It all began because: I reread Al Franken's book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations over the past couple of days.

What happened next!:

Somehow, this gave me the idea that it might be a good decision to attempt to listen to Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Here's a link. I didn't want to give one, but you'd have found it anyway. I recommend you don't go to the site. If you're happy (and you like it) keep away. It will only depress you.

I turned on the radio, ready to give it a try.

I lasted exactly three minutes before I had to turn him off.

I wonder if I should be surprised that it took that long for him to misrepresent some fact(s). Which he did. He was discussing the stock market and the fact that, apparently, June has been the "best quarter since 1998" (which according to him was "the end of the 90's bull market") and that this fact spelled "trouble for Democrats."

Well, "the stock market" (by which he means, apparently, Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index) had the best percentage increase in a quarter since 1998. That's true.

But the phrasing is still dishonest. He never specified that it was the S&P 500. He just said "the stock market." I mean there's a lot of measurements of how well the stock market is doing. Let's take another widely quoted one--The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

The DJIA closed at its record high on January 14th, 2000. So even if it's factual to say that 1998 was the end of the 90's bull market (which we'll get to in a moment), it certainly wasn't the end of the Clinton era bull market. By the DJIA, "the stock market" reached its peak six days before Clinton left office.

Now let me step back for a minute. All that last started with an "even if it's factual." Well, it isn't. Again, according to the DJIA 1999 was better than 1998 in almost every important statistical category. So rather than just being misleading, that statement was actually just... what's the word for it... oh yeah, false. It took me two minutes on Google to figure that out. Plus, though there hasn't been a "better quarter" (larger percentage gain) since 1998 on the S&P, the S&P hit its record high in December of 1999! Once again, in the waning days of the Clinton administration. The percentage increases weren't high because the entire index was already so freaking high.

"The stock market" is still high right now. In fact, it's high enough that Rush shouldn't have to misrepresent the facts to make it seem higher. The fact that the stock market got up to the levels it did in 2000 is astonishing and unprecedented. My high school economics teacher was jumping around the room, literally, saying "Kids, we're living in Disneyland!" (figuratively)

It was a fluke at the end of a long period of unbelievable and unprecedented economic growth. And it was all caused by lowering the taxes for the rich and letting them trickle dow... wait, no, that's what didn't happen. I forgot for a moment.

I don't know, maybe three minutes of Rush a day will teach me a lot, if I spend time researching what was false in the first few sentences he speaks.

Moving on.

In the course of the past week or so, read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal which is absolutely terrifying. I don't even know who looks at this site, and I still think that all of you should read it. It's a fantastic book. I can't recommend it highly enough.

If you didn't know already, the Supreme Court ruled that laws against sodomy and same-sex intercourse are unconstitutional. Intelligent people everywhere responded with a resounding "Well, fucking duh!"

Here, read this article in the New York Times just to read part of Justice Scalia's dissenting argument. If you were not previously convinced that he is The Devil I think the printed portions of his argument might sway your vote. Justices Rehnquist and (as Al Franken would say) therefore Thomas signed their names to that homophobic piece of garbage.

In related news, Strom Thurmond died. I suggest we all go honor his memory by drinking out of whichever drinking fountains we choose to.

I really like these interviews. They are infinitely better than those e-mail questionnaires I used to get all the time in high school. These are written for me, personally and I enjoy answering them much more than "last person you talked to on the phone:" type questions.

Anyway, here's the new interview. Jenn's interview of me should be coming soon, and I guess it'll be the last one for a while unless someone else wants to play.

Interview questions courtesy of Briana Mowrey

1. society at large seemed to fall out of love with the grunge phenomenon somewhere in the mid to late 90's. like the death of the dinosaurs, do you, as a still current pearl jam fan, have a theory why grunge bit it hard?

Well… I could ramble on about this for a long time. This is, of course, my opinion. If any of this is factually incorrect or if you disagree with any of it, let me know.

A major part of it is that grunge musicians (for the most part) didn’t want to be rock stars. They didn’t want to be icons like that, and (again, for the most part) resented society’s (particularly corporate America’s) acceptance of them. What they were doing was most definitely anti-social. Not in the “I don’t want to go to a party, I don’t like crowds” kind of way. Like in a “The system we live in is fucked” kind of way.

When the system you’re trying to lash out against accepts you as part of itself, it’s gonna piss you off. You watched as more and more people started following grunge, the angrier the musicians got.

Eddie addressed this particular point (in some documentary I saw a few years ago)—when ad agencies began to use the “Seattle Image” to sell products, they were all outraged.

Now grunge music as a social phenomenon did fall off. This was partly because these things tend to travel in waves (and I guess it was time for an era of shitty pop music again), and partly because grunge musicians seemed to be doing everything they could to stop being popular. It is completely ironic that the most popular song to emerge from the grunge music is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a song that mercilessly mocks Nirvana’s own pop-culture fan base.

Pearl Jam, the band I’m most familiar with, has never not wanted fans, as it were. I’m not sure that made sense… I’ll try again. It’s not that they didn’t want people to like their music, to follow their music—it’s that they wanted people to follow it from themselves not from society telling them it was cool. The social acceptance of grunge drove them to lash out harder. Eventually society found the next fad. Boy bands, I guess.

It’s all twisted, because if you think that THE MAN had never picked up on grunge as something new HE could possibly sell, there’s a huge possibility that most of us wouldn’t know the name Kurt Cobain. Grunge may have left Seattle, but it surely wouldn’t have gained the following that it did.


2. kathy bates, esteemed oscar-winning actress, shocked her viewing public when she appeared in the buff in the recent film "about schmidt". why hasn't john lithgow stepped up, and gone the full monty?

A little back-story:

I was riding in the car with my mother one day. She said to me “You know, you remind me of Russel Crowe.”

I said… “OK… thanks… I think.”

She said “You know, you’re both good actors, you’re both handsome, you have some similarities.”

I said,again “Thanks.”

There was a moment of silence.

My mother said: “You know, John Lithgow isn’t that attractive and he’s gotten a lot of good roles!”

You can imagine what this sounded like to me. I knew she didn’t mean it “that way” but it’s become somewhat of a joke over the years.

When I told this story to Briana, she told me a similar story in return. When complaining that she would never get roles because she was (supposedly) unattractive, her roommate responded with “A lot of not typically beautiful actresses get roles… you know, like Kathy Bates.”

Now to answer the question:

I believe I actually screamed out in terror when the Notorious K.B. disrobed in About Schmidt. If Lithgow were ever to get naked, it might cause irreparable damage to members of the audience. He’s thinking about his fans.

For all those readers that are my mother I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT, I DON'T THINK YOU THINK I'M UGLY.


3. to your knowledge, why haven't the programmers of the nba games for x-box programmed any of the players to cry after their team is defeated?

Hey, remember when the Lakers kicked the 76ers asses in the finals two years ago? I do.

Also, I don’t know what the x-box programmers do. I do know that I have a PS2. Which you’re never allowed to play again.

4. what would ever give my mom the impression that we're doing "it"?

I guess when she walked in on us mid-coitus it was pretty hard to get a different impression.

For all those readers that are my mother, that last statement was SAID IN JEST!

5. finally, i know this might be a hard topic for you, but, father's day was just last weekend. we all know your father perished tragically as a result of friendly fire in the gulf war. how do you commemorate father's day now?

Again, Briana set me up with the opportunity for some back-story if you know what I mean. Zing.

NYU freshmen are required to take a class called “Writing Workshop.” It was your basic essay-writing course. I was really bitter about having to take it. Then I decided that I might as well have a little fun with it as long as I was at it. None of these people knew me. So when it came time to write personal essays, I created an entire life-story for myself and wrote from that perspective.

Some people might call this sort of activity “lying.” I like to think of it as “an in-depth character study.” I wrote about my experiences as an army brat. I did have to go onto the army website to find the location of army bases. It was a really in-depth character study.

Anyway, you can read the two essays that reference this stuff here and here. (These are .doc files) Neither of them are very good, but one great thing about writing about how your Dad died is that the professor is hesitant to give a bad grade.

I never did tell them that I made it up. When my professor e-mailed me after the semester and told me that the head of the expository writing program Pat C. Hoy (who fought in Vietnam and who writes about it) wanted to meet with me to discuss our shared experiences with war, I though the joke had gone far enough. I ignored the e-mail and that was that.

I’ve tried to feel badly about it. I just don’t. It made the class entertaining, at least. And my dad got a good story to tell when he’d tell people his son had killed him off in essay class.

Interview by Mike "Bob "Whelp" Mike "Hitler"" Whelchel

1.) They say that New York is a Hell of a town. You certainly seem to agree, so why don't you tell us the five greatest things about living in the Big Apple? While your at it, write about whether or not these things make up for the fact that you're represented by the Knicks (really, if I lived in New York, I'd claim the Harlem Globetrotters as my local basketball team).

1. Food delivery any time of day or night. Though this may seem an odd choice for the number one best thing about living here… well, on second thought, probably none of you think that this is an odd choice for number one. I know you all. Most of you are up at three in the morning, possibly stoned, thinking “damn, I sure would like a sandwich right about now… too bad it’s raining and every store in the state is closed.”

Not me baby! It’s 3:18 in the morning and if I want sprouts and a hunk of brie on, I don’t know, an onion bagel (I mean, I wouldn’t order that. It’s just that I could) I just have to pick up the phone. It’ll be here in about six minutes because the delivery guys run. Beat that with a stick.

2. The Ladies. The women in this town are incredibly beautiful. And it’s a different kind of beautiful woman you get than when you’re hanging out in Beverly Hills or Hollywood (listen to David Cross, he gives a decent account of the L.A. “hot scene”) The hot women here are hot and not all of them are aspiring actresses. Some of them are doctors (or at least play them on Law & Order). Some of them are lawyers. Real ones.. Some of them are the waitress at the Life Café that I’m totally in love with (actually, I guess just one of them is but whatever). The ladies here are gorgeous, and on the whole I find them to use the word “like” a whole lot less than their west coast counterparts.

It also must be remembered that I do go to theatre school, which means that I also see my fair share of gorgeous ladies that actually are aspiring actresses. Which is OK too. At least they’re trying to hone their craft before getting on a WB sitcom or something. The theatre scene, and theatre people, are much more my bag than the TV and film people on the west coast. Here at least most people are attempting to make art, which, pretentious or not, is much more admirable to me than attempting to get famous.

3. This is a walking town. I love it. I’m so glad that I don’t need a car, that I don’t need to drive anywhere, and that this is not a hindrance to any activity in which I wish to participate (it’s actually quite helpful in most circumstances). If the distance is too long to walk in the time provided, or if I’m too tired, I have both an incredibly reliable subway system and bus system to take me wherever I need to go.

Which leads to this interesting subcategory, which is how wonderfully the streets are arranged. They’re numbered! In order! Which means that, except in the West Village (where 4th St. intersects 4th St. ugh.), it’s nearly impossible to get lost. Even if you’ve never been someplace before, there ain’t no problem. If they say “sixty-fifth and second” you don’t exactly need a Thomas Guide.

I love walking in this town. At my website you see that much of my writing touches on walking through the city. It’s such a visceral, wonderful, fantastically rewarding experience. The 10 and the 605 can bite me, I’ll take my shoes and the pavement any day.

4. When the aliens or the asteroid or the comet or the nukes or the fucking killer bees come to destroy Earth and the human race, I’m gonna get to experience it first-hand. Don’t say Hollywood never taught you anything.

5. I never have to leave this city. Hell, I never leave Manhattan, screw the other boroughs! They’ve managed to pack everything into this tiny island. There’s a major city all around. If I get sick of city, I can go to the giant park in the middle of it. I can climb trees and rocks, sit by a lake, go to the top of a castle, watch Shakespeare for free in an open auditorium. I can visit the zoo and see penguins (penguins!) living in the middle of Central Park. I can see the best theatre in the world, and the best movies because there’s an independent movie house on every corner where there isn’t a multiplex. I can go to some of the finest museums in the world, some of the finest restaurants in the world if I could afford them, but still find wonderful places to eat cheaply and still be well fed. New York City man.

Final Answer: Yes, all this does in fact make up for the fact that the Knicks play their games in this city and also claim it as theirs. Barely. Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick “I do suck most wondrous…” That has nothing to do with this. However, he also wrote “In order to truly enjoy warmth, some small part of you must be cold; for there is nothing in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.” Hating the Knicks and the Yankees just makes me realize how wonderful the rest of this city is. Plus, we got Spider-Man.

2.) You're the President of the United States of America. You have just been informed that we have been contacted by an alien spacecraft from Mars. The only sure fact that you know about the Martians is that everything that they know about us is what they've picked up by watching our network television. Do you try to repair the damage, or do you launch a pre-emptive strike?

How much do they know?

Surely the transmissions take some time to travel. I’m not willing to try to figure out the math now, but it’s probable that they’re not caught up with us. They might still be right in the middle of Family Ties and Growing Pains. And Reagan. Which means that, while they might think we’re massive, inane tools, at least they don’t have an absolute universal responsibility to bomb us out of existence.

If their technology is better and they, too, have seen the onrush of “reality” television and George W. Bush, I feel that, as The Leader Of The Free World (in caps!) it would be my responsibility to beg them to get me the hell off of this planet.

Then I’d call Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith, get ‘em out to Area 51, and tell ‘em to upload a virus into that shit! I have got to get me one of these!

3.) You're about to become an uncle, which probably gives you quite a bit to think about. How do you feel about children? Do you plan on having any? What if you can't secure breeding rights with Halle Berry; do you want to have kids, anyway?

I believe that children are our future; we must heal the world… make it a better place… for you and for me and the entire human race.

I really like children that are raised well, so I have no doubt that my soon-to-be nephew will be one rocking child. I look forward to hanging out with him and being that “crazy New York uncle with the blue hair!”

At ths point, the only thought I’ve given to having children of my own is that if it does ever happen, it is a looooooong way off. I am still young, still in school, and still totally incapable (in my own eyes) of caring for and training a new human being. I think stability is important to children, and I don’t know where I’m going to be from month to month. Eventually, this might change… but I don’t see it happening for a while.

This stability issue is a big one, because I’m not ready to make the sacrifice to be stable at this point. I want to travel, and the only thing worse than lugging a small child across the world is going anyway and leaving it at home. The nature of my chosen profession (theatre directing) means that much of my work will be done at night, that I’ll have to take jobs where I can find them. New York or Minneapolis or Chicago or San Diego, I’ll have to go where the job is. And even if I’m here working nights, well… it just doesn’t look like it’s reasonable at this point.

Do I think that I have traits which would make me a good father? Absolutely. But at this point, I have a lot of living I want to do before bringing offspring into this world. I’m interested to see what happens in the next twenty years… which gives me ample time to try to get Halle’s phone number.

4.) You've been given a briefcase containing a gun and 100 rounds of completely untraceable ammunition. How about it, champ? Is there anyone out there who's done something that you absolutely can't forgive?

This question surprised me, because even with all the time I’ve spent reading and discussing 100 Bullets I don’t believe I’ve ever thought of this.

This is a rough one. You find that, in the comic, many of the people were surprised by the picture they found in the briefcase. Though they may have known what terrible thing had happened in their lives, they didn’t know who was responsible (or even, sometimes, that anyone was responsible). The briefcase was enough to change their mind.

So if Graves handed me the case, I wonder whose picture would be in it.

Can I think of anyone? Not really someone in the context of Graves’ game, where it has to be up close and personal. Nobody’s killed my family, nobody’s switched seats with me and put me in jail for five years, nobody’s shot me up with heroine. I think at this point I’d politely decline, and then ask Graves what the hell happened in Atlantic City.

5.) You're majoring in theatre and creative writing. As a future homeless person, what city do you want to live in? Keep in mind that New York can get pretty cold during the winter, especially for a guy with no shoes.

Yes I am majoring in theatre, but that creative writing major is a vicious terrible lie. You’re spreading some mean internet rumors here. For the record, I’m minoring in Irish Studies, thank you.

I think I’ve solved the homeless problem though. I realize that my chosen field is also a chosen self-condemnation to the depths of poverty. However, NYU also has a business school. I guess I’ll just have to go hang out there and try to pick up some accountants.

I often wonder why homeless people would choose to live in New York, and then I realize that they probably don’t have much of a choice. So with my last available funds as I went broke and got kicked out of my house, I would find a way to get to Dublin. There, even in the coldness, the knowledge given to me by my 16 credits in Irish Studies would give the cultural and social knowledge necessary to find my way into the hearts of the Irish people and achieve wealth and power.

And if that doesn’t work, I can just go to University College and try to pick up some accountant.

The truly great thing about the education I’m receiving at Playwrights is that it’s not an ACTING SCHOOOL. I’m a directing major, but I’ve also studied acting, dramaturgy, stage management, all aspects of design, producing, self-producing, writing, script analysis… that means that even though all of these jobs are low paying, I’ll be able to do any of them. Were I just an acting student I would be placed at the mercy of others. Being able to function in all of these jobs gives me greater use in the theatre world, word?

I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen. I’m curious, myself.

This was really fun. Thank you, Mike.

If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, "Interview me." I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

Who will play? May I interview you? -- Originally from anoisblue

If you have any comments, click on "discussing" on the sidebar and share them. Thanks.

I just finished reading David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men." It is absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended.

I have the chance to read quite a bit this summer, as my job consists mainly of sitting around. I'd love to hear suggestions to add to the list. E-mail me or add to the discussion page!

Here I am, to share some amusing things.

On Hand Washing
While eating at The Spice Cafe (a local Thai restaurant) with my friend Owen, the following funny thing didst take place: when the waiter brought water to our table, the hand holding Owen's glass was gloved, while the hand holding my glass was bare. I asked Owen "Which of us should be more afraid?" And we laughed. Ha.

When our food was brought, the opposite hands were gloved: this waiter held my food in a gloved hand and Owen's food in a bare hand.

Still wondering what the hell was going on, I went to use the rest room. A sign hanging in the rest room explained it all. It said, very clearly, Employee Must Wash Hand.

On The Mix of Sports and Entertainment

A recent ad for the NBA finals had ad copy that nearly made me do a spit take. It was talking about, you know, the drama of the NBA, the hard-hitting action, blood and guts sort of stuff. It ended with the announcement "With a special halftime performance by Jewel!"

On Metal Gear Solid 2

After about a year and a half break, I beat the game today. Great control, great graphics, the worst story I've ever encountered in a game or film or book or child's imagination. "All your base are belong to us" makes more sense than this shit. I refer you to this Penny-Arcade comic which makes fun of it.

Sittin in the mornin sun… I’ll be sittin when the evening comes.

It drifts from somewhere on the opposite side of the street, tinny and compact, floating downward from the heights of its storied window. Finding the source would be possible, if the urge were there.

But what does it matter?

The song is playing somewhere, and knowing which window it came from wouldn’t change the song at all.

Watchin the ships roll in. Then I’ll watch em roll away again.

He hums in tempo with the music, though not always on pitch. Somehow it doesn’t matter here as it might in other places. The song doesn’t change with his mistakes. He finds some peace in that.

He taps his gnarled shoe in quiet rhythm, humming contentedly.

He likes being here, at this time of day, when the music drifts across to him from the open window. And maybe, he thinks to himself, that he doesn’t try to find the window because he doesn’t really want this song to be coming from anywhere.

He just wants it to be.

I’m just gonna sit at the dock of the bay…

He tries for a moment to sing, but it’s been too long. Even though he knows the words somewhere deep inside him, he can’t find them just yet.

Maybe he’ll try to sing again tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow.

He switches back to humming and catches the end of the chorus.

dock of the bay… wastin time…

He remembers, briefly, the smell of the ocean that he knew once, long ago.

But too much time, too much age has dulled that memory.

Now it is little more than a ghost of a memory—the knowledge that once he remembered that smell of the sea. That once he remembered the wooden dock and the swells underneath, lightly rocking the pier—and the cry of the gulls as they scavenged around him, and the salty breeze on his face...

He closes his eyes and tries to remember, but the image is gone as quickly as it came.

He’ll wait for it to come back again. He almost had it today.

Maybe he’ll remember tomorrow.

Look hard… Nothin’s gonna change. Everything still remains the same…

He hums contentedly and taps his gnarled shoe in quiet rhythm.

It’s a beautiful day today.

Looks like tomorrow might be beautiful, too.