Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Is it true that Live Nude Gods, might have a reading or a production in the Millville area sometime in early 2004?
- Interested Theatre-goer
Dear Interested,
  That depends on a few things: 1) When she finishes it. 2) If we can find a venue. 3) Which of us wants to direct it most. 4) The employment situation. 5) Whether or not she realizes I'm a hack and leaves me for someone talented.
  I'll keep you posted.

Wait a minute,
  You just answered one, though. Remember?
- Still Skeptical
Dear Still,
  Huh. How about that shit. Maybe I am after all.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Is it true that you're going to be answering new questions one of these decades?
- Skeptical
Dear Skeptical,
  Nope. Sorry.

Birthdays are cool.
  Especially when you have a girlfriend as wonderful as mine. I'll freely admit that I'm harder than an extremely hard thing to shop for. I can never think of anything when asked what I want for birthday or Christmas gifts. I don't place a whole lot of emphasis on my wardrobe, beyond trying to coordinate shades of black, and I don't have any hobbies that lend themselves easily to accessorizing. Add that to a general lack of enthusiasm about the importance of my birth, and I tend to make a pretty lame-ass birthday boy.
  Amy, though, doesn't let any of that faze her. She works very, very hard to make my birthday a good thing. She's taking me to New Hope next weekend, and she still got me presents for the actual day of. A really cool book that I asked for, and another really cool book that I didn't.
  She also found this really cool thing online. If you don't feel like clicking, it's a Personal Library Kit. It comes with the pocket sleeves and insert cards that you find in library books, along with a date stamp and ink pad. It even has the stickers you put on reference books that aren't supposed to be checked out.
  It doesn't take knowing me very long to realize how retentive I am about my books. I hoard paperback copies of books that I especially like to loan out, so that my personal reading copies won't get bent or smudged or molested by urine-soaked vagrants. I've loaned out books, and brought them up to the loanee every single time we communicated until they were returned. This kit is simultaneously perfect for me, and something I never would have thought of. I don't know how Amy found it, but my theory is that she's a wonderful, thoughtful girl, who has a knack for finding people great gifts. Every time I open a package from her, I feel like the bar for good presents is raised a little higher. I am so determined to get her good stuff for Christmas, I'm actually shopping for things to supplement the usual books. It's a whole new world of gift-giving for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

Spoiler-free gloating.
  Sometimes, working in book retail can be cool. For instance, I'm reading this before you are. I'm not going to give you any spoilers, because I'd probably get sued and lose my job. In fact, it's probably not even cool that I'm reading it, but I like to live close enough to see the edge on a clear afternoon.

You know what's awful?
  My birthday is tomorrow (10/30). For a moment, I honestly could not remember how old I'm going to be. I had to resort to the actual subtraction. This is a disturbing state of affairs, and I'm not sure if it's attributable to honest absent-mindedness, or some kind of subconscious denial. Either way, it's disconcerting.
  Thought for the day: Cellphones make us stupid. (Before you get all huffy, Huffy McHufferton, I said us. I too have one of these little demon boxes, and it's slowly eroding my cognitive functions.)
  Now, stay with me here. This isn't some kind of rant about how rude it is to sustain a cellphone conversation while conducting a retail transaction. That burns my ass, but that's annoyance. No, I'm talking about a genuinely anxious feeling that overuse of a modern convenience is making me noticeably dumber.
  My basic fear is that having access to otherwise unavailable information is allowing people to cede reasoning in favor of instant communication. Consider this scenario. You go to the video store to rent a romantic comedy for your girlfriend, because you're a sweet guy, who isn't above doing a nice thing to increase your odds of nookie. You get to the store, and the movie that your snugglebunny wants to see has been rented to extinction. What do you do?
  Before the cellphone, you had to make a decision. You had to figure, based on your knowledge of your partner's taste, the type of movie, the recognizable actors, the available titles, and how serious you were about that nookie, what movie to choose as an alternative. At the very least, you had to have planned ahead with a list of acceptable substitutes. Now, in the age of connectedness, you can just call home and ask. Ain't nobody got to do any cogitatin' at all.
  It's the same thing at the grocery store. They don't have regular Oreos? Don't worry! You don't have to sweat, wondering if Double Stuffs are a good go-to cookie. (Yes they are, FYI.) You can just call and ask! Did you get separated from your friends in line for the big music festival? Don't bother trying to figure out where they'd be likely to congregate. Call and ask! Don't surprise your roommate with an after-work snack that might not be her favorite. Call and ask! Don't ever, ever make an independent judgement or decision without checking with someone first. Don't bother to learn anyone's tastes, or try to puzzle out what they'd do in your shoes. Don't take responsibility for anything! CALL AND ASK! *pant pant pant*
  I'm sure this sounds like neo-Luddite nonsense, a badge of my advancing fogey-hood. I'll admit, I'm not exactly riding the edge of the emerging technology curve. Hell, I didn't send my first cellphone text message until last November. But I do use my cellphone, and it often is invaluable for making life more convenient, safer, and a little easier. Still, whenever I find myself calling instead of thinking, I can't help but wonder if I'm surrendering a bit of my mental capacity in favor of the lazy brain's information express.
  Hang on while I call and ask my girlfriend.

I'd like to teach the world to choke.
  But, I'm settling for teaching myself Flash. I spent all god damn day on this little 20 second bit of animation, and I have a newfound respect for the people at Homestarrunner. If you want to check out my freaky little banana/Twinkie guy, speaking in the voice of Michael Mills, click here.

Huzzah for Promotions.
  The store closing, while sad and awful and all that, has at least one bright spot. Amy and I both get promotions because our Assistant Manager is leaving to go to a new Barnes and Noble. We both get a 10% raise, and Amy gets more hours, so our little household is doing pretty well, financially. This is good news for those of you expecting Christmas presents. =)

For once, they're right.

discover your jack-o-lantern face @ quiz me

Philly Phetish.
  I like Philadelphia. It's crude, noisy and stinky, but in a charming sort of way. It's positively drowning in history, has an awful lot of culture and entertainment choices, and its politics are nothing if not entertaining. Philly has always been the planet that my moon has orbited around, from my default interest in the Eagles to the way I've always referred to it as "the city." I enjoy Philly, a city that is not quite as thoroughly maligned as my home state of New Jersey.
  Having said all that, I demand to know why the fuck everybody and their humpbacked, web-footed, sub-70 IQ cousins had to start mackin' on the Philly cheesesteak?
  It's happened in fits and starts over the years. This time around, I first noticed it when I started seeing commercials for Domino's Philly Cheesesteak pizza. You know, the one which suggests that Pavlov would have made a killing delivering pizzas? I was intrigued enough to try it, and I wasn't impressed. I liked the toppings, but american cheese and no tomato sauce on a pizza is just wrong on both a taste and texture level.
  The next one I became aware of was the Quiznos ad for their Toasted Philly Cheesesteak. I have been long interested in Quiznos, since the idea of toasted subs intrigues me. Alas, there aren't any around here, nor have I stumbled across one in my travels. The sandwich sounds like it might be good, actually, but the ad is slightly creepy. The guy eating the Quiznos sub asks the man eating the (implied inferior) sandwich if he was raised by wolves. The second man has a mini flashback, and then replies that yes, he was.
  I know that I said the american cheese and no tomato sauce on a pizza was wrong, but the Quiznos ad is so wrong it's tainting surrounding advertisements. Not only is the image of a grown man in a suit suckling along with a litter of wolf cubs kind of disturbing, the fact that it appears he was raised by wolves, whom I'm sure he cares for and identifies with, makes the Quiznos-eater look kind of like a jerk. It's not good to make your pitch-man look like an asshole. He can look stupid, sure, but I don't want to buy something because a big meanie-insulter-face says I should!
  I didn't even get riled up about the McDonald's Philly Cheesesteak. I don't think anyone, least of all me, expects the McCrapSteak* to be any better then their burgers, which isn't really saying much, and I highly doubt that their steak sandwich is going to be so wildly popular that it will drive the privately owned shops in Philly out of business.
  The last straw was when Arby's started getting in my face with ads for their Philly Beef 'n Swiss. Come on! Fucking Arby's? Arby's is the slack-jawed, hairy-backed, vestigial-tailed mutant of national fast food chains! Why do they have to step to a Philly steak?
  I can just about boil water and add pasta without a recipe. I don't know much about food beyond the fact that my mother and my girlfriend are both quite good at making it. But I do know that what makes a steak sandwich a Philly cheesesteak is as much the experience as it is the ingredients. Standing at a counter, watching a guy standing over a grill making your sandwich. Smelling the juices sizzling in great clouds of greasy steam off of the grill two feet away from you. Picking your toppings, knowing that they were sliced or diced or shredded by somebody that morning. Warm rolls, baked somewhere around the block. Hell, even the sometimes dubious sanitation of the dining room. It's all of these things that make it a Philly cheesesteak. I(f you want to get really picky, you could argue that it's the Cheese Whiz, but the idea of putting that on a cheesesteak appalls me, so I'm going to stay out of that debate.)
  I'm not ruling out the possibility that any of these foods could be good. They might, in fact, be quite tasty. But they're about as genuinely Philly as my landlord is competent and considerate. And that's not very much.
  *I think it's interesting to note that the Blogger spellchecker tried to change McCrapSteak to McGreevey's. I won't speculate on what that means, I just thought it was fun.

I like to score.
  So, the GRE did not kick my ass. It glared at me some, but it knew not to start shit. I think I did pretty well, considering the long years I've gone with out studying any math. They give you the scores to the verbal and math sections right away, and I did slightly better than I did when I took the practice test, so I am pleased. I will await my scores on the writing section patiently. Very... very... patiently. *twitch*
  By the way, I love that they don't even call it "math" anymore. Now it's called "quantitative reasoning," because seven syllables are always better than one, and are especially not any more intimidating.
  Thanks to all of you who offered encouragement. You are appreciated. I must take this opportunity to single out my wonderful girlfriend, who put up with my poorly-hidden anxiety, my insomnia, and my tendency to get defensive when I'm nervous. She always has more faith in me than I do, and this experience would have been far more nerve-wracking without her patient insistence that I would do well. She is beautiful and wonderful, and far too good to me, and I love her very much.

Nerves of Pudding!
  Today I am taking the GRE test, which is the second to last step in applying to Grad school. I test fairly well (I don't get the shakes or the dry heaves or anything), and everybody tells me it's like taking the SAT all over again, and I did pretty well on the SAT, so all in all I'm not worried.
  Much.
  Okay, so I'm a smidgen concerned. After all, I want to get into a good school, and I want them to give me an assistantship or a fellowship or a scholarship or a battleship or something. I can't really afford another $25k in student loans, and if I don't get really good aid, I'm not going. So I sweat just a bit. Luckily, I have a solution.
  I'm going in there like I own the place. I'm wearing my sweatpants and a big comfy shirt. Two comfy shirts, actually, in case they have either the heat or the air conditioner running. (And a shout out to my Mom. Dressing in layers really does work.) I'm going to wear my sunglasses until the last possible moment, and I'm not even going to be concerned that they'll want to see my driver's license, with that goofy-ass grin I had on my face. I will be so cool that hail will fall out of the sky, just to hang out and ask me for tips in being so chilly.
  And I won't, absolutely not, never, no how, think about how I haven't had a math class in 8 years.

Gimme a "B"
  I've decided, as an experiment, to let my hair grow for a few months. I figure it's cheap insulation for the imminent Jersey winter. It leaves me with a slight dilemma, though. Having hair technically keeps me from being the Little Bald Bastard, and since I'm so picky with other people about technicalities, it only seems right that I should acknowledge my own personally discontinuity with... a contest!
  I'm hereby soliciting for suggestions to replace the first "B" in LBB. Post suggestions here, and I'll pick some that I like and have a vote later on. Enjoy.
- LB?B

I thoroughly enjoyed School of Rock.
  Despite the fact that Jack Black is almost embarrasingly over the top, even when he's not on camera, SOR was funny, smart, and surprisingly warm. There seemed to be a real connection between Black as the music-obsessed counterfeit substitute teacher and his class of prep-school kids. I realize that I'm getting a little old, because the over-use of the word ass from a group of ten-year-olds made me cringe a bit, but on the whole it was worth the money. Not really worth the accident Amy and I almost got into, but that wasn't the movie's fault.

Amanda Jan Got Married.
  Let's get something straight right off the bat. My friends, younger and older, have been getting married and having babies (sometimes in that order, sometimes not) for years. But something about it still freaks me out just a little.
  Amanda was the youngest member of the DoomSpork V, a group of friends/imaginary superheroes that I helped to found when I was attending Cumberland County College. There were, as I'm sure you've guessed, six of us. =) We started with five, added one later, and generally jumbled things about. We were the coolest thing on campus, and in the surrounding three counties. I'll tell you more about the group and its members later.
  Anywho, Amanda was the youngest of us. She was a bit of a hellion, and now she's all grown up and responsible and married. We haven't hung out as a group more than once in about five years, and now we never really can again. We weren't exactly a coherent unit anymore, but this is sort of the last nail in the coffin.
  Amanda isn't just Amanda anymore, she's half of Amanda + Rob. I am very, very happy for her. For a long time it looked like she couldn't possibly find a functional partner, and Rob seems like a really fantastic guy. Together, they prove that opposites can go beyond attracting to complimenting each other. Still, their marriage makes concrete a reality than, deep down, I have been studiously avoiding.

I am still a national radio star.
  Check out The Pab Sungenis Project, featuring yours surly as guest host for two weeks.

Some things disturb me more than others.
  Granted, the list of things that bother me, even single-spaced and in a very small font, would likely fill a mid-size athletic stadium. There are some items, though, that would definitely warrant a bullet or boldfaced type or something. One of those standout entries is definitely "being used by a parent as a tool of discipline."
  I'm sure you're tired of hearing about how I work in a bookstore, but we're trying to keep this thing relatively stranger-friendly, on the off chance that someone I don't know has wandered in off the street and has gotten this far without wandering out again, clutching a pair of bleeding eyeballs and screaming for an ambulance or a mercy shooting. (Ask the Little Bald Bastard, brought to you in fabulous Run-On-Vision!) At work, I am quite frequently presented with challenging young people. Parenting appears, to my untrained eye, to be getting more indulgent these days, and the frequency of tantrums and disruptive behavior seems to be on the rise. I usually welcome parental intercession, but I dislike being used as a symbol of said discipline.
  The child was climbing on a shelf. Or chewing on a book. Or heading for the exit with a book that she didn't realize wasn't yet paid for. Or something. I don't remember clearly what the infraction was. What I do remember is the child's older male escort (who I assumed was her father) telling his (hopefully) offspring that "the man is going to beat your butt." By "the man," he meant me. I don't exactly know what he meant by "beat your butt," but I'm guessing that it wasn't a euphemism for "buy you ice cream."
  I wanted to believe that this pass-the-bad-guy-mask was better than nothing, but I couldn't do it. Ignoring the question of "butt-beating" as an appropriate child-rearing tactic for the moment, what if I hadn't been in sight? Would he have invoked a phantom "man," with whom to threaten his daughter with corporal punishment? Or would her absent mother have been made the scapegoat? Ooh, maybe it would have been God in the role of butt-beater, which is essentially the part he's been playing in some capacity for thousands of years. Or, would he have sucked up his reluctance and actually relied on his own authority to correct his child's behavior?
  The answer is, of course, that I don't know. (And neither do you, smartie!) Since I'll never see the family in question again, it's a rhetorical question. Still, I can't help but wonder, and my feeling is that he would have passed the butt-beater-buck to something, corporeal or not. From my split-second observation, I suspect that this man, like a lot of parents, dislikes the idea of being the bad guy in a disciplinary situation, so he made me his convenient bogeyman.
  I've voluntarily opted out of the child-rearing game, so I try not to offer advice on the topic. Yet, I am compelled to point out that it is impossible to raise a child right without occasionally making them do things they don't want to do. My belief is that indulging a child's every whim, or chickening out of your role as disciplinarian, is a sure way to raise self-absorbed anti-socialites.
  Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe it's the hormones in the beef or something.

L.A. waist wit' an Oakland booty...
  I went to a cast party on Saturday night. It had been an extremely long day, without much sleep the night before, and Amy and I were really going to just put in an appearance. Anyway, after all of the usual self-congratulatory stuff was over, Amy was catching up with some friends, and I ended up sitting on the couch next to my friend Angie.
  Angie and I worked together in The God of All Things, a performance piece that Amy wrote and directed for a class. I was cast as a middle-aged diplomat, and Angie played my pre-adolescent daughter, quite convincingly, I might add. Her role in the show we were cast-party-crashing was considerably more mature, and she tackled that with equal aplomb. Still, Angie is rather youthful in appearance, even younger than her actual 19 years. I still feel strangely paternal toward her, and I was vaguely proud as we discussed her lack of interest in drinking and her progress in school. Then, things got a little strange.
  As at most theater parties I've attended, the music was extremely eclectic. Although, bonus, no showtunes. Eventually, that classic of my misspent youth, "Baby Got Back," came on. I feel my age when I hear it lately, because it came out as I was firing my boosters and leaving the orbit of high school. Despite its ubiquity as a dance party staple, I identify it with a very specific time in my life, a time during which most of current social group, including my girlfriend, were in middle school. But that's not the strange part.
  Angie knew all the words. This song came out when she was in third grade, and she could sing along with every syllable. She could even make this sort of eerily accurate "wheep" sound and sing along with the record scratches.
  I know I'm probably overreacting, but there's an ironic overtone to the fact that she and I have this in common. I owned... hell, if I look hard enough I probably still own the song on a cassette single. Angie has never even seen a cassette single. To her credit, she didn't laugh at me when I asked her, but still. Of all the things we could have in common, it's Sir Mix-A-Lot that bridges our particular generation gap.
  When I am old and grey (or gray) and so riddled with Alzheimer's that I ask the nurse my middle name after a 20-minute nap, I will still remember listening to Angie proclaim that her anaconda didn't want none unless you got buns hon, and thinking that somewhere in our unlikely musical commonality was the key to solving the riddle of why people suck at getting along with other people. If only I could figure out how to get that message to the world, maybe we could all bond over amusingly cheesy hip-hop. Until then, it'll be our little secret, Angie.

I got an email today.
  As some of you know, I used to work in talk radio. I got an email today from the host of the talk show for which I used to produce, asking me what I though of the whole Rush Limbaugh thing. Here's what I said.

  My view on Rush is pretty simple. I don't think he's a racist. I think he's an elitist, but that opinion was cemented a long time ago. In fact, I believe him when he claims that he wasn't knocking McNabb as much as the media coverage and the fact that McNabb is so highly rated.
  The thing is, I don't agree that McNabb is overrated because he's black. I think he's just overrated. I don't have any love for the media in terms of its sophistication or its objectivity, but can you honestly tell me there aren't any white quarterbacks who aren't performing to the level that they were expected to reach?
  I heard something on NPR that really struck home for me. It would have been very easy for Rush to say that he thinks the media has overrated McNabb. Rush made a conscious decision to focus on a claim that his race as the reason, thus making it a racial issue. It was either pigheaded and insensitive, or deliberately provocative, and I'm really not sure which way is better. And his claim that the uproar he's caused somehow proves that he said something true is completely baseless. I get upset when Neo-Nazis claim that the Holocaust never happened, or when creationists claim that the Second law of Thermodynamics rules out evolution, or when conspiracy nuts claim that the black, featureless backgrounds in the pictures taken by the Apollo crews prove that the moon landings were staged, but my outrage doesn't make them right.

  Before you start, I used to produce our rebroadcast of Rush's show five days a week, so I have listened to him. I'm not relying solely on what I've heard about his comments. While I agree with him about as often as I shit golden statues of the Dalai Lama, I respect his ability to find and hold an audience. Frankly, I believe that his reluctance to ever admit that he could be even the slightest bit wrong has a lot to do with how popular he is. He simply powers ahead, and his confidence and self-assurance are attractive. People like someone who sounds as if he believes in himself, and Rush seems to possess the kind of self confidence that would have made Jesus Christ feel like a bit of a charlatan. So I'm not surprised that he hasn't tried to diffuse his comments beyond apologizing for the discomfort he caused the ESPN crew. His show would probably drop in the ratings if he appeared to be wavering or backing down. Still, I can't help but wonder exactly how the man sleeps at night.
  Wait a minute. I'll bet he sleeps on piles and piles of money. *sigh*

It's official...
  In this month's Journal of the American Mofo, I am listed among the top ten laziest mofos of all time. No, seriously, it's true!
  Okay, so there is no JAM, at least not yet. I'm trying to teach myself Flash, so there may be one at some point. If there were such a publication, I'd certainly be on their lazy list. I was off for two days, and I didn't leave the apartment for something like 36 hours. I only left to take a bag of trash over to a dumpster across the street. I stayed in my pajamas all day on Tuesday. I am a lazy, lazy mofo.
  In my defense, I did do some things while I was inside. I applied for some jobs, and I started trying to teach myself to use Flash. I also swept and emptied the trash. But I still feel like a special kind of slack ass for hanging around in my pajamas all day.
  Truth be told, it's not entirely my fault. My landlord decided to have the sidewalk in front of the apartment torn up and replaced. So, there was a one hundred square foot plot of wet cement outside my door for the majority of the day, which would have made leaving kind of a pain. (There's a funny story about how Amy had to have one of the workers carry her piggyback across the wet cement when she left for work, but I'm probably not supposed to tell you about that.) It probably would have been nice if my landlord had warned us that out sidewalk was being replaced, but that would have been considerate, and thus completely out of character. Some day, I will not live in the ghetto, with a crackhead for a landlord.

I'm kitty-sitting.
  The Barrymore is about one and a half, and Charlatan is around a half, so neither of them are kittens in that "Look, she fits my shoe! And in that saucer! And in the fold-up couch! Hey, where'd the kitten go?" sort of way. Still, they are young enough that they get pretty rambunctious. Putting a paper bag on the floor is a quick way of sentencing it to death, and anything that rattles or rolls on the floor will get batted around until it gets stuck under the couch.
  It's all hunting, really. They get some exercise, and it's much better than stumbling over headless rodents they've deposited on our doorstep. Still, it sometimes gets a bit scary when they run out of toys. If there's nothing worth batting about, they'll start harrassing each other. I've been assured by two sets of experienced cat-owning parents and someone at our vet's office that this is natural. The consensus seems to be that, as long as they aren't actually clawing each other, then they're just playing a little rough, and it's fine. Still, I can't help but be concerned when they're wrapped around each other, hissing or yowling like they're trying to kill each other. So I find myself compelled to drop whatever I'm doing and go distract them when they start to get too hostile.
  I do mean whatever I'm doing. Eating, web-surfing, sleeping. I'm supposed to go to the grocery store while Amy's at work, and I've been reluctant to leave them alone. They are certainly as cute as drastically mismatched buttons, but I won't be disappointed when they're old enough to be as lazy as I am.

While I'm handing them out...
  Decently sized ups to me, for persisting in keeping my Blog fresh. At some point, updating went from being a dreaded chore to being an obligation. I know is sounds like a minor difference, but it matters. I used to sit and stare at the screen, not being able to come up with anything beyond a laundry list of the things I'd done that day, or a litany of things I hated. I discouraged easily, and I would avoid updating altogether because it was so tedious. Now, the new, improved Blogging me starts to feel guilty if I don't update every few days. I know that my girlfriend is just about the only one who reads this stuff on a regular basis, and I have a small (but hearty) cadre of friends who check in from time to time. I suppose it would make more sense to just email them all, instead of wasting bandwidth and BlogSpot server space. Still, there's something more... vital? Interactive? I don't know the exact word. (I know, bad writer, find the word.) There is some deeper sense of pride, a feeling like, "I made this, look at me! I can do a cannonball, Mom! Watch me! No, watch. Don't just say you're watching and then glance back at that trashy paperback, WATCH ME!!! No, wait. Now I'm too scared. Don't look." You know, that sort of pride/tension that you get when you're taking a risk, however miniscule, of looking stupid.
  That's right, stupid. For all I know, my Blog could be the Dude, Where's My Car? of your Internet experience. By posting this stuff here, I'm taking the risk that you're tuning in just to laugh at me. I'm exposing myself to ridicule and praise in (I hope) at least equal measure. The truth is, I think I'm a decent writer. Sure, I often go back and look at my stuff and find eleventy-billion things I could have done better, but on the whole it's marginally better than crap. But sharing it means that I have to risk the chance that you disagree.
  Strangely, I find myself becoming less scared of that as I go along. I'm certain that it has a great deal to do with living with someone who writes pretty prolifically. My girlfriend is writing a hilarious play, as well as maintaining an online journal. She's as sensitive as any of us to criticism. In fact, she gets pretty upset when I can't silence my inner editor long enough to praise her early drafts. But, despite that anxiety, she keeps writing because she loves it. She gets a kick out of finding characters and a story and bringing them to life. She persists, despite her fear, and I thank whatever that she does, because it helps me want to do the same. I haven't gotten any farther than updating my journal because I know she reads it, and cracking out a short story with characters she created, but it's building. I hope she knows that she's inspiring me, and that I am slightly in awe of her ability to work through writer's nerves. I hope that the things I produce do her talent, persistence and courage justice.

Now, let's totally switch gears,
  I need to pass out even more ups. Not so big this time, but ups nonetheless. I complain about... well, everything, but today I had a pleasant experience, and I thought I should give due credit. It starts with a trip that I made to Best Buy yesterday.
  B.B. is my secret shame. I know it's a big corporate monolith, and it stands for everything commercial that irks me so. Yet, I can't stay away. More to the point, I have to stay away, because I either buy things I really don't need, or I get depressed because I can't afford to buy anything. I feed my filthy habit by asking for gift certificates, for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, other people's birthdays, Arbor Day... I suppose you get the idea. Anyway, I had a couple of these plastic pieces of capitalist paraphernalia saved up, and (for once) I had a specific item that I wanted to purchase. I was looking for a carrying case to protect my camera from my natural clumsiness. I found one, picked out a color I liked, purchased it, and took it home. Oh, and I wandered into just about every other department before I left. (Hi, my name is LBB, and I'm a Best Buy-aholic.)
  When I got home, I discovered that the case didn't have these little divider thingees it was supposed to have. I was disappointed. Crushed, even. That was the only one in the color that I liked, and I knew if I exchanged it, I'd have to settle for a less desirable color. (Don't let the word color fool you. The ones I liked were all varying shades of grey. Oh, and gray.)
  I dragged my LB butt into the store on my way to work this afternoon. Sure enough, the other versions of that case were less attractive shades of gray or grey. Then, epiphany! Why couldn't I just take the dividers from the one I didn't like, and put them into the one I did like? Simple, right? In fact, it turned out that the two different shades of grey (gray) even had the same UPC number, which in the eyes of technology makes them the same thing. I mean, the net total of divider-bearing and non-divider-bearing bags would be exactly the same, right? Still, I was convinced that it was fruitless. There would be some iron-clad policy, and I'd be going home with a slightly less wonderful shade of... light black.
  I guess you can probably see where this is going. As it turns out, fantasy met reality, and the returns/exchange department allowed me to take the dividers home in the bag I liked better. I was blessed with customer service which actually was, and it made me happy.
  So, ups to you, Best Buy Deptford. Not huge ups, because you're supposed to be helpful and agreeable, damn it, but ups just the same. Keep it up.

I just saw Matchstick Men.
  I took my girlfriend on a date. I bought her tickets to a movie, soda and snacks. Someday, we will have regular jobs, so that nights off together are not such a rare and wondrous occasion.
  I rather enjoyed the movie. I can't help liking Nicolas Cage, and Sam Rockwell is really damn good at the likeable sleaze character. Allison Lohman was also very impressive, and I see big things ahead for her, provided this wasn't a fluke performance.
  On another movie note, did you know that Orson Welles almost shot a Batman feature? Neither did I! Big ups to REMY523 for letting me in on his ultra-geek-out. =)

Speaking of the Emmys...
  There is one thing that I have to credit the Emmy awards people with, that I think makes an awful lot of sense. It's the separation of the Primetime and Daytime Emmys.
  I'm sure, if you asked, the Emmy people would tell you that it's necessary to hold two ceremonies because of the vast amount of programming available on a 24 hour television schedule. My theory is that, despite the general lousiness of television, the staff of the National Television Academy are self-aware enough to realize that the really crap TV is on during the day.
  This might work in other arenas as well. There could be a second big football game in January, (I'm tentatively calling it the Stupor Bowl) which would decide who was the official worst team in a given season. There'd be play-ons, where you had to advance to the next round if you lost.

 "You wanna be home for Christmas?" Coach shouted, spittle flying through the air and misting on Johnson's shoulder pads. "Then you'd damn well better win, and prove that we're only the eighth worst team in this league! Otherwise, we're gonna be losin' until the end of January!"

  There are already places where the worst stuff gets acknowledged, such as the Darwin Awards or the Golden Raspberries. But I think it's much more effective when the organization or industry itself sequesters a group of its members, thereby tacitly admitting that they're second-class participants. Good for you, Emmy Awards!
  There's one other organization that I think would really benefit from such a straightforward reclassification of a section of its participants. Yes, AMPAS, I'm looking right at you. In my opinion, the Academy Awards committee should acknowledge what the rest of us already know by creating a Summer Movie Academy Awards. There could be awards for the most creative use of explosive devices, most excessive use of nudity, and most Matrix-esque special effect. They could recognize and reward the qualities that send these films into the box-office stratosphere in the first place.
  Of course, now that I've wasted your time and mine on this little diatribe, it occurs to me that there already is a "Crap Oscars." It's called the MTV Music Awards, and every year it proves that MTV is just as discerning about film as it is about music.

I am a national radio star.
  The scary thing is, this is only a slight exaggeration. My friend Pab has a weekly one hour radio show packed full of comedy and such. I've done some voice work for The Pab Sungenis Project before, including his intro and some character work, but I've never hosted the thing before. This is all about to change. Pab's stuck with jury duty for a couple of weeks, so he asked me to step in and take the reigns. Being the closet egomaniac that I am, I leapt at the chance to increase my public exposure even one millimeter. If you check out Pab's site, you can find a list of stations and net-casters, or you can wait for Pab to post the episodes in the Audio Vault. The shows I'm hosting will air the weeks of October 3rd and 10th, but you should check out the Project even if you hate me, because it's quality broadcasting, and Pab deserves your support.

The Emmys...
  I didn't watch them, and I don't care who won or lost. I find some shows entertaining, and some shows not, and I don't see what the opinion of hundreds of TV industry insiders should do to affect that.
  Most of the networks' lineups can be offered as evidence that those people know as much about quality television as I do about manufacturing crystal meth. And I'm ahead of the game, because I bet I could go online and download instructions for making crystal meth.
  Next topic.

This is an excerpt from Amy's new show, Live Nude Gods. Hilarity ensues. HILARITY!

Satan: (whining) Damn it! Could you two just decide on something before my head explodes from boredom?

Holy Ghost: I’m not going to leave until God agrees that Adam can’t mate with a monkey.

God: He can mate with whatever he wants!

Holy Ghost: No he can’t!

Satan: If Adam wants to fuck a monkey let ‘im! I’m hungry! I want pizza!

I haven't forgotten, I promise.
  I'm still going to take pictures of my new car, and tell you all about Grandma and Flora. I've been sick, though, and there's a hurricane, so y'all will just have to wait.
  I hate being sick, incidentally. *whine*

I'm sure I'm not supposed to do this,
  but fuck it. The management of the Deptford Mall has decided that it is appropriate to remain open, ignoring the fact that the Governor of New Jersey has declared a state of emergency effective a 4 pm this afternoon, and despite the inland tropical thuderstorm wind warning in effect until tomorrow morning. What this means is that any store which decides to err on the side of caution and close up early will be facing a fine from the mall for violating the terms of their lease.
  On a more personal note, it means that my girlfriend, who is already uncomfortable driving in the dark and the rain, will now be forced to drive home after 10 pm in a fucking tropical storm! I cannot imagine the depths of greedy self interest that you need to plumb before the safety and well-being of about a thousand people matters less than keeping a mall open on the off chance that some crack-smoking asshole will feel the overwhelming need to go out in a tropical storm to buy jeans.
  I somehow doubt that this blog gets me enough exposure to foment a serious boycott, but it certainly couldn't hurt to try. If this bothers you as much as it bugs me, please email the mall at info@deptfordmall.com, or their management company at kravco@kravco.com to voice your displeasure. If you know anyone who is employed at the mall, please think seriously about whether you want to support an establishment which holds so little regard for the safety or your friend or loved one.

Dear LBB,
  I want to take my boyfriend to NYC for his birthday to see a Broadway musical called "Wicked," based on the novel by Gregory Maguire.
  I am worried that he won't like it. What if it sucks? What if he has a horrid birthday and it's all my fault?
  What else could I get him? He is emphatically opposed to gift cards, but he likes books, DVDs, computer equipment, electronics... he is, however, an impulse buyer, and if there's something he wants to buy, he tends to go get it himself shortly after it comes out! Oh, LBB, what's a girl to do?????
Signed,
Bugged in Bucks County
Dear Bugged,
  As you know by now, I do not routinely counsel optimism. However, in this case, I believe things are going to be okay, for two reasons.
1) Wicked is basically a retelling of Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, with the Wicked Witch of Some Direction or Other as the main character and narrator. It's a musical, based on a book, based on another book, which has previously been adapted into what I believe is fair to call a fairly successful musical. In short, I think it's likely to be pretty good, for a musical. If he likes the book, he should like the show.
2) If he's a decent guy, he won't complain about being taken to New York City for the evening. Hell, if he isn't a decent guy, but he still has some kind of brain in his head, he'll sit through the show and still not complain about being taken to New York City for the evening. If he's a total schmuck with a scooped out tortoise shell for a brain, he'll probably still know enough to act grateful in order to preserve his chances of getting laid ever again.
  In short, don't worry too much about it. He'll enjoy it, or pretend to, and everyone will go home happy, provided you have sex with him. If you're still unsure, skip the trip and give him the never-fail gift of fellatio.

I have many nuggets of wisdom.
  I keep them in a little velvet bag, and I hoard them like delicious candy. Every once in awhile, I notice that they've started to melt and soak through the bag, so I dump them out on the floor, have the bag dry-cleaned, and I start accumulating new ones. The last time around, before they became a trodden-on lump leaching into my floor, I found this little gem.
  Don't like something so much that you can't stand to hear it mocked even a little bit. I know, I know, everyone has their favorite band, movie, deity, etc. that they don't like to see the piss taken out of. Go ahead, have your obsessions. But for the love of your sacred cow, if your advocacy is so devoted and so total that even good-natured teasing or disagreement with your opinion will offend your sensibilities enough that you'll quarrell with an otherwise stalwart and cherished friend, you're taking it way too god damn far.
  After that sentence, I need to have a lie-down. *pant pant*

No, seriously
A haiku for those of us looking for a second cat to keep our first cat company.

We love every
single kitty. One by one.
On the Internet.

(Author's note: It only works if you pronounce it ev-er-y. That makes the first line five syllables.)

It's been a big weekend.
  Truth be told, I'm not even really up to giving you all the details right now, so I'll just break it down for you quick-like.
1) I have a new (to me) car. It's a Mercury Mystique, which is 11 years and 160,000 miles newer than my old car. I got it for the bargain price of $1.00, because
2) My sole remaining grandparent, my father's mother Isabel, has finally been moved out of her house into an assisted living facility. This has been a long time coming, but I still had a bad moment when I started thinking about how Grandma was sleeping in a strange bed while I was sleeping in a bed in the house she lived in for about 60 of her 89 years.
  I'll fill in all the details later. Remind me to show you the pictures of my fabulous new wheels, tell you all about Grandma's new digs, and especially about her wonderfully insane new roommate Flora.

I was at work when it happened.
  When I am old an gray and so riddled with Alzheimer's that I can't even recall which hand I use to adjust my glasses, I will still be able to remember turning on the radio and hearing them say that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
  I also remember riding in my mother's car and hearing the radio say that the Challenger had exploded. That was in 1986, and I can still remember the smell of the heater, the frost riming the rear windows, and the chill of the leather seats. The man on the radio was describing it as it happened. He sounded much like the poor soul whose voice we so often hear breaking down at the sight of the Hindenburg's immolation. I remember him babbling something about seeing an escape pod, which later turned out to just be more smoke and debris. I was actually kind of angry at that guy, for giving me that kind of false hope.
  Almost everyone has an indelible moment like this stamped on their psyche. Whether it's a shared experience, like the Kennedy assassination (part I or II), or more personal, like the morning Mom sat my sister and me down on the couch to tell us that her father had died, tragedy has a way of searing itself onto the brain, knotting itself into the neurons in such a powerful way that it becomes a vivid beacon in an otherwise grey, featureless fog of faded recollection.
  It may seem morbid or grotesque that these events stand out so markedly, and rehashing them may strike you as distasteful. On the contrary, I believe it is absolutely vital that we always remember the impact that events like this have on us. They are a powerful reminder that history isn't something that was used up by the things that happened before we were born, and it's not just black-and-white war film or Ken Burns documentaries. History happens every day, and it's our responsibility to make sure that the people who are going to inherit this country and this planet from us have more than just record debt and the possible insolvency of Social Security and Medicare to remember us by. They need to know that this country is not a monolith. It is vital and creative, capable of growth and change and vulnerable to injury. Most importantly, they need to know how these things affect ordinary people.
  The feeling of pride and unity that developed two years ago seems to have all but evaporated. If we share our stories and remind each other what we felt for the victims, for ourselves, and for our country, maybe we can recapture some of that sense of ourselves as a nation.
  Then again, there's an election season right around the corner...

  Attention, aspiring singers/songwriters/DJs/MCs. Heh heh. I bet you thought I was going to share something useful or productive with you. Alas, LBB doesn't care about your budding career. Retail jobs for everyone! (Damn, I am so bitter.)
  Anyway, here's something fun, at the very least. Songfight is a site that runs a weekly contest. They give you a subject, then you have a few days to write, record and post a song. Visitors to the site can then listen to and rank your song. Every week, a winner is declared. It's exposure, and a deadline to help you flex your chops. Check it out!
  If you're not trying to reinvent the modern musical landscape, you should check out Songfight, too. It's usually fun, always original, and often surprising for the depth of talent some of the posters display. Click now.

  Cowboy Mouth rocks my socks, and several other articles of clothing not normally affected by loud sounds. They're playing at the TLA on South Street in Philly on October 11th. You should go. It's a very fun, energetic, involved performance that engages and entertains. If you don't leave a Cowboy Mouth show feeling happily exhausted, you obviously hit the bar too many times. I'd be going, but I have a wedding that day, so I'm going to take Amy down to DC the following night and catch them at the 9:30 Club. Don't come unless you want to rawk! If you do want to rawk, tell your friends and neighbors, and share the rawk with them, too. They'll thank you for it, I promise.
  As a special bonus (Keren, I'm lookin' at you, here), Cracker is opening for both shows! It's a double dose of rawk. \m/_

  "Yer a bit of an idjit, ain't you?"
  "Well sir, I don't-"
  "Oh, I know. Yer momma probly calls ya 'challenged,' or 'special,' or some other fancy word. But the god's-honest truth is that ya ain't bright enough to light up a dark closet, are ya boy?"
  I'd never heard anyone speak about me so plainly, with so little pretense. He sat there on the porch, idly pulling at the peeling paint, flicking aside the drops of condensation that had pooled in in the cracks where he'd set his can of beer. His gray eyes stared levelly at me from under the brim of his sweat-stained cap.
  "Nossir, I suppose I ain't... I'm not terribl' smart. I try to learn things, but is seems like they just fall right outta m'head."
  His gaze flicked away, out into the dusty dirt yard. "There, now," he grunted. "It's out'n the open and we kin deal with it. Ain't no shame in being stupid, boy. Worst possible thing you c'do is go 'round foolin' yerself about it. Nothin' worse than a damn fool tryin' to convince hisself he's got more brains'n he was blessed with."
  His eyes twitched back and took me in completely. And not just the me in front of him, but all of me, my life stretching all the way back to the womb. I sometimes believe that, if he'd stared at me long enough, my uncle could have looked right back into the past and seen the faces of all the ancestors whose blood ran in my veins. Instead, he looked out past the yard at the cloud of dust just topping the hill that separated our land from the county's.
  "Just you remember, boy. There ain't many places in this life that intelligence kin take you, where hard work'n persistence can't git you just as well."

 So there I am,
puttering around my surrogate bookstore, when the store's security guard comes over. She's not charging, exactly, but she's moving with more urgency than I've ever seen her exhibit. She motors over, looks up and me and says, "I have to talk to you in the back."
 We'd been listening to a jangling alarm from the second floor, and watching mall security block off the escalators, with a sort of amused, speculative, no-ever-tells-us-anything curiosity. I assumed that she'd finally gotten someone to give her a straight answer about what was actually going on. I somehow managed to miss the depth of anxiety apparent in her wide eyes and clenched teeth.
  Once she'd dragged me to the back room, she blurted it out. Someone had found a suspicious package, and the mall was being evacuated. She hadn't been able to get much more information, but the stores were closing, and we had to get all of our customers out.
  We proceeded to inform all of our customers that we'd been told to close. We were hot, man. A calm exit, no panic; we handled it like we'd been facing the possibility of being blown up daily for years. As we were getting our evacuation on, a mall guard on her way past the store shouted at us that we could stay in our closed store, once we'd gotten all of our customers to safety. I called my District Manager to tell her what was happening, and she and I agreed that we could close everything up, put all the money in the safe, and go home, foregoing the last hour of business in favor of not being trapped under three collapsed stories of retail rubble.
  To make a long story slightly less long, it turned out that it wasn't going to be that simple. As we were preparing to beat it, we were informed that the mall was planning to reopen in 20 minutes. I was relieved, since 20 minutes seemed like an awfully short evacuation if anyone was really concerned about the package in question. However, my relief was somewhat tempered by the fact that I was facing having to go through the trouble of getting my store running again to do business for another half an hour.
  So, I didn't die. Yay, and such. However, I was treated to an incompetent, lopsided response to a potentially serious problem,a disturbing lack of concern for the safety of myself and my co-workers and further proof that people are just not as highly regarded as the chance to make a few bucks. Sometimes, knowing what's going on is really depressing.

I don't really have that much to say.
  But, I'm trying to make a commitment to writing more often, so I'm going to share something with you. Here goes.

  As I'm sure you're tired of reading by now, I support my bastardly habits (and pay my half of the rent so Amy won't beat me) by working in a bookstore. We're a chain store, and when managers from other stores take vacations, we sometimes get to go fill in at their stores. Last week, I got to cross the beautiful, cinder-block-clear Delaware River, and fill in at a store in Philth-adelphia.
  I don't get into Philthy as often as I probably should. I'm never cool enough to know what bands are playing, and I do a radio show on Friday nights, so I never get to the First Friday events, where all the art galleries are free and such. So any chance to go to the city and get paid for it is always welcome. I drove my LB butt up to the Patco station and rode the train in, what amounts to triple the commute for basically the same job.
  The first night went pretty well. Counterintuitively, the customers that I interact with in the city tend to be more pleasant than my regular suburban Jerseyites. They're more thankful when you can help them, more gracious when you can't, and they're just tend to be nicer in general. I came to appreciate this all the more on my second night, when I had to ask them all to leave an hour before closing.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Slack Ass Mo-Fos.

  I am of the opinion that the Summer Reading List is a fabulous idea. I'm sure that, when I was a student, I would have balked at the idea of squandering my three cherished months of freedom to read anything I wanted choking down some ancient tome. With a few years of perspective, I see the wisdom of trying to keep at least the vestige of critical thinking percolating in the minds of teenagers being bombarded by a summer's worth of MTV and Jerry Bruckheimer movies. When I was in high school back in the Cretaceous, we didn't have a Summer Reading List. I was lucky enough that my parents instilled an interest in reading in me from an early age, so my I.Q. only descended into the realm of advanced apes, rather than to the depths of gelatin. For those students who don't read for pleasure, however, it certainly can't hurt to have something that will coerce them into at least minimal cogitation.
  I maintain my endorsement of The List despite the fact that it provides an annual source of aggravation at my day job. As a bookseller, it's my job to provide the books that the schools assign to their students. Some of the schools will occassionally assign an obscure or out of print title, which is annoying, but not ultimately too traumatic. No, the real rabid badger in my oatmeal are the parents who come in to buy their kids' summer reading books the day before school starts.
  I encountered a lighthouse-glaring example of this problem today. (It will help to keep in mind that today is September 1st. The child in question has known about this assignment for almost three months.) A woman (who I will heretofor refer to as Mrs. "Your-Kid-Should-Fucking-Fail," or Mrs. YKSFF) came in with a crude, handwritten list of nine books which were her son's options for his summer reading. He was required to read two of the selected books, and write a report on each for the first day of school. Mrs. YKSFF wanted three (3) questions answered about each book. 1) Was it shorter than the other books on the list? 2) Was there a junior adaptation available, which would preserve the plot and characters, but would probably be easier to read and (in a sneaky reference to item one) be shorter? 3) Was there a movie based on the book that he could watch?
  By now, you're probably wondering why, if he didn't have his books at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on the day before school started, why he didn't come to the mall himself to get them. That's what you would have done, right? You might have started reading them in the car on the way home, in order to avoid wasting any more time. I was wondering the very same thing. In fact, I was close to leaping onto her back and whacking her on the head with the Junior Classics version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, while screaming "Why are you helping your lazy slacker spawn?" over and over. Luckily for me, she provided an explanation. Apparently, Junior YKSFF was still "at the shore."
  There are times when it takes a physical effort to squelch the bitter retort forming on my lips. When I have to clench my jaw and not tell Mrs. YKSFF to her face that she's a craven, callow cow (alliteration always awesome) who is too stupid to understand that her indulgence is just reinforcing her son's irresponsible behavior. It was a struggle, which I finally won by pointing out to myself that the odds were Mrs. YKSFF wouldn't even know what callow meant, and that if she did, I was just about guaranteed to lose my job. So I swallowed my caustic comment, and instead hooked her up with both the regular and apdapted 20,000 Leagues, and the novelization of the screenplay for West Side Story. I felt vaguely dirty helping Mrs. YKSFF, knowing that I was an accomplice in her son's slacktitude, but I was able to comfort myself with the knowledge that his report was destined to be a pile of rancid goat cheese, and he was likely about to pull an all-nighter, only to write two papers barely worth using to wipe the ass of his school's mascot. Of course, he'll probably go to college on an athletic scholarship...

Today was dancing kids day...
  I know, I missed the memo too. But it was happening too damn frequently to be a coincidence, so I can only assume that the Deptford Mall was holding some sort of event for dancing, 6-and-under epileptics. The only other explanation is that someone has invented a dog whistle which only young children can hear, that makes them shimmy rather than sit or heel.
  They were everywhere. This one's groovin' in the aisle, these two are shakin' it in the archway, this one is doing what can only be described as a sideways moonwalk. On my way to the Food Court for lunch, I saw a child who was attempting to swim the 100 meter freestyle standing up. He was bent at the waist, kicking his legs behind him and waving his arm (the one that his mother wasn't using to drag junior Mark Spitz down the hall) with a determined scooping motion. I was sort of hoping the kid would wriggle out of his mother's grip, just so I could find out whether he would actually lie down on the floor or just lean forward far enough that he'd fall and bust his nose wide open on the shiny white linoleum. Alas, his mother held fast, so I only got to see him kick hard enought to lose a shoe. And it didn't even hit anyone. *sigh*

If you're young enough that you have to sneak online to
view pornography while Mom and Dad are at work, shove off.
There aren't any naked people here, but there are some naughty words.
If you're old enough that you shouldn't feel guilty for doing so, keep reading.

I hear you have a beautiful girlfriend,
  who isn't:
A) little
B) bald
C) or a bastard
...how'd you get her?
-in love with your girlfriend
Dear In Love,
  What can I say? There's something very attractive about college graduates who work in retail. Women are overwhelmed. All you have to do is labor way below your potential, and you'll have chicks up to your eyebrows. But don't fool yourself. There isn't a single one of those bottom feeders who's half as smart or attractive as my girlfriend. She was obviously a gift from the patron saint of sarcastic advice columnists, and as such is way out of your league. And mine, now that I think about it.

Dear LBB,
  In a past life did you work at hell pit called Regal? I also heard that you are in a comic book. In it they say you have a spider scribbled on your shiney Dome. Are either of these true?
-Kevin Oscar Myers

P.S. I have a bunch of divits in my head, one is from getting hit by a ski lift. Will lard help them?

Dear Kevin,
  It is true what they tell you. I did, for five months in mid-2001, support my bastardly existence by working as a projectionist for the Regal Cinema in Turnersville, NJ. Although I don't remember a pit of any sort, the smell of the xenon projector bulbs was suspiciously reminiscent of brimstone.
  Sadly, I was never actually in a comic book. However, I did rip off my look (and, now that I think about it, the bulk of my personality) from a fabulous nugget of graphic storytelling called Transmetropolitan, written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Darick Robertson. The main character, Spider Jerusalem, is a journalist in a far future America. He's sort of a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Attila the Hun. He's also bald and sarcastic, so do the math.
  Incidentally, lard, taken internally, will fill your arteries with delicious plaque, but will do very little for your deformed scalp. But if you smear it into the grooves, smooth it over with a putty knife, and cover it with an appropriate shade of concealer, it should go a long way toward making your gouged cranium appear intact.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Who do you feel is the most attractive Disney character?
- F'ing Goofy
Dear F'ing,
  It's a little difficult to fathom being terribly attracted to characters from what are, generally, movies made for seven-year-olds. However, when put on the spot, I'd have to say Bruce Willis in The Kid. There's just something intriguing about an actor who can make every line of a light comedy sound like "I'm going to break my fucking agent's neck."

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What one thing did you do in college that you'd be most horrified to tell your parents about?
- Moving Off Campus
Dear Moving,
  With any luck, Mom and Dad Bastard will never know that I'm bald because of a bizzare incident involving a bottle of Elmer's glue, a bottle of tequila, and a triple-dog dare.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  If you had to ask me a question, what would it be?
- Wanna BB
Dear Wanna,
  What do you do when your own personality is so weak and depressing that you start wishing you were someone else, just so you could have some semblance of a life?
  For pity's sake, at least fixate on someone who likes to look at him or herself in the mirror. (But not all the time. That's just creepy.)

Hey, LBB,
  Why does everybody gotta be all up in my shit?
- Q-ree-us
Dear Q-ree-us,
  Hm, that's a tough one. Does it smell like sweet, delicious tapioca pudding? Perhaps it has magical healing powers? Fess up. Are you making a soothing balm out of your own feces? If so, I think the public deserves to know what the main ingredient of your miracle cream really is.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Why won't the monkeys stop screaming at the garbageman?
- Simian Hater
Dear Simian,
  From now on, dispose of your fresh monkey-snacks in airtight containers only. Better yet, stop dropping acid. In fact, forget about the garbage; concentrate on not taking hallucinogenic drugs all the time.

Dear LBB,
  If you could be raised by a pack of wild animals, what animal would you pick?
- Zoo Dude
Dear Zoo Dude,
  I'm particularly partial to camels. Ugly, gangly, and not willing to take shit from anything with two legs. Plus, I've always like the sound of the word "dromedary".

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  To have a good time, what number should I call?
- Lonely Weekends
Dear Lonely,
  If you're like me, and unable to communicate beyond a series of grunts and whistles, don't bother using the phone. Simply open your window and scream your frustration to the surrounding environs. The friends you make once you're thrown into a county holding cell will definitely spice up your social situation.

Hey Sailor,
  Howzabout a date?
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge
Dear Wink Wink,
  Although I'm naturally tempted by such a smooth, polished line, I'm afraid that I'll have to pass. It only took one stalking experience to put me off dating by mail. I tried to explain to the police that I was just passing by her building every night for a month, but they didn't buy it.

Why is it
that as soon as you're stable and moving on, ex's come crawling back on their hands and knees?
-The BestMan...the BetterMan
Dear B.M.,
(Heh heh. B.M.)
  Are you complaining? Life has given you a golden opportunity to fuck with this person as much as you want. If your former partner is really groveling, you now have free reign to make him/her suffer as much as you have since you were dumped.
  Of course, this all hinges on you actually being stable and moving on. If you're still secretly hung up on your ex, this is really all a cruel joke. You'll let the person who done you wrong back into your life, only to be hurt again. Then again, if you're really completely recovered, then your desire for revenge should have evaporated by now. In which case, you should break your ex's heart anyway, in honor of everyone who isn't as stable as yourself.

I've got a new question.
  So, out of the little, bald, and bastard, which are herditary and which are by choice?
-Slightly Taller Man with Hair
Dear Slightly,
  The "little" is genetic, and it's all my mother's fault. The "bald" is elective, although I'm sure that one day the natural attrition of my hair will advance far enough that I'll be bald without the aid of mechanical devices. The "bastard" part is a toss-up. Although we tend to assume that personality is a learned behavior, I wouldn't be at all surprised if surliness like mine was genetically expressed.

What is defination(sic) of a scatologist? Hope you can help me. Thanks.
- CANYUFEELIT2
Dear CANYUFEELIT2,
  A scatologist is a person who has an unhealthy fascination with human waste, such as feces, urine, and Christina Aguilera videos.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Where does the saying on the wagon come from?
- Middleton Construction
Dear Middleton,
  A little-known Sumerian text called Inkidinkidudipants, which loosely translates to "Up yours, Mesopotamia!" These ancient scrolls describe the creation of many things which later became indispensable to civilization, including both alcohol and wheeled carts. It also makes mention of a practice by Sumerian law enforcement officials, who would pull a large flat cart through the streets of the ancient Sumerian capital, rounding up citizens who had indulged in too much cheap, fermented cactus juice. As long as the offender was sober enough to climb in, he was allowed to clambor into the back of the cart and catch a ride home. If he was too blotto, the polizei would tie his wrists to the back of the cart and drag him to the edge of town to sober up under the blistering Sumerian sun.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  I'm thinking about having your profile tattooed to my ass...which is your best side?
  What's better, dating someone below your potential so you get to walk around feeling superior but still have to wake up every morning next to them, or date far above your potential, get to wake up to THAT, but have to walk around feeling inadaquate?
- Love, Slight Taller Man with Hair
Dear Slightly,
  - My best side is generally whichever side you can't see. Although all you'd really have to do is have a pair of sunglasses drawn on your ass. I'm sure the resemblance to my face would be remarkable.
  - If you're going to do it, why not do it right? Who gives a shit if you feel inadequate? I feel inadequate enough when I look at myself, let alone at somebody else. If you can secure yourself the pleasure of going home to an attractive partner, go for it. Just be honest with yourself. If you're going to feel so outclassed that you're unable to keep from crying anytime someone flirts with your partner, forget it. Your self-doubt might lead you into the kind of jealousy that always seems to result in a restraining order.

Dear LBB,
  What is the last single-word entry you used in a search engine?
- Happy Googler
Dear Googler,
  ”Self-loathing.” (Hyphenated words count, right?)

Hey, Bastard,
  What’s the worst pickup line you’ve ever heard?
- Mike 354
Dear Mike,
  Pickup lines are, by definition, awful. Trying to convince a person to take a sex break with you in one sentence is one of the most absurd notions ever devised by a desperate male population. The only thing more pathetic than the attempt is the rare success story. Using a pickup line is sad; falling for one is depressing beyond comprehension.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Whose face would you least like to see on a t-shirt?
- Rabid Silk Screener
Dear Rabid,
  Mine in the morning. Between the pillow creases and the drool, my freshly-wakened mug looks like something you’d scrape off the bottom of a sewage treatment worker’s hip-waders.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What’s your favorite deadly sin?
- Piz-ope Griz-egory
Dear P.G.,
  As far as I’m concerned, overuse of commas is far more heinous than a little sloth. If I had to pick, I’d go with lust. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all fun, but lust is the only one that could conceivably lead to a Bastard getting a little action. If pride or envy could get me laid, I might change my tune.

Dear LBB,
  Who are you, anyway?
- Agent Mulder
Dear Agent,
  From before the dawn of time I came, moving down through the ages, wielding my sarcasm like a… okay, enough bullshit. I’m bitter old man trapped in the body of a bitter youngish man. I can be found working shitty retail jobs, and crying softly to myself at night.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Can you think of a good photo-poll question?
- Frantic Student Magazine
Dear Frantic,
  Here you go. What do you get when you cross a bald head, a ten dollar pair of sunglasses, and a sense of humor only slightly more sophisticated than curdled milk?
  My answer, incidentally, would be "a shtick I can milk for three years."