I'm not quite sure why you pulled over my friend here, but he's a hardworking guy. He didn't mean to do anything wrong. Would you consider letting him off with a warning for me, just this once?"
The cop mulled it over for all of five seconds. He was kind of an idiot. "Well..."
She wrote her number on the card and gave it back to him. The cop pointed at our driver and muttered something, and then took off.

Ali turned the car back on and turned around, scanned his eyes back and forth across all of us seated in the back, then glanced over to my friend sitting next to him. He turned around to the back again and pointed his finger, looking intensely and directly at my dark haired friend. He spoke in a thick, almost unintelligible Pakistani accent.
"What just happened was by the grace of God. I am eternally grateful for your actions. You are an angel. You saved me."
We were all fidgety and she was even more so. "Look, let's just go. It really wasn't a big deal," she assured him. "We're late."
Ali couldn't be deterred. "Mark my words. From this night on, I will work for you and every single person who witnessed what just happened. I will regret it deeply if I do not get the opportunity to repay you."

He handed out his business card. I started to think that I should have one, with a picture of me, stoned and giggling and sloppily eating an Au Bon Pain chicken caesar wrap with the title MARCIA: COLLEGE FRESHMAN.

My dark haired friend was the first one to hit him up for a solid, which was only fair, after a few days. He showed up exactly on time, and presented her with a box of Chanel Chance perfume. "This is from me and my family," he said.

Under most circumstances I'd presume that there were strings attached to this kind of bizarre arrangement, but he was the sort of guy who kept his word no matter the cost. Although I wondered what it was that he was so afraid of when the cop rapped on his window.

After a while my dark haired friend stopped calling him. I think she felt bad, sensitive to what some may have perceived as her taking advantage of a desperate person. My other friends no longer bothered with him, either. Not me! I remembered that he made the same promise to all of us, and I felt like I had won the lottery. I was going to work this privilege into the ground. I was broke. I made minimum wage as a college bistro waitress under the federal work study program. I lived in an expensive city. I needed rides all the time. This was my golden ticket!

Ali drove me everywhere. He took me to and from my second job at an inner-city elementary school in northeast D.C. He drove me to Union Station, Baltimore, Tyson's Corner, Arlington, Crystal City, Bethesda, College Park, even Newark, NJ. He caught me stuffing a hundred bucks into the crevices of his backseat right before he was about to drop me off at BWI airport, which made him flip out (he made me keep it). He even bought me holiday presents. I in turn presented him with "winter gifts" for his wife and kids because I had no idea what he was into spiritually, although I gathered he didn't celebrate Chanukah. We talked about all kinds of things. We had an unlikely friendship that was both strange and comforting.

One day I called Ali for a ride to the airport. For the first time, he told me that he was preoccupied. He apologized profusely, but said that he was sending someone in his place to come and get me. "Look for a white van with a tall driver," he told me. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, a car pulled up that matched Ali's description. A white van. I wondered if I should be worried, but the driver seemed alright. I hopped in the back.
"You sure you want to sit back there?" my new driver inquired.
"As opposed to what?" I asked.
"Sitting up here next to me," he replied.
"Nah, I'm good...so how do you and Ali know each other?"
The tall driver ignored me. I kept my head turned toward the window. We wound down New York Avenue and around the convention center. He briefly pulled over.
"Sit up here," he instructed.
"Jesus, fine," I relented, thinking that I was supposed to be nice to this pushy louse because he was a friend of my homeboy Ali.
We kept going. Things were starting to look less and less familiar. At first I thought that since this was a different driver, he must have had his own favorite route. But then I started to get a very uneasy feeling.
"Umm... sir? Where are we?" I fixated my eyes on the nearest intersection to read the signs. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Oh no.
He pulled over again. "Get out."
"Wh... Why?" I stammered.
"Leave your things here." He pointed toward the ATM straight ahead. "Clear out the money in your account. I'll be waiting."
I exited and walked toward the bank. I took note of a sticker on the building's front door that read BANK OF AMERICA: ANACOSTIA BRANCH. Oy. Ever heard Dave Chapelle's skit about the 'baby on the corner'? He probably got his inspiration from this area. Fortunately, though, my cell phone was in my pocket. I dialed out to Ali with trembling hands.
"Hey, Ali. Listen, sorry to bother you but this friend of yours is bad news. At first he was trying to get in my pants. Now he's lead me to Southeast and he's trying to rob me. I'm scared, Ali. Help me!"
"I'm on my way. In the meantime, ignore his requests. Just walk back to the car right now and let me talk to him."
What was said next I had no idea, because it was all in Pakistani.  But the tall driver was flailing his arms about and screaming. I got the impression that he had intended to rob a different person. He loudly snapped my flip phone, popped the trunk and chucked my suitcase on the curb. Then he drove off without uttering another word.
I twiddled my thumbs on MLK Boulevard as I waited to be saved. Tk tk tk tk tk, a crackhead scurried past. Where was Ali?
He arrived a half an hour later. He gave me a hug and apologized for all the confusion.
"Sorry about my associate. He's an asshole."
I rolled my eyes. "Clearly."

That wasn't the last time I saw Ali, but it was near to it. This unfortunate rendezvous with his 'associate' made me wonder what kind of a person Ali really was. It was apparent that my congenial driver was involved in some pretty sordid after-hours dealings. I was willing to look the other way to keep getting free rides, but somehow we lost touch. I thought about what other types of convenient friends I should make. At that point in my life, a cop would have been useful.

RACONTEUR ROUNDUP

Sorry for skipping last week. My post-Thanksgiving dinner stomach remained distended for at least 48 hours, obscuring my feet when I looked downwards, and I was emotionally unready to look at hot people on the internet.

TRENDING THIS WEEK:

Your kids: in the womb, postpartum, and in college; Speidi gets spendy (that's the media-whoring couple from The Hills, in case nobody remembers); the state with the largest average dick size (it's NOT Texas); the Don Draper of dope, and more!

WOMAN'S POSTPARTUM BODY DEEMED TOO HOT TOO SOON

Caroline Berg Eriksen, the fitness guru wife of a guy who is famous in Europe, looked like this just a few days after having her daughter. Some blogger lady (not me) said in reaction to this photo, "This is not a selfie. This is an act of war." Well, she's an idiot on account of her first proclamation- this is definitely a selfie. As for the act of war bit, I was compelled to read more, so I went to her blog. My suspicions were confirmed- she is a jealous nerd. "If I looked like Eriksen I would also possibly refuse to put on clothes ever again and I would be struttin' around the house in my size 0 knickers and my maternity bra all day listening to Diana Ross's 'I'm Coming Out'," she says. Umm... ok. I'd personally don a skin-tight Herve Leger dress, go to a club, and let any number of bankers buy me drinks all night to make up for 9 months of abstinence. But that's just me. 

When I was in the postpartum room after my delivery a year ago, the nurse gave me a big white net. "What's this?" I inquired. "It's your underwear for the next few days," she replied. "First, you put on the net like underwear, there are holes for your legs. Then, you line the bottom of the net with two giant heavy-duty absorbency pads. Then you line the pads with Tuck's witch hazel cooling pads. Then you spray on some Dermaplast. Then you squirt this water bottle up your hoo-ha. Then you lift up the netting toward your waist." I tried to go over the instructions several times in my head. I went to the bathroom and did all that she said. "How does it feel?" she asked me when I came out. "Like I just took a heavy dump in a giant pre-soaked diaper," I whined. "Great, you did it right!" she said enthusiastically. I think of this conversation as I look at this hot girl's picture. I can't see even a trace outline of massive pads. This girl's done a good job with herself.

I feel bad for her daughter, though. Imagine having a mom who looks like that. I'm glad my mom looked the way she did when I was growing up. She was always decent looking enough for me to have some bit of confidence in my inherited destiny, but she wasn't overwhelmingly good looking in a way that would make me feel threatened. Plus, it was easier to lift the fishnet of afterbirth pads up the short legs that I inherited from my mother. Less distance from my crotch to the floor, which really cut down on my prep time. Thanks, Mommy!

SCIENCE: EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF "FROOT LOOPS, CHEETOS AND NUTELLA" DURING PREGNANCY IS A BAD IDEA

I wish this article came out 13 months ago. Maybe I could've looked like Mrs. Eriksen. Maybe I would've thought twice about my dehydrated boxed cheese cravings (though I'm sure it wouldn't have stopped me). Basically, the article says that if you eat like a fat-ass when you're pregnant and breastfeeding, your kid is going to eat like a fat-ass too. Explains why my one-year-old daughter's favorite foods are fried chicken and watermelon. Well, partially explains it, anyway. Recall that I used to have a thing for basketball players.

THE HARDEST PART ABOUT BEING A HARVARD STUDENT IS GETTING IN

Douche overheard at local Starbucks register, "Insufficient funds? Impossible! I went to Harvard!"

Current and former classmates of Lee M. Cardholder were shocked (or not) to hear that the most frequently awarded grade at Harvard is an A.  Well, Harvard elitists, does your school inflate the high school grades of incoming freshmen? Yours probably didn't have to. But mine did. It's too bad we were removed from the US News rankings in 2012, because I was really impressing people when I told them that I went to America's Fifty-First Best School.

SPENDY SPEIDI

It doesn't even matter at this point who these people are and why they were once famous. All that matters now is that they are allegedly very poor because they didn't know what to do with their money.

I've often wondered about these riches to rags types. Take Mike Tyson (and Evander Holyfield too), Ed McMahon, Nicholas Cage, Toni Braxton... examples of people that were once filthy rich and then pissed all their money away. How could one possibly squander so much? I now finally have some insight via this Buzzfeed breakdown, which names the esteemed sources In Touch magazine and Daily Mail. But I mean, it's Buzzfeed, and we're talking about Heidi and Spencer Pratt, so who the hell cares. Highlights: Heidi spent $200,000 on plastic surgery, and spent $20,000-30,000 on individual shopping trips.

ANOTHER REASON TO BONE A NORTH DAKOTAN (AS IF YOU NEEDED ONE)

Brett Favre didn't do much for the Minnesota ranking

This list was compiled by a condom shop, so it's total bullshit. I mean, Rhode Island is number 2. But it's still fun to draw contrived conclusions about the results. New Jersey guido muscle meatheads are famous for having 'roid shrunken junk, I'd expect them to come in somewhere around 45. Alabama doesn't make sense either- I'd expect them to be at the bottom of the list, what with all the leprechauns roaming around there (and you know what they say about leprechauns). I've mostly been with foreign guys, so I can't really speak to the accuracy one way or another, except to say it seems really wrong. It's so tough for me to relate that I feel like a lesbian scrolling through this list.

THE DON DRAPER OF POT

Obviously the Don Draper of pot is pudgier than that other Don Draper... this one eats Funyuns at night instead of hooking up with his secretary. Mason Tvert's profile as Director of Communications for the Marijuana Policy Project is pretty cool (aside: it's no surprise that he's friends with Bill Maher). It's like my dad always said, "Fuck the alcohol lobby." Yes that is in fact something that my dad says often.

RIDIN' THE COTTON PONY

 

In case you haven't seen it, this is my favorite thing this week. Right now I'm feeling flirty (F- does that also stand for foreigner?) but I'd also really love a heating pad (HP) and I just ate an oatmeal cookie which unfortunately didn't make it to the chart. Too healthy.