A very special book review: a review of a book of shit: a shitreview

I don't read fiction too often, so when I do read it, I expect to be entertained. And in a way, I was entertained by this book. I was entertained by how horrible it is. Not in the "so bad, it's good" sense, but that it was refreshing. Sometimes it's refreshing witnessing something so terrible that you can acutely understand what's wrong with it, and "The Time Traveler's Wife" is just such a book.

There's lots of ways I can attack this book, written by AUDREY Nifennegger or something, but I'm gonna try to stay focused on the main problems with it. And before I begin, keep reminding yourself, as I did myself, that this is a book about motherfuckin' time travel. Going through time. Okay? Okay.

1) It looks like AUDREY didn't have a lot of "time" to think up good characters! The most important part of any story, fictional or otherwise, in books, TV, movies, puppet shows, etc., is the characters. If your characters are shit, people will leave because they can't relate to anyone or they don't imagine anyone actually acting like that. If you're reading or writing a story and finding yourself stopping and saying, "Why the fuck would he do that?" you're doing it wrong. Nobody apparently told AUDREY this, though.

So we have the main characters, the protagonist Clare Somethingorother, and her beau, Henry DeWhatever. The one thing that becomes clear as you read this yarn is that these two people are relentlessly, unshakably middle class. In every way, they are yuppies. They're yuppies to the bone. They are singularly focused on the lifestyle and the jobs and that townhouse, and they're not gonna let a little thing like spontaneous time travel get in the way.

Yuppies can be okay characters, though that well has been gone to a little too much lately in places like "Little Children," but you have to make them believable yuppies. It's a cliche that clueless middle class people are dealing with inner angst and turmoil, but that's infinitely more fun to deal with than these two shits who have no turmoil whatsoever.

"Bland" isn't sufficient to describe their ambitions. Clare takes Henry's (God I hate that name) time-traveling in stride, as if it were just a rash or something. Why? Oh by the way, she's a paper artist, like a certain book author. But does she do anything with her art? No. Do we get the sense that she actually enjoys what she does? I didn't.

Now I always hate to throw around the "Mary Sue" accusation, but I have to in this case. Her character only makes sense if she's a strict stand-in for the author. Nothing bad ever happens to her; either the problem is minor, or Hank overcomes it for her. Either way, she's pampered not just by her surroundings, but by the fucking author herself. Isn't that a great way to make a compelling character, by having all the challenges she faces inconsequential?

Hank is similar in his lack of ambition. He exists only to cater to her, which again makes sense if he's the kind of character that chases after comely paper artists-turned-authors. But try imagining Hank functioning on his own as an actual person. Even wit his time-traveling, he's bland as bland can be. His only desire in life seems to wait on his dumb author stand-in. More on him in a bit.

And yes, this is a book about time travel. Remember that!

As for the rest of the characters, there's hardly anything to say about them. All they do is flit about the periphery of the story, rarely meaningfully interacting with it. The daughter, Alba, strikes me as a braindead chump who similarly has no meaningful impact on the story.

Then there's Hank's father, who is like traumitized by the death of Hank's mom, but Hank somehow makes him see the BEAUTY IN LIFE or something. He's not important. Nobody else is. This book couldn't give a good goddamn about anyone other than Clare and Hank, and in that case I have to agree.

Big tip for your own book: Don't introduce a character you have no use for. So for the love of God, make my character do something cool, like save you from a pack of crazed Thais or something. Remember, I'm a righty!




2) Rule No. 1 about time-travel: Do not time-travel without rules! Time-travel is perhaps the most difficult type of story to tell. Most time-travel theories inherently make it impossible to make a 100% logical story, so it's very important that when you start on one, you have a set of ground rules, and you stick by them.

This ground has been covered before in many different ways. There's "Back to the Future," "Star Trek," "Terminator," "Evil Dead," "Quantum Leap," and "Timeline." Wait, don't use "Timeline," that one sucked. But yeah, we have plenty of templates to work with. In this case, AUDREY picks a mix of "Terminator" and "Quantum Leap." Okay, sounds good.

And then she actually has Hank start time-traveling. The most offensive "rule," and I quote that because she doesn't actually have any hard and fast rules, is that Hank cannot change the past. Or the future. Or whatever. Well, actually, that's never established. Hank thinks he can't change the past, but that's because he's a fucking lazy twat who doesn't ever put any effort into it, and then bitches that he can't save his mom or his girlfriend or the Twin Towers or anything.

But is that true? Well simple logic dictates that merely going back in time and interacting with people changes events. True, Hank's not able to make any really big changes in the past, but that's his fault. He balefully declares that he can't change anything, but in the movie, when he's a kid standing outside the wreck that just killed his mom, the future version of himself runs up to him and is like, "It's okay sonny! Nothing you can do!" But he's fully clothed, which means he had the time to materialize in the past, find clothes, then jog over to the road where the accident happens. Why doesn't he try running out into the street before the accident happens or something? Why doesn't he time-travel back a bit earlier and slash the car's tires? Since he apparently keeps traveling back to it, why doesn't he gather together a bunch of his time-travelling selves and try to from a human chain in front of the road to stop the car? Does he even try to do anything?

How about that time where he manipulates the lottery to win a cool million? That's pretty blatantly altering the past, isn't it? If I recognized that right away, didn't any other character think that and call him on it? How about did any fucking editor call AUDREY on it?

There's no coherent theory in the book about how any of this shit works, anyway. The "scientific" explanation is that every moment in time already happened, which sorta works, but is a really boring frame to work in for a story. Well don't worry, AUDREY doesn't do anything existential with it. And now we reach the real problem with this time-travelling gimmick.

I'm 100% positive that AUDREY thought up the romantic frame first, and then turned to time-travel as an afterthought. Nothing in the book makes sense with it in there. Characters do not react with awe and confusion at the notion of time-travel, they just accept it. Hank himself doesn't give a shit about it. Does he try to time-travel back and save people from death or tragedy? No. He does time-travel back and teach his younger self how to do shit like pick locks so he can find clothes and stuff, but why bother if he can't change the past? Oh fuck it let's stop harping on that point because it's clear that that's just a planetoid-sized plot hole.

Hank doesn't do shit with his retarded powers, other than get himself some chrono-sex. He doesn't try to prevent calamities (like the offensively shoehorned-in 9/11). He doesn't try to visit interesting time periods or unravel old mysteries, like if Kennedy was killed by more than one shooter. He doesn't try to see what the future looks like, and if there are any huge disasters he needs to prepare for. Nope, all he does is manipulate a loopy broad into sleeping with and then marrying him.

Now look, I don't care how super awesome this broad is, even I wouldn't waste my time (HYUCK) using my powers just to woo someone. It's fucking retarded. It's absurdly myopic and banal. If I could time-travel, even as haphazardly as Hank does, I'd explore the shit out of the world as much as I could, I suppose. I sure as hell would not cling to Hank's boring-ass life trajectory, that's for damn sure.

But then, wait a second, how the fuck does that even work? The whole maintaining a job and a steady social life and, hell, even his sanity? This is a person who involuntarily travels through time. At no point does he know where or when he will wind up, and he will always wind up buck naked. He usually travels back to traumatic events. And his psyche has not unraveled?

Hank is basically unfazed by his time-travel. At most he's annoyed by it, but he doesn't seem to suffer any personality or mental defects by it. I mean he's a bit of a perv and a moody piece of shit, but that's not because of the time-travel.

I don't know about you, but if I lived my life non-linearally, I'd probably go at least a little insane. I'm not sure how I'd go crazy or to what extent, but that's the job of AUDREY to figure out and, no, she's not up to that task. So Hank goes through life fully functional and coherent.

And that's not all. Not only does he have a social life and his psyche in tact, he has a job as a boring ol' librarian. How the fuck does that work? His time-travelling can happen at any time, without warning, and he can disappear for weeks on end. How does he have steady employment anywhere? Is he covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act? Does he have a really cool or aloof boss? HOW? HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK AT ALL? And how did he acquire the necessary skills to be a librarian? How did he acqure the necessary skills to do ANYTHING?

There are no answers to these questions. AUDREY doesn't give a shit, Hank's just that cool. He's a time-travelling librarian who's stuck in the dullest timeframe in the universe. Hank is like if someone took Superman and made him be Clark Kent 100% of the time, in abilities and attitude. What's the fucking point?

Perhaps the point is that Hank is some kind of metaphor? AUDREY claims that his whole situation is a metaphor for couples who are involuntarily separated by things like business or war or shit, but that's amazingly retarded because Hank does nothing but drop in on Clare. She knows that he'll keep winding up back with her, as he did on their wedding day, so there's no need to worry. And if she's not worried, why should we worry?

This book could have been 1,000% better if, instead of focusing on these two banal fucks, AUDREY thought up of an actual conflict to the story. Hey remember that word? Conflict? It's another really important part of storytelling because without it, you're wasting everyone's time. How about having Hank believe that he's actually a prophet sent from God, and that's why he time-travels, to warn people about stuff, or help people avoid bad things from happening. Or maybe Hank time-travels to the future when something really bad has happened, but he's not able to get enough information about it, so he has this sense of dread that this dumb middle-class life he's building with Clare may be completely smashed by this event that's just out of his view.

See? Just off the top of my mind I thought of two ways AUDREY could've actually put the time-travelling gimmick to use. And she could STILL have her romantic story with either one of them. But no, she plays it straighter than me (no-homo). So what's the conflict of the book then? It boils down to this: Hank has to make it home in time for supper. Will his wacky time-travelling ability get in the way? Turn the page and find out!!

2b) Oh by the way, don't show this story to Focus on the Family A quick side-note: Since Hank's condition is apparently genetic, that means that it's passed onto his kids. Most of them don't make it through gestation, though, because they literally time-travelled out of the womb. Yup. This book as chrono abortions.

Aside from being gross and pointless, it's a stupid plot point. It doesn't add anything but faux drama and, surprise surprise, the miscarriages aren't handled with any gravity by the story. I'm not even sure how it works with time-travelling fetuses; did his parents also have a lot of miscarriages? I don't know if the book addressed that but I have a feeling it didn't.

At any rate, this little point doesn't even fit in with the rest of the narrative. It turns out that time-travel can be induced by stress (sometimes, sometimes not, it doesn't really matter). So the previous chrono-abortions were caused by, I guess, stress or something. In order to solve this, Clare decides that, with Alba, she's going to have a completely stress-free gestation. Oh okay, easy enough to just say, "For the next nine months, nothing even remotely emotionally stressful's gonna happen to me!" And guess what, it works!! apparently. Are you really surprised? Once again, the middle-classness of the book rears its ugly head.

And yes, I know what you're thinking. If it's stress that causes the time-travel, shouldn't her stupid little anti-stress shell shatter the moment the baby is actually born? And is slapped just to make sure it starts crying? Oh yeah never mind that.

Hey AUDREY, next time just make it so that the condition is like some other genetic conditions and just have it manifest itself later on in life or something. Oh wait, that would entail actually knowing a fucking damn about anything.

Here's another little tip: Always research what you write. Not only will you not sound like a retard, it'll actually open up new and perhaps better ways to work with the plot!


3) Apparently time-travel is a pre-existing condition Okay so you have time-travel. There are two ways you can handle it: You can keep it on the down-low (no, not that down-low), maybe don't tell anyone about it, try to work it out in the shadows lest you draw anyone into your insane causality-defying vortex.

But what if you don't like it, and you're desperate to stop it? Or at least get more control over it? You have to consult someone, so who do you turn to? If you said "A doctor," congratufuckinglations: You're dumb. You are dumb dumb stupid dumb idiotic. You are Henry DeTamble. Wow, that really is an awful name.

Hey let's think about this a second. You have a condition that is unlike anything else in human history. It's not like you have a rash or polyps or a tumor. You TRAVEL THROUGH FUCKING TIME. Clearly that is not a medical problem but a scientific one. It's like if I had a condition that caused me to shrink to the size of an atom. I don't care if it's caused by bad genes or the sniffles, that is clearly not within the normal parameters of a mere illness.

But no, Hank goes to see a geneticist. Why he goes to see a geneticist is beyond me, but yeah, the doctor confirms that his condition is indeed genetic. And... and? So what?? HE TRAVELS THROUGH TIME!

This is once again the book's middle-class tone seeping in and fucking up everything it encounters. Hank is so bereft of imagination that he doesn't think to consult, oh, I dunno, a scientist? If I were in his shoes, I'd call up DARPA or CERN or Stephen Hawking. I would not fuck around with my GP, even though he's an okay guy.

And this braindead doctor doesn't think to consult any scientists either. If I were him, I'd be like, "Hey, Dr. Hawking, I got this guy in my office who says he can time-travel. Now I don't know if he actually can, but I've seen him disappear into air. I am not insane. No, really, you have to check this guy out. You better hurry, though. He's reading a Newsweek but I think he's losing interest. So come and check him out."

Instead, this doc comes up with a cute name for it (Time displacement disorder. Oh cool, you have TDD? I have Involuntary Firing Lasers Out of My Eyes Syndrome!!) and, I dunno, prescribes downers or something? Good work, doc, you tackled the issue of time-travel with such stunning banality, I didn't think it was possible.

To AUDREY, time-travel is not a serious issue to be explored in the framework of two people trying to have a relationship. No, it's a nuisance, addressed with some aspirin and staying away from carbs. It's a gimmick, something used to lure the suckers in. So then, if the book isn't really about time-travel, I guess it's about the romance, right? Right?

4) You're a creep and you should stay away from me. Okay okay, man, so the story sucks. The characters suck. The writing is bad and everything. But where this book succeeds is its ROMANCE. It's a lovely story how they perservere over everything! Why can't you just feel this book with your heart??

Well first of all, I have a dark heart. A black heart, even, made of pure coal. I am not moved even by the cutest baby. But even beyond that, in my cold robot-like logic, I can see that this romantic story is a bunch of shit and shouldn't impress even the sappiest of women. AND YET...

Okay let's start at this romance's beginning. So Hank time-travels back to when Clare was a little girl. Why he does this in the first place goes unexplained because AUDREY doesn't understand how time-travel works, but never mind. So Clare's very first interaction with Hank is him being stark naked in a bush in a field she's randomly picknicking in.

Hold up. If you knew nothing about this scene other than what you could see with your own eyes, would this look like the start of a romantic story, or a horror story?

Yeah look, I don't think a 36-year-old man sitting naked in the bushes stalking a six-year-old is the best way to kick this relationship off. But it just gets worse. When Clare hears him in the bushes, she not only approaches him (even after he's announced that he's naked), she hands him a blanket to cover himself in. And then she stays around to listen to him talk.

Is any of this sinking in? THIS IS FUCKING WEIRD AND A LITTLE BIT CREEPY. I understand that little kids tend not to know much about anything, but I'm pretty sure they understand when someone is acting weird and I'd think they'd be more inclined to run away rather than deal with this strange naked man sitting in a bush claiming he's a fucking time-traveller. The mere fact that young Clare stays around at all is a testament to how clueless AUDREY is, or perhaps how insane she is.

Maybe when the editors were reading this, they were like, "Oh I see, this is some kind of parody. I mean, it's not a good parody, but she's not serious with this story, right? Yeah okay, we can publish this then." And then afterwards they were quietly alarmed to see that, no, she was serious. She was a serious person writing a serious book about a naked time-traveller hitting on a kid with such wonderfully creepy romantic sentiments like "Oh don't worry kid, we'll be married! So this is completely legal!!"

The logic Hank uses to even think of doing this is literally no different than if some Indian guy in an arranged marriage with a six-year-old showed up naked at her house for some preliminary flirting. And if the parents protest, he's all like, "Shit, we're gonna be married in like 10 years so what's the problem!!"

And that's not all!! So in order to prove that he's a time-traveller, he tells li'l Clare the exact times and locations of when he'll next appear. So we have a naked guy telling a kid the times and places where he'll appear next, oh and please bring clothes because he's gonna be naked those times too. Is any of this shit sinking in?

This is not romantic. I refuse to believe anyone is so stupid that they read this and were thinking, "Awwww! What A SWEETIE!!!!" How could that be? Who thinks this? WHO? ANSWER ME. I DEMAND ANSWERS.

Maybe in the hands of a very skilled author, this situation could be rendered in a plausibly romantic way. Maybe. But AUDREY isn't up to the task. The situation is icky beyond words. It's not played up for laughs, its absurdity is not realized by any character at any time. This is played straight as a legitimately romantic situation.

Even beyond that, not only is Clare not repulsed by this, she's intrigued by it. She sticks with Hank even though their interactions are based solely on him randomly dropping in with not explanation as to where the fuck he came from and what he's doing there. But he's so interesting because he time-travels! Never fucking mind that he doesn't go anywhere interesting in his travels. He can't tell her what it's like to see World War II happen, or that he watched the Mona Lisa be painted, or that he sailed with Columbus. No, it's as if he has an interstellar starship, but he only goes to Sheboygan.

So what does he really have to offer her? What part of his personality is so interesting? Is he funny? Is he resilient? Is he creative? What? The only thing we can say is that he has a rockin' bod, I guess.

Maybe I'm wrong to expect the romance in a romance novel to be not shallow. I don't read these books often at all, so I guess there's a little bullshit that goes with the territory. That doesn't mean that this isn't crap, though, and it's crap of the rankest order.

There are many other parts of this book that are just trash, but I'm afraid that going over them would just bring us back, like a wayward time-traveller, to the beginning, which is that this is a book about a guy who motherfucking time-travels, and nothing remotely interesting happens. It's a tour-de-force of boredom, 500+ pages of nothing.

There's a lot of things wrong with AUDREY's manuscript, but the chief problem is a complete lack of imagination. That this book was successful anyway baffles me.

Maybe the populace is so devoid of creativity that a book like this sells. I'm not sure. I'm not the one this book is marketed to, though. I sincerely hope that the world of fiction has much more to offer than this, but somehow I really doubt it. I feel it in my bones.

So in conclusion, and I really hate to have to admit this, but I give you credit. You are right. This "books" does indeed "blows""."




















""

I'm afraid I can't help it

I love being paranoid, which is insane (literally!) because paranoia causes all kinds of difficulties in one's life. In extrme forms, it is completely debilitating, but I'm not demented enough for that yet.

The world of psychology has an extensive definition of what paranoia is, but as typical with these kinds of things, it's probably way too general and vague to be particularly useful. So I'll stick with the popular definition: paranoia is the fear that everyone is out to get you.

Yes, everyone. Everyone and everything is a potential threat. Not a real threat per se, but it's there, like an animal, stalking you. Is it just watching? Or will it pounce?

Our caveman, bonobo and dinosaur ancestors were paranoid. You have to be if you're going to survive in the mean streets of the Serengeti. It's a completely natural, if unpleasant, way of being. And I think everyone on the planet is paranoid to some level. The ones who ain't tend to be dead.

"But, dude, why do you like being paranoid?" you're asking in between handfuls of pizza rolls. It's not so much being paranoid that's cool, it's being aware of it. I'm a firm believer that every last human being has some kind of mental defficiency, no matter how slight. Our brains are the most complex machine in existence, so something is bound to be fucked up in there.

The key to survival is not being the strongest, but being the most aware of weakness so as to avoid getting nailed. In the wild, animals like rabbits and mealworms can't do a whole lot to survive a confrontation with something bigger, except for mealworms that're smart enough to tote assault rifles. And brother, you don't want to trip over those guys. So in order to survive, you have to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you will get stomped, either by nature or general misfortune or other members of the species.

Our species evolved because it figured out what weaknesses it had and figured out how to remedy them. It also had a bunch of biological advantages but I barely got past biology so we're just gonna skip that.

Where is this retarded post going, you're asking? The inspiration came from this article from The Atlantic. It's pretty long and you'll probably lose interest after the first paragraph because you're young and you think you're unstoppable. This is why you need to learn how to get in touch with your paranoia and know when to turn it on and when to turn it off.

To wit, here's the crux of the article:

If it persists much longer, this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults—and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men—and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years.

This is not unprecedented at all. It's a simple fact that when poverty rises, desperation rises. And when desperation rises, very bad things happen.

I'm not usually a fan of breaking down groups of people into "generations," because the experiences people have across demographics tend to be vastly different. It's only appropriate to do so, I think, when there's a shared experience across the population, like World War II, the last time I think you can conclusively lump a generation together (into the self-serving "Greatest Generation," in this case). I never bought "Generation X" or "Generation Y" or "Generation Pepsi." Definitely not Pepsi. Fuck any drink that is carbonated WHY DOES MY TONGUE FEEL LIKE IT'S BURNIN

I think we're going to head into a new unified generation, this time called "Generation Fucked," or "Gen FU." What's happening in the world right now is not different, but it is huge. It's all encompassing. It's so huge that nobody is going to be able to dodge this draft or avoid rationing, except for the filthy rich maybe. It's very hard for the uneducated to see in detail what the problems are. Even I have to rely on reading abstract news, not technically comprehending what is happening.

But there is a growing sense, and even the normally happy-go-lucky media can't ignore it, that something is critically wrong and nobody is going to stop it. Europe itself is facing a financial cataclysm that could potentially unravel all the political progress it made since the fall of the Soviet Union.

It's also tempting to throw in global climate change and peak oil into the mix, but those are two things that are largely out of everyone's control. And yes I realize the sheer irony of that statement. But the financial crisis is easily the most fixable thing, and it won't be fixed. It just won't. The people in charge of fixing it are instead using it to enrich themselves, and as the past 10 years have proven definitively, there is only so many buckazoids to go around.

The closest thing to a solution we have is just finger-pointing. "It's liberals fault." "No, asshole, it's Bush's fault." "You're all wrong, Goldman Sachs did it!" "Um excuse me, hello guys? The Illuminati?" And so on...

The whole situation reminds me of that episode of "The Simpsons," where Bart takes on Australia... AND WINS. The scene in particular is when the Australians, having successfully driven the Simpsons out, look around and realize that the bullfrog brought in by Bart has multiplied and is destroying the ecosystem, eating the shit out of all of Australia's crops. We're coming upon the realization that while we were distracted by something frivolous, like dumbass "service economy" jobs, or terrorism, or the Lakers, something was busily undermining us all along. And now we can just look around helplessly while creepy music plays and the Simpsons fly off and oh look a koala is hiding on the plane so Springfield is gonna get it too.

Incidentally the current predicament also reminds me of "Marge vs. the Monorail" but I've met my "Simpsons" quota for the week, so shut up.

Back to my paranoia: It's only been in recent years that I've come to terms with it. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on my mood and can, even if I can't control it, be aware of what's happening and not take everything too seriously. But I also like that it gives me a perception into everything around me, that there is danger lurking around every corner. Maybe there really isn't, but it's better to go in suspicious at first and build up trust rather than being a gullible simp.

My impression is that paranoia is the most common mental messup in the population. But that doesn't mean that everyone has the same insight into shit that I think I do. A lot of people don't seem to understand that a great deal of their fears, even if they are appropriate, are based on bullshit, like dogmatic fears or superstition or plain ol' irrationality. This is problematic because then those people turn into shut-ins or Tea Partiers or dumbass liberals. Once you think you know the score, you look up and see that someone homered off of you and now you don't know the score and now the coach is making you run a lap around the diamond until you learn to PAY ATTENTION TO THE GAME.

I sincerely believe that the entire planet is heading towards a period of unprecedented danger. Unprecedented because unlike global (man-caused) catastrophes of old, we possess the tools to do damage far greater than Genghis or Tamerlane even dreamt of. And those guys knew how to build a really gnarly mountain of skulls. Imagine people with the personalities of those two at the controls of some of the toys lying around today... Do you even really need to?

Because of this, I'm not interested in curing my paranoia or getting over it or suppressing it. I don't think that's even really possible, anyhow. I'm going to embrace it and hold onto it and use it, and as long as I stay sharp *snap* and on the edge *snap* where I need to be, I think I'll be able to prevent it from getting the best of me.

That's the plan at least. Now you see why this may all be for naught.

Here's a proverb: Your proverb sucks

"Everybody likes a good saying." Curt Cobain said that shortly before committing suicide. Trust me, I was there. And it's true. A good saying is pithy, informative, and it's something you can throw in a bully's face shortly before he punches your teeth out.

But as everything has its opposite, there are also terrible sayings. And I'm not talking about sayings that are unwieldy, I mean sayings that just don't make any fucking sense. You can tell a proverb is stupid if you're more confused after saying it than before.

Why don't we run over some right now so that you never, ever use them. If you do use them, I will track you down and slap you once for each offense. And it won't be hard because I'm already looking at you AS WE SPEAK.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Never understood this one, ever, but people say it to mean that you shouldn't look at a gift because... what? Here's how wikiquotes explains it: "Do not unappreciatively question a gift or handout too closely."

First of all, I'm not sure why you shouldn't look at a gift "too closely." If someone gives me a blender, why shouldn't I stick my hand in it to make sure it's not safe? What if it isn't safe? Then I could accidentally chop up my hand, and that'd be stupid.

I don't get this sentence's literal meaning, either. What's wrong with looking at a gift horse in the mouth? Wikiquotes says that people would examine a horse's gums to see if it was an old, broke-ass piece of crap horse. Well, that sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? That horse's gingiva is pretty goddamned important, wouldn't you say?

If your proverb tells you do the exact opposite of something that you really should do, whether it's sticking your hand in a horse or checking a blender's teeth, then your proverb is unbelievably retarded.

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

Here's another senseless one, also incidentally related to horses. If you guessed this was referring to the Trojan Horse (ironically a Greek horse), congrats, you watched Jeopardy! on March 11, 2006. Don't get too cocky, though, because I would fuck you up in Jeopardy! and you know it.

Yes, Virgil coined this beauty after watching the Greeks crack a Troja's skull at Troy. Unlike the previous saying, this one is pretty straightfoward: Greeks are not to be trusted because they hide people in horses. But there are more than a few things wrong with this. I will list two:

1) It's racist. I know the Greeks are smelly and shit, but this is too racist even for me. And no, if you get an honorary "Πέρασμα γειτονιάς," that doesn't entitle you to use it, either. The stereotype of Greeks constantly trying to jump out and kill everyone they give a gift to is wrong, anyway. That's more of a Hungarian thing. So let's stop crossing the street when we see a Greek carrying anything but souvlaki.

2) It's old. The Trojan War was like a hundred years ago, I think it's time we just dropped it. You don't see the Germans still getting shit for being Nazis, right? How'd you like it if everyone kept bringing up that one time you couldn't find the fucking Meadowbrook? It's only RIGHT OFF THE FUCKING ROAD ONCE YOU GO OVER THE BRIDGE.

3) It's dumb. Whoever decided that taking a giant horse from an enemy army was a good idea was mega stupid. What the hell were the Trojans thinking? "Oh, this giant wooden horse will go so well with our giant wooden skunk in our giant wooden menagerie!!!" If you're dumb enough to take a giant wooden horse, and NOT immediately convert it into a giant killer horse robot, you deserve to get punked by like five Greeks. Either way, the only reason this is even an idiom is because the Trojans are dumb, and that's not the problem of the Greeks.

So why don't we bury the hatchet once and for all.

"A watched pot never boils."

Meaning: If you consciously wait for something, it seems to take longer. Which is entirely true, but this is the wrong way to state it. How do I know? I've watched plenty of pots in my life, and this is NOT TRUE. They DO boil, even if they seem to take longer.

So you say I'm nitpicking, right? But that's not the point. The real point is that you shouldn't stare at pots waiting to boil, because that's rude. That's really rude. That's why they take longer to boil, you're putting pressure on them. It's the same reason why you don't stare at clocks. It annoys them. Then they pull that bullshit where the minute hand lurches backwards for a second before going forward. Goddamn that bullshit.

Most of all, you shouldn't watch other people, waiting for them to boil. It takes a really long time for a person to start boiling in the first place. Staring at them just makes it worse. I know it's tempting, when you're staring at someone through a window, possibly when they're overseas in an apartment in Poland or some-- I MEAN, uh... I think we're done with this one.

"Don't change horses mid-stream."

If you hear this one, it's probably election season. Yes, don't change your horse if you're in mid-stream or else AL QAEDA WINS.

This is supposed to mean that you shouldn't change... um, something... when you're in the middle of doing something else. It's pretty vague. It's also kinda stupid because what's the problem with changing a horse mid-stream? You're in a stream, right? So what're you afraid of? Getting your ankles wet? It's a stream! What's wrong with the stream, it's made of lava? Then how can you ride a horse through it?

I can understand not changing horses if you're in the middle of a river, or quicksand, or a pit full of irate midgets or something, but it's just water, the thing that gives us life!! And what if you absolutely HAD to change horses? Like the one you were one was on fire, or it was mad at you and threatening to buck you off and take the kids with it to Tampa, or it's not actually a horse but two guys in a horse costume? There are plenty of reasons to change horses, even in mid-stream, thus rendering this idiom pretty idiotic. Ah ah ah ah ah! :is kicked in the face by a horse:

"An empty vessel makes the most noise."

You ask me how I can tell an idiom was coined by a drunk person? Here you go: It just makes no fucking sense when you think about it beyond one second.

So picture this: You have a vessel. Any vessel will do. Let's say it's a bottle. The bottle is empty. So, what happens when you shake it?

If you said it makes a noise, congrats, you should be killed for being too stupid to live. IF THE VESSEL IS EMPTY, WHAT IS INSIDE IT THAT WOULD MAKE NOISE? AIR? DARK MATTER? ANGELS? And don't tell me that the air going over the lip would make noise. There's a cap on the bottle. YOU GOT NOTHING.

The idea of course is that people who talk a lot have nothing going on inside them, but there are plenty of cooler ways of saying that (my personal favorite is "Scared dogs bark the loudest." Hell yeah). But this one goes over like Pinocchio starting up with "I've Got No Strings (And I Must Scream)." But yeah, this one is pretty goddamn stupid and I hope whoever coined it had a very long, very unsatisfying cry over it.

Well that was today's journey into idioms. There are more of them out there but I don't want to overwhelm you. So, as President George Washington said in his inaugural address, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, and seven years ago." - Alec Baldwin.

This is what you'll be like in two years, tops

This look in the mirror is sponsored by ME. Have you driven a ME lately?

I gotta say about this superbowl thing

Yeah, everybody's happy about the Saints winning. They beat Peyton Manning. They were the underdogs because Vegas was luring in suckers (it's called a suckers bet for a reason, folks). A bunch of people ate things. It was fun and shit.

Now that the beer is warm, the pizza's cold, and other shit has happened, everyone has to digest what happened. And what happened was that NAWLSINS IS BACK. NAWLINS. ONCE DESTROYED, WE BACK AND WE BETTER THAN

Okay I can't even complete the charade, it's that annoying. Let's go over this, point by point. Why? Because you're reading this and I'm writing this and if you don't like it, there's the door.

1) The game sucked. It just did. Indy's defense was thwarted by this new strategy called the "slant pass," which apparently nobody ever saw before. So they were defenseless against it. I guess maybe when you're a rookie coach, you have all your NFL experience reset, and you're like a baby out there just discovering the world. So you're beaten by a really simple strategy thrown at you again and again because you're not countering it.

Everyone was predicting an offensive blowout, and we didn't really get it. I'm not quite sure how that happened. Offensive blowouts in themselves aren't interesting, but what we got was just a general feeling that everyone was wasting time out there until the fourth quarter. It was like an unremarkable regular-season game. Oh well who cares?

2) Nobody has any fucking personality. One of the fun things about sports is watching the people play, and watching the people act when they're not playing. It creates intrigue, because it shows that the people playing the game aren't robots and shit. They're actual people with personalities. Hopefully interesting personalities.

But not this time. Who's the star of this game? Well Peyton Manning yeah, but Peyton is basically Johnny Unitas reborn. He is an automaton designed solely for playing football. When he's not doing football-related activities, he's mothballed until needed again. I know he's in commercials and shit and acts kinda like a goof, but that only works because it works against his assumed personality of being kind of a drone. Like how Al Gore looks when he's joking around when everyone expects him to be a robot. Or something.

Drew Brees isn't any better. He's Mr. Republican. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. You were a Republican once, and you wrote for our newspaper. I will never let you live that down no matter what happens. But the problem is 1) he's REALLY Republican. Like, he unironically thinks Bush did a good job. George W., not Reggie, you stupid idiot. 2) he doesn't give a shit about anything, probably. He's probably looking forward to retirement, where he plays golf or something.

So who's left? Reggie Bush has already been exposed as being mediocre. They tried to play up Pierre Garcon because he's Haitian, and the country blew up recently, but that didn't fly. I think football in general has this problem because there are so many players and they all play with masks and shit, so it's hard to identify them on the field. That's just my guess, though. It's hard to stand out when you're one of 22 people doing mostly the same shit.

If you're a Hofstra alum, and I know you are, you might be aware that New Orleans' Marques Colston was a Hofstra grad. He was in our now-defunct football program. Some people are trying to act like this is cool, as if they personally know Colston. That's a pretty stupid thing to say/do.

The week before the Super Bowl is supposed to be the time where everyone goofs off and does crazy media shit, but nothing happened this week, so there were no stories to tell or anything. Oh wait, there was one...

3) Hi, this is Ray Nagin. No, not me, the photo. That one right there, of the guy. That's Ray Nagin, I guess I should say. He used to be mayor of New Orleans before last night, when some guy named Lan Drew won or something.

Why do I bring Nagin up? He was mayor when New Orleans was nearly literally wiped off the face of the planet. Remember that? Yeah, that came up.

Hurricane Katrina should've been a wake-up call that this country can't get its shit together for anything serious. But of course when the city drowned (and you wrote about it too, wow this shit is really coming together huh?) everyone just blamed it on the black guy and tried to sweep it under the rug. Well it didn't work. Everyone saw how pathetic the response was and how disastrous it was.

So the story became, how do we fix this city? How do we help the people who were displaced? Well that was the story for a while. After a couple of months when everyone was distracted by something stupid, then people just pretended that nothing happened. It was football season, and the Saints beat the Falcons, and that meant the city was back.

But no, it wasn't "back." I mean, it was functional. Some parts of it were, that weren't ruined, they were functional. And the city could sustain a football team and stuff, and that meant the city was back to normal. Except it was missing like 300,000 people at the time, which was a significant portion of the city. But don't worry, the Saints Did A Thing and now all is well.

Well now all is REALLY well because they Won A Game. That's even better. When they were showing "the city" celebrating the victory, you'd be hard pressed to find a single black person in the crowd. Y'know, the people most affected by the hurricane? Yeah don't worry the city is fine, look the other way.

Why am I complaining about this? Because it's stupid. It's dumb and it actually hurts people because it provides an excuse to keep gutting what's left of the city and replacing it with bullshit. Not that I care what happens to New Orleans proper, but don't come up to me acting like what happened was a tragedy, and then act like nothing's wrong because a team comprised of rich, spoiled mercenaries won a game. If you showed me the Saints roster and showed me that more than 20% of it lived in New Orleans proper, I'd be really, truly shocked. These people are as New Orleans as the 2009 Yankees were New York. Hell, even less so.

I don't like being guilt tripped by people who don't give a shit, so don't take this as a sign that you should feel guilty. Just relax and read this shit. My point is that the city is still a wreck and nobody honestly gives a shit. If you lived in New Orleans, are you really supposed to be happy? Maybe if you're rich and white and lived in the older parts of the city that better withstood the hurricane, I guess it's cool.

Let's check out the kind of people who "care" about New Orleans. This was actually said about someone who actually represents the state said about the hurricane and its effects on people:

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Yeah, that clean-up came at the cost of thousands of lives lost and thousands more severely disrupted, if not ruined. The homeless rate in the city is higher than any other in the country, including fucktowns like Detroit. Many of the buildings affected are still in disrepair and nobody has any clue what to do with them long-term or what to do with the people who lived in them. They're just kinda in a holding pattern, hoping everyone gets bored and walks away or something. Just don't look at the hobos, okay? No, no Clancy don't reach into your fucking pocket. Just stop.

Back to Nagin for a second: When the hurricane passed and people were wondering what the hell was gonna become of the city, Nagin was like, "Don't worry. This city will be a chocolate city. We'll get everyone back and we'll be back better than ever. Now watch this drive."

I dunno about the last part, but the first part pissed off a lot of (white) people because they thought, "Chocolate city? Like only blacks are allowed?" Well no. If you fucking read about the history of New Orleans, you'd see that it was a predominantly black town. And now it's not really predominantly black, because most of the black residents were forced out. They were scattered around the country, to hellholes like Oklahoma. So you can see already that it's still tough being a black dude in this country when people think that sending you to Oklahoma, for any reason whatsoever, is "humane."

Nagin was talking about the city's identity. The city's culture has been mostly formed by blacks and creoles and other non-white peoples. It's a bit uncomfortable to admit if you're a fucking retard and care about things like that, but it's true. You know that thing New Orleans is really famous for? Jazz? Yeah, that was a black thing. Black people invented it and shit. White people actually were offended by jazz at first and considered it jiggaboo music and shit like that. It actually offended their racial sensibilities.

New Orleans was formed by its ordinary citizens. That's how cities are formed. Boston wasn't formed by a bunch of fucking WASPy shitlickers going to Red Sox and Patriots games, it was formed by ordinary colonials, and then later Irish immigrants, with a sprinkling of Italians. Not exactly the exalted members of society. New York was the same way, except throw in more Italians, more blacks, more Hispanics, more Jews and more Albanians. New York isn't just Wall Street and Times Square. If you live in either city, though, you already know that. So you'd probably be offended if someone just considered New York to be Manhattan, and everything else was irrelevant.

Actually, it'd be worse if people considered New York to only be Manhattan, and then went on to say that shit that came from Harlem, or Brooklyn or the Bronx to also be New York. Well no, that's not how metropolitan areas work. They're very complicated entities that can't be broken down into a chucklefuck stereotype, no matter how much fun we get portraying all New Yorkers as irritated Brooklynese Italians or all Bostonians are retarded Irish drunks. Although to be fair, most Bostonians are trash so it doesn't really feel so bad stereotyping them.

So everyone is trying to act like New Orleans is going through some kind of catharsis with this Super Bowl? Like all the city's white people are now happy and shit, and all the problems are solved? It doesn't take a rocket brain surgeonist to see that's not the case, but it's pretty annoying to see ad people trying to portray this as anything other than a bunch of rich people having at it at a kid's game where nobody really gives a fuck who wins. Even Peyton couldn't have been bothered by the outcome. So why should anyone else care? For fuck's sake.

Here's a really neat parallel: When 9/11 happened, and the Yankees were in the World Series, how often did we have to hear how New York NEEDED them to win as like some kind of fucking pick-me-up? How childish do you have to be to even actually say that out loud? Like my friend Joe (actual person) is supposed to feel glad his dad was vaporized, because the Yankees won? And what does that make the Diamondbacks? Like they're supposed to be al Qaeda or some shit? Are we supposed to just like the Yankees because A Bad Thing happened to New York? Even I wasn't standing for that shit.

Of course the Yankees lost and nobody said this was a tragedy for New York, even though a victory would be redemptive or some shit. I think because nobody was so depraved that they would actually consider a team losing a game to be manifestly bad for a city to endure, a city that suffered a severe terrorist attack. So why are we supposed to feel the same way for New Orleans?

I could go on but I think I've made my point. New Orleans will still be a wreck tomorrow morning, and the people affected most by Katrina will still be swept under the rug. But yeah, congrats City With Severe Problems, you won the Super Bowl. Where are you gonna go next?

OKLAHOMA!!!!!!