My friend and colleague, Jordan, has been hired by my college, and I've been getting used to having a friend in my presence again. It's strange how accustomed to solitude I've become. But now I have a buddy to do stuff with. Sometimes, it's a little startling to be talked to on the train, or look up from the table at Jolly Pasta to see someone else sitting there. Overall, it's been quite nice, but the previous year spent alone hasn't done much for my social skills. My cantankerosity seems to have calcified, and the presence of others, although ultimately beneficial, is a difficult adjustment.
Oh well!
In other news, after taking a two-month intensive language course, I'm pleased to say that I'm now fairly communicative in Japanese. Today, at my college's annual kickoff party in a ballroom on the 9th floor of Kobe's super-swanky Crowne Plaza Oriental Hotel, I impressed my colleagues by saying, "Tokidoki, watashi wa hitori de sukoshi monkey-dansu shimasu" (sometimes, when I'm alone, I do a little monkey dance). Then I would waddle around the ballroom waving my hands over my head. The sight of me doing this in my new suit seemed to be a big hit among my Japanese co-workers. Anyway, the gag wouldn't have been possible were it not for the free and plentiful beer. Or my newfound Japanese abilities. Thanks beer and Japanese class!
Let's see ... what else ...
I hear the lovely and talented Anna Nicole Smith has shed her well-endowed coil, and is now snorting blow and ground-up diet pills off the shiny surface of the giant male prostitute's ass in the sky. Good for her! And I also hear the touchy matter of paternity has been settled as well (even without the aid of Montel!). Larry Birkhead, the lucky winner and father of Anna Nicole Smith's insanely rich progeny, compared the favorable results of the paternity test to winning an Oscar. This is why I love to pop in the world of celebrity news now and then: to win an Oscar, you must (theoretically) be a devoted and cinematic talent or at least be popular among the empty-headed and fickle Hollywood elite; but to father Anna Nicole Smith's fabulously wealthy heir, all you need to do is ejaculate in Smith's vagina, and then hope your sperm can successfully duke it out with all the other sperm in there.
Anyway, I realize it's not an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy, or even a Tony, but I'd like to award Larry Birkhead the first annual Crepuscular Ray Spermy Award.
The Broncos 2007 schedule is out. The Broncos will play both of last year's superbowl teams ... on the road. Ouch.
Rosie O'Donnell (isn't someone supposed to be stomping on her balls?) thinks 9/11 was a government conspiracy. This, of course, puts her in a select but rapidly growing segment of liberals I think of as the left's embarassingly retarded wing. Personally, I'd be surprised if the Republicans won the presidency again in 2008 (no fresh, viable talent). However, should the retardation of the 9/11 Troof Movement continue to spread across the Democrat party, it will only help the cause of conservatives. Although it's true that most Americans seem to be suffering "buyer's remorse" on the Iraq war (Hitch & I are still hanging tough, BTW, knees locked and unwobbly), the mainstream left is mistaken in assuming that most Americans are ready to have their intelligence insulted by the vapid rantings of braindead hippies. I think the right is far better at ostracizing and separating from the loony nitwits amongst them than the left is from theirs, and, as always, whichever party correctly ascertains and seizes "moderate" territory will win.
And then there's the whole "Don Imus thing," to borrow a phrase from regular Crepuscular Ray comment contributor Z.G. Thaxton, who, coincidentally, often suffers a harsh and rigid censorship that he imposes upon himself. (Just blog anonymously, amigo!) Anyway, Imus' remarks were unwarranted and impolitic. He should've said, "those young women who play for Rutgers ... their hair is distinctive in a racial sense and, based solely on their appearance, I judge their adherence to traditional standards of sexual behavior to be dubious at best." But no, he used the word "nappy" in combination with the two-letter abbreviation of whore, and that's all it took for the left to throw their skirts over their heads and run around shrieking.
I think what really killed him was the incessant apologizing he did afterward. I think one apology would've been appropriate, but apology after apology after apology? Howard Stern's said far stupider shit than that, yet he's never lowered himself to the astounding degree Imus did last week. The repeated apologizing seemed to become the story, and soon Imus started looking real guilty. Then he made the mistake of apologizing in person to Al Sharpton, a Jew-hating, race-baiting, rape-hoaxing, poverty-pimping perennial presidential candidate with (I must admit) an amazingly awesome mane. All Imus had to do was say sorry (once) and then ignore the criticism (the controversy would've blown over without Imus fueling it through bizarre self-abasement), tell the critics to lighten up, or, if all else fails, simply quote those calling for his head.
Here's my favorite Al Sharpton quote:
“White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
Sure, a quote like that is enjoyable and hilarious on many different levels, but it also automatically disqualifies Sharpton as any sort of moral authority and instead establishes him purely as a homophobic, ignorant, and semi-literate superbuffoon.
Anyway ... after much reflection, I've decided that the real loser in the whole "Imus v. Nappy-Headed Hos" is ... well ... Don Imus! Ha! No onse else is really suffering.
OK, I'm sleepy. Goodnight Blogosphere!
