The Anecdotist

Hump Day

2010-03-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Been awhile since I've been on this thing, although its pretty much just me and my thoughts. Maybe one day I'll have loyal followers.

A famous cardiologist died, and everyone was gathered at his funeral. His coffin was displayed in front of a huge model heart. When the minister finished his sermon and everyone said their good-byes, the heart was opened, the coffin rolled inside, and the heart closed. Just at that moment, one of the mourners started laughing. The guy next to him asked, "Why are you laughing?" The mourner said, "Well, I was just thinking about my own funeral." The man asked, "Well, what's so funny about that?" And the mourner said, "I'm a gynecologist."

Dislike Button Add-On! Get It...

2010-01-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

Now there's a dislike add-on button FOR FIREFOX USERS ONLY. It isn't from Facebook but it works FOR FIREFOX USERS ONLY. Facebook is now fun again.

If you didn't get that before, here's the link again:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/47023

Spiderman 4

2010-01-10T12:13:00.000-08:00

Just heard the werrrd that John Malkovich will play The Vulture in Spiderman 4, scheduled for release May 5th, 2011. I can't wait. To be in it.

Goodbye to a Shitty Decade

2009-12-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

I've always been the type of person who looks toward the new year with great anticipation. NYE always brings about a refreshed enthusiasm for life that usually lasts a few weeks. I have set a lot of goals set for 2010, but lets get right to it-the past decade was just plain terrible. Don't get me wrong-lots of good things happened too, but over all, I think it was a pretty shitty decade.

I turned 21 at the turn of the decade (yes, I'm old) and boy did I party. I was living in California at the time. It was awesome to finally get to drink without having to get someone to buy me alcohol or going down to Tijuana every weekend. Enough foreplay though. Lets break down the last 10 years in a time line:

2000:
This was supposed to be the dawn of a new millennium, but all it did was stress people out.
• Y2K – I still don’t get it. What a waste of time.
• Bush and Putin are elected presidents in their respective countries, Hugo Chavez re-elected in Venezuela. There went the neighborhood. But Hilary Clinton is elected to NY Senate.
• Charles Schultz dies, and the final original Peanuts comic strip is published
• Pope John Paul II visits Israel…that’s a big deal
• Oh, & I deployed to Okinawa Japan with the 31st MEU for 6 months. Good times!

2001:
We all remember THIS year.
• Wikipedia launched!
• Silvio Berlusconi wins the Italian General Elections. Playa playa!
• Versailles wedding hall disaster. Wow.
• September 11, 2001. I cried like a baby that morning.
• War in Afghanistan begins, anthrax attacks, and ENRON!

2002:
I got nothing.
• UN Arms inspectors begin snoopin and poopin in Iraq. They didn't find anything but we invaded anyway - cause we're gansta. Bitches.
• The Euro is issued in a bunch of European countries.
• Dept of Justice bends Enron over & “investigates them.”
• Andrea Yates found guilty of drowning her 5 kids.
• DC/Beltway Sniper crushes the stereotype that black people aren’t serial killers.

2003:
War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nu-thin!
• On Valentine’s Day that year, I boarded a bus to North Carolina. After a week of training, off to Kuwait.
• May 1 – Mission Accomplished. Bush declares war over. Ha.
• CIA scandal exposing Valerie Plame.
• The Terminator becomes governor of California.
• Saddam captured. Who cares? Where the fuck is Osama?

2004:
Busy news year.
• Pats win the Super Bowl!
• Facebook founded! Shweeet!
• Scientists in Moscow clone 30 human embryos. Ew.
• Aristide resigns Haitian presidency. Despicable piece of shit.
• Ronald Reagan dies, Bush re-elected, Colin Powell resigns. Heeerrrrr’s Condie!
• Red Sox break the Curse of the Bambino.
• Earth Quake in the Indian Ocean causes tsunami in Thailand, India, Malaysia and other countries. Death toll 187,000 with more than 40,000 STILL MISSING.

2005:
Hump year!
• Pope John Paul II dies. Along came Emperor Palpatine - I mean Pope Benedict XVI. ☹
• Kuwaiti women are granted the right to vote. But they still can’t park a stinking car.
• My son was born right before I got out of the Marine Corps!

2006:
...but where's Bin Laden?
• Ehud Olmert becomes prime minister of Israel.
• The first World Baseball Classic proved that the best players or America’s Pastime in the world aren’t even American.
• Fidel Castro relinquishes power to his kid bro, Raul.
• Saddam sentenced to death – and executed.

2007:
It really goes downhill from here.
• Time names Vladimir Putin Person of The Year. Really?
• Anna Nicole Smith, Merv Griffin, Brooke Astor, Phil Rizzuto, Leona Helmsley, Pimp C all died.
• Sub prime Mortgage Crisis

2008:
What a year!
• Stock market crashes.
• Fidel Castro officially resigns.
• Mike Phelps makes history, winning 8 Olympic gold medals! A star is bong – I mean born.
• Lehman Bros. Files for bankruptcy!
• Barack Obama elected! My president is black, my Maybach’s blue, and I’ll be God damned if my diamonds ain’t too…
• Bernie Madoff arrested for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

2009:
Its finally over...
• Michael Jackson dies and no one cares that another white woman, Farrah Fawcett died too. Ouch.
• Air France flight to Rio crashes in the ocean.
• Can you say “Swine Flu?”
• Tiger Woods banged every white woman on the Planet.
• Roman Polanski…you’re goin to jail-ski…

I’m sure I missed a lot so let a brother know. Happy New Year!

R.I.P. Brittany Murphy

2009-12-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Damn. This sucks. I'm so sad that Brittany Murphy died over the weekend. I think she was a very talented actress, and a beautiful one at that. I'm sorry I'll never get to work with her. On another note, WTF is up with her husband trying to prevent the coroner from doing an autopsy?? He used to be a decent looking human being-now he looks like a big, fat sweaty walrus.

Lindsay's Private Party

2009-12-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

I can't say I've seen much of Lindsay Lohan's work, but I am subject to her constant tabloid adventures. I hear she's a talented actress, but its terrible she seems to be going down a self-destructive path. That being said, I like this new video of her shot by Yu Tsai (heh heh, "YOU-SAY") for MUSE magazine. I'm sold...and I'm attracted to her too. Check it out.

Lindsay Lohan Muse by Yu Tsai from Юрий Кикало on Vimeo.

Brigitte Bardot & Dior Chérie Campagne

2009-12-13T17:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently this is the French version of Sofia Coppola's ad for Christian Dior's Miss Dior Chérie fragrance, using the song "Moi Je Joue" by Brigitte Bardot. I can't say I know much about Miss Bardot, but I should probably do my homework. I think its a really cool concept. This is the sort of creative stuff I'd like to be doing.

Pioneers

2009-12-13T17:08:00.000-08:00

I love this Levis commercial. I love the way its shot. I especially love the Walt Whitman poem. To me, its like a creative little short film more than a commercial. Props to Wieden + Kennedy for this. I'm watching you..:)

Surprise Kitty

2009-12-04T01:02:00.000-08:00

This is too fucking funny. Thanks Alyson
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Helen Hunt Oozes Sexuality

2009-12-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

I'm not mean but damn..this is gross. Shout out to The Superficial for this.

SpongeBob Gets a Makeover - Fashion Scoops - Fashion News - WWD.com

2009-12-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

Came across this really cool item on wwd.com and I thought I'd share it. Thanks Chabella.

SpongeBob Gets a Makeover - Fashion Scoops - Fashion News - WWD.com

Rest In Peace Daul Kim

2009-11-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I read about this beautiful young model from South Korea who hanged herself in Paris. The story peaked my interest, and as I read one article on her, I discovered that she had a blog. I was floored. Beyond her beauty, she was so intelligent and sensitive-inspiring really. On her blog I came across this old gem, a film by Shel Silverstein called "The Giving Tree." Among my greatest loves in life are things that remind me of my childhood. Walk with me...

The Return of the MAveRiCk.

2009-11-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

Its been much too long since I've touched this blog. I feel like I'm wasting so much-time, opportunity, and brain cells-simply by neglecting this blog. Tsk, tsk! Fear not-I've decided to use this creative outlet I created for sharing my opinions and experiences on everything pertaining to young New Yorkers. I wanna discuss love, dating, gadgets, cars, watches, art, night life, and of course-film. Every now and then I'll post a short story or poetry-be it my own or something inspirational I may find elsewhere. Til next time, kids.

Isabella

2009-01-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

Words danced in his head, meandering aimlessly about

With each step, a melody to her name

What a strange and beautiful song?

Who but he would understand? What a shame

He tried to grasp the elusive words,

Nonsensical phrases and rhymes

Yet each word would become

The same four syllables in his mind

He felt replete with a familiar satisfaction

She whispered, he listened

She knew at once that it was her all along

That he had been missing

He began to frown, shivering quite a bit

For along with her whispers came her cold embrace

Her heart filled with warmth, she yearned to be closer

And reached out lovingly, caressing his face

Her cold fingers brought to him tears

Of neither joy nor sorrow

He quickly brushed them aside and smiled

They would meet again, most assuredly tomorrow

Rain Is For Lovers

2008-11-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Rain is for lovers..
Wriggling toes beneath 400 thread counts
Lips glossed and giggling, humming along to "A Love Supreme,"
while random nothings are traced onto bare flesh

Rain is for dreamers..
Loose tresses frame a bespeckled and enamoured countenance
While soft hands clasp a tree long since killed, to remind once again
that "It was the best of times..."

Rain is for runners..
Fast and free, rhythmic and fluid
Content and sedated
Gliding surreptitiously through beating droplets of His joy
And sorrow.

The Outline Of Your Silhouette

2008-11-30T15:57:00.000-08:00

The outline of your silhouette
Reminds me of something classic
That I can't quite name
Your smile reminiscent
Of the palm tree's shade...
And of course, lemonade
Your touch melts away my uncertainty
And your kiss!
Oh, your soft, sweet, passionate lips!
Your fair skin is a delicate confection
And with each taste
I've stolen a bit more of heaven
The rigidity of your nipples
And entrancing contour of your breasts
Brings me an irrepressible desire
To render caress
How intoxicatingly dizzying
That the taste of your warm, wet, inviting
Sheath of Love
Awaits my lips this very hour...
A delicacy I will soon ravenously devour
It all makes sense now
And I implore you, the keeper
Quell my hunger
Your lascivious supplicant
Who is famished, and weakened

A Wonderous Dream

2008-04-07T22:31:00.001-07:00

I awoke from a wondrous dream, and resumed to living a wondrous dream..

Sole Survivor

2007-12-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

"Chinese handball is for pussies! I'm going to play soccer with my compatriots." Never one to mince words, even in my adolescence I always managed to make absolutely certain when speaking that eloquence and arrogance conjointly, were indistinguishable. At a very young age I learned that solving life's challenges was merely a means of making way for new ones. The surprise was almost never what trouble was in store for me, but when. Of course, that's what makes life interesting and worth living.

Circa 1987, the daily playground usance during recess at P.S. 161 was something of an iterative exercise in elitist segregation. Most of the American kids played handball, basketball or catch. The less athletic or lazier ones played Chinese handball, a derivative of handball which required very little skill, coordination or movement. The girls jumped rope, the Hispanic kids played suicide and the Haitian kids, yours truly included, loved soccer. We didn't have much, so the Americans played basketball with anything that would bounce. We played soccer with anything that would roll and was big enough to kick.

On this particular day, the soccer ball in question was a small, hollow metal ball. I don't recall where or how it was obtained but I do remember that it was slightly smaller than the size of a nine-year old's fist. Our time was limited, so we often played with heedless zeal. I was a born athlete who competed ruthlessly, yet moved gracefully. I was both Pele and Mikhail Baryshnikov, or so I thought.

Early in this particular game, an opposing team member commited a hand violation, and being the strongest kicker, I set up the penalty kick. This makeshift goal was actually a wall of the school building, one who's boundaries were determined by placing two milk crates approximately six feet apart. I measured my steps, took a running start and launched the little metal ball towards the wall. What happened next was inexplicably uncanny and quite possibly the most mortifying experience of my entire life.

I swung my leg so hard I barely felt my toe hit the ball. I swung so hard I barely noticed how hard my sneaker scraped the concrete. I swung so hard I didn't at first realize what had exactly happened or what was wrong. Everyone else seemed to have known except for me. As I watched it hit the wall, it made a sound that instantly made me sick to my stomach. Tears rendered my vision a translucent blur as hopelessness and dispair filled me and goose bumps covered my body. The ball bounced off the wall and landed somewhere on the concrete, but no one made a play for it. All eyes were transfixed on the right sole of my week-old white sneakers, which had flown off, hit the wall and fallen to the ground.

There I stood, sneakers still laced, sole-less and humiliated, in a playground with hundreds of pre-pubescent children, all laughing at me. I quickly dashed over, picked my sole up and made off with it, straight to the nurse's office, sobbing uncontrollably. I could never have imagined anything like this happening to me, yet I felt it could only happen to me. All of the hardship I had already seen came back that day to fester in my mind and torment me. No child at such a delicate age should ever know what an eviction notice looked like, but I did. No child should ever have to carry his school books in plastic shopping bags, but I had. During the hour or so that I had to escape my life and just be a boy, happy and free, my destitution was exposed in emphatic fashion for all to see.

All the nurse could do was duct tape my entire shoe and send me back to class. My mother wasn't home at the time to pick me up, so I had to stay in school and withstand the jeers for the remainder of the day. My own friends ridiculed me. Even Wendy, the malnourished looking skeleton boy with a girl's name who I antagonized ceaselessly for years had his revenge that day. Haitians are fucking stupid. Who gives their kids American last names as first names (like Markinson and Peterson) or names boys after girls?

My sneaker fell apart again on during walk home from school that day. Once I got home, I recounted the entire ordeal, seeking my mother's comfort. I was instead crushed when she became angry and blamed me and my reckless cavorting for destroying the ten dollar pair of shoes she bought at Bobby's Discount Store. Although mother loved me very much she never understood that boys will be boys. Perhaps she was frustrated that she worked hard and could only afford the cheapest shoes and it angered her that I didn't take better care of them. Perhaps she was angry with herself for not being able to buy me a better pair of shoes and simply took it out on me. Since becoming an adult, I've come to understand what it means to struggle and have responsibility, but since then, I resented her for a very long time. I cried because we were poor, because I was humiliated and because she blamed me for doing what all kids do-play.

I told that story countless times for years after that, perhaps as a form of self-therapy to overcome that experience. It was one thing to be poor together, but it was much more challenging to have it exposed publically and be ridiculed, so I chose to be an open book and make people laugh with me instead.

America's Real Pastime

2007-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Bring back my change! "If I never hear those words again," I would always mumble to myself as I marched tempestuously out of our bantam single-bedroom domicile, "I'll be the happiest kid alive." Kent Golden Lights, my mother's then-cigarette of preference, were a dollar twenty. Gas was an abominable dollar twenty nine, and "Ice, Ice Baby" was the most popular song in America. All I ever thought about were Jordans, comic books and, well-Jordans.

On this particularly hot August afternoon, I was home alone, again. While most adolescents my age were out getting into all sorts of mischief and adventure, I was restricted to the confines of Apartment 2L. I wasn't being punishment for anything; it was just that I was never allowed to go anywhere, at any time, for anything but to the corner store for errands. Yet still, it has always been a well-known fact that I never needed to wander very far to find trouble-it always seemed aware of my exact coordinates.

With the radio in the bedroom blaring MC Hammer's "You Can't Touch This" every fourth song in the rotation, I popped into the VCR a video cassette I had found in the secret stash belonging to my aunt, titled "Sex, Lies and Video Tape." To a twelve year old boy, this was the jackpot; soft-core porn! Soon I began to fast forward the tape to the nudity and suggestive innuendo, and it wasn't long before I worked up a feverish state of arousal and dashed into the bedroom, leaving the tape paused to a particular descriptively and explicit frame.

I do not recall exactly why I chose to stand by the window, shorts around my ankles, music still blaring through the radio while enacting the ancient yet timeless ritual of autoeroticism, but the expression on my mother's face as she flung open the door was one I won't soon forget. I never even heard her come home! Undoubtedly annoyed at first that the VCR and radio were both running simultaneously, the frown on her tired brow, freckled with sudation, instantly gave way to a horrified grimace.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?!" she exclaimed. "ARE YOU MASTURBATING!?!" To this brief, infuriated interrogative, she awaited no response. She immediately turned away and slammed the door behind her as I fumbled frantically to pull my pants up, stammering; "No-No, mom! I wasn't…I was just…I was..!"

Moments later, the front door opened and slammed. "Clack! Clack!" I winced as she locked the door, keys jingling about intemperately as they rapidly turned in the keyholes. I just stood there, mortified, disheveled and trembling. I could find no words with which to speak. What would I tell her once she returned? The gloomy prospects of elucidating this catastrophe left me trepid for certain, to say the very least.