Unchain My P.O. Box!

July 31, 2005

Ray Charles is getting a post office named after himself. I can hear the irate customers already (because what post office doesn’t have irate customers?)

Customer: You couldn’t find my package? What are you, blind?!

Postal Worker: Hit the road, Jack.

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those "Free Stress Test!" guys could’ve just stayed at home on the computer

July 31, 2005

A post on Craigslist reads:

existential vacuum

Alright kids, I got a hole in me that sex drugs and rock and roll can’t fill. First cult with a convincing pitch gets a new member. No Xtian.

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who says "hound dog" anymore?

July 30, 2005

A museum in Vienna is letting naked people in free. The Museum of Sex in New York is currently doing an exhibit on objectifying the male body. If they let naked men in free… hmmn.

On a serious note, this article on Salon — by a black woman author about white men defeminizing her — is simply heartbreaking. She writes “You have to give racism its props; it’s the only force proven to trump what a hound dog the average man is.”

Salon provides such a weird panopoly of news and commentary — it almost seems like it’s half detailed, investigative articles about the Iraq War and Karl Rove, and half articles about nannies and internet dating.

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comedians can be serious, although it really backfired that one time for Margaret Cho

July 29, 2005

In Tuesday’s Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column (requires login) accusing the media of passivity in reporting about genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush barely manages to get the word “Darfur” out of his mouth. Still, it seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush’s negligence, when my own beloved institution - the American media - has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.

He also wrote that genocide in Darfur hasn’t even received as much coverage by the American media the Armenian genocide did in 1915.

So, I went googling and found DarfurGenocide.org, which takes donations and uses them for advocacy, saying that “aid can only do so much” (i.e., airlifting bags of rice into a war zone is obviously a very temporary form of assistance). It seems cynical to say that the best way for regular people to try to abate a genocide across the world is to hire PR people, but Res Publica, which runs the site, seems to be as successful as anyone — they were behind getting Bush to declare Darfur a “genocide,” and they’re using PR to get Sudan advocates into the media.

I always speak cynically of an event that occurred annually at Dartmouth in which a number of Dartmouth students slept outside on the Green to show solidarity with the homeless (of which there are not that many in New Hampshire and Vermont, although there is certainly poverty and hunger; it’s simply very cold, the area is sparsely populated, and housing is relatively cheap compared to food and other expenses). Anyway, the students would demonstrate solidarity with the homeless by sleeping on the Green in their L.L. Bean sleeping bags. I may be misremembering some details, but I remember feeling so much distaste in seeing this event; you could certainly help more people by sending the cash value of an LL Bean sleeping bag to any sort of social service organization (or simply donating the sleeping bag), and then going out for pizza. Your “demonstration” doesn’t help anyone.

(I feel much the same way about, for instance, radical feminist performance art against Bush, which usually involves someone shaving off their pubic hair in combination with some “No More Bush!” rhetoric. I mean, if it has value for you, cool, but that’s the purest form of preaching to the converted. Middle America is likely to find such an action extremely unpersuasive, even if it should somehow happen to be televised).

So, I feel a bit unfortunately similar about the act of blogging on behalf of Darfur, but I suppose that’s why there’s a donation button, so our online navel-gazing can have some effect outside of our navel regions. I donated and I think the site and organization are eminently worthy of support.

When you “check out” with your donation (”add Darfur to your shopping cart!”), you get an unfortunately worded receipt that says “Donation to Darfur Genocide.” But don’t let that stop you.

Stop a Genocide

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I just want to be connected to Hyderabad

July 29, 2005

I purchased a rather embarassingly-titled book from a used book seller on Amazon. For purposes of this post, let’s just call the book “How to Cure Your Back Pimples.”

The book never arrived, probably because my post office never delivers packages to my house, so I have to pick them up at the post office, and I try to consolidate post office trips by waiting until I have other things to mail, and then I wait so long I miss packages.

So, I went to Amazon to report the nonarrival of my book, and was told that I need to contact the seller directly. I would really prefer to deal with an automated system, and/or customer service reps who just don’t care about anything, or are in India, or both.

So I just sent off the email. “Hi, I’m Jen, the one who ordered ‘How to Cure Your Back Pimples,’ and I didn’t receive it, and I really need it!”

Embarassing. I am embarassed by nearly everything.

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more on this topic later, perhaps

July 29, 2005

You know, I’m pro-choice and all, but a male comedian’s routine last week reminded me that I am a little creeped out (or at least turned off) by men who are too pro-choice. They’re like “Oh my God, a pregnant woman is the most horrifying thing I can imagine! God forbid I EVER have to take responsibility for another person! Back, woman, back!”

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Victorian pinup tarts

July 29, 2005

Molly Crabapple, illustrator of “Gibson Girls gone bad,” has t-shirts for sale as well as hotpants. This is me wearing one of the shirts (also in Leonard Cohen’s room at the Chelsea Hotel, as per previous posts). Those are my lips in the corner. Molly’s web store is located here.

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"It’s like you’re a zitty, chubby rock star." - Jessi Klein

July 29, 2005

Rachel Kramer Bussel has written for the Village Voice about the sex lives of comedians.

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the one-liner of the day

July 29, 2005

With John Roberts on the Supreme Court, abortion might become illegal soon. I’m not worried, though — there will still be alternatives, like the morning-after punch in the stomach.

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we’re molting, we’re molting!!!

July 29, 2005

You know I clean my bathtub nearly every day? It seems everyone is exfoliating the fuck out of themselves. At one point, I think there were three people (including me) living here all using St. Ives Apricot Scrub, which contains crushed walnut shells as a “natural” means of scrubbing off all your unnecessary skin cells.

When did the top layer of our skin become unaccceptable?

My tub is full of sand. And, presumably, skin.

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