Polygamy or Creepy Tropical Island?

Wise philosophers have pondered this question for many years. But now I, Brian Graber, will attempt to stick my foot up their ass!

I have been watching the first seasons of Lost and Big Love simultaneously. I am really enjoying both programs since "Dramas," haven't really been my thing, traditionally. Today as I was finishing the last episode of BL I thought, "which scenario would I rather find myself in?" Yes, I know that's a great question!

If you haven't seen the shows, I'm sorry there is nothing I can do to help you. But for the sake of this awesome hypothetical - I will assume that I would be in the position of the main characters. In the case of BL - Bill Hendrickson, husband of 3, father of many, owner of several Home Depot type stores. In the case of Lost - Dr. Jack Shephard, the only doctor on the island that I know of, and the defacto leader of sorts. (please don't spoil anything for me if you choose to comment)

First Impression: Easy, I'd have to go with being married to 3 women, not being stranded on a weird island with creatures that knock down trees, attack humans and have to live with increasingly hostile inhabitants! Hendrickson is sleeping with 3 women who are all cool with it! I've always said that I support polygamy (but not in the - kick young boys out on the street and marry of 16 year olds) and lucky for me - the Hendrickson's are not those kind.
Advantage: BL

Second Impression: I grew up living in two homes (I originate from a broken home) and I could never find anything I needed. Hendrickson lives in three homes! Consider me boned. On the island - those people barley have anything, talk about not having a problem finding your shit (post-find your stuff from the plane crash). Also, one must consider location: a Salt Lake City suburb or a tropical island most likely located in the Pacific?
Advantage: Lost

Third Impression: Hendrickson is wicked stressed. Besides the three wives, he operates two stores with his name on it and is fighting off the fake prophet and leader of the polygamist compound who is growing increasingly more violent. On the other hand, Dr. Jack is wicked stressed too. He's figuring out how 40ish people are going to survive on a deserted, mysterious island. People are hurt, he has to help them; someone stole something, he has to go get it back; basically he's being pulled in a million different ways, yet everyone looks to him for advice.
Advantage: Tie (I don't need that kind of stress in my life)

Fourth Impression: One of the survivors of the plane crash is named Kate Austen who is played by Evangeline Lilly. I'm not through the first season yet, but if I had to guess Dr. Jack is going to sleep with her - and she's super hot. Hotter than Bill's three lovely wives combined.
Advantage: Lost (super hot!)

Final Impression: I enjoy camping, I enjoy the wilderness, but let's not be silly - I wouldn't do well on the island. I enjoy working with people but when push comes to shove, I'm throwing fists. I don't live or need a lavish lifestyle but the basics have always come in handy. The thought of having to go to war with the bad kind of polygamists is much more enjoyable than living on an island cut off from the world.
Advantage: BL

Final Verdict: Both of these very realistic scenarios are quite intriguing and clearly have their ups and downs. But in the end, fuck it! I want to be Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother!

Weezer - Raditude

(As seen on DeafLeftEar.com)

So you've given up on Weezer. That's okay - we all can agree that The Red Album blows worse than Courtney Love in need of drugs. But there is good news if you're willing to hear it. Weezer's seventh studio album, Ratitude, feels like a return to the Weezer you want to like.

It's a werid thing to type, but this album sounds like a collection of Weezer songs. (Kind of like using the word you are trying to define in the definition) But that's a good thing! "My Name is Jonas," "Buddy Holly," "Pork and Beans," "Say It Ain't So," "Dope Nose" all have that Weezer vibe to it which was wholly lacking on the last album.

The weird-ish thing is that Rivers Cuomo is damn near 40 and he's still pumping out jams about summer camp love, losing girlfriends, partying (we'll get to that in a minute) and finding out who got hot after all these years. Just playing to the crowd maybe?

If you have a radio clearly you've been inundated with "If You Want Me To," which is fantastically catchy. Songs like "I'm Your Daddy," "The Girl Got Hot," and "Put Me Back Together" all have that same "Weezer quality (n.)" you want to hear from them.

Track 4 is a song that Rivers and Jermaine Dupree wrote together. It's essentially a hip-hop song about partying... I guess Rivers wanted to do something unexpected and different so he brought in the soon-to-be incarcerated Lil' Wayne to spice it up. It's cool though, I can actually cross something off of my "Top 10 Things I'll Never Hear on a Weezer Album" list:
#3 - Lil' Wayne rapping: "Okay bitches it's Weezer and it's Weezy, upside-down MTV, please don't shoot me down because I am endangered species."

In summation - many old Weezer fans probably stopped listening or caring about this band but if there was any chance you'd find a way to bop your head to new Weezer material - this is it, because god knows when Rivers Cuomo finally releases those 3,000 never before heard songs he hides in his basement, you'll want to remember them for something better.

Insurance Denied my Claim for Reimbursement of my Crushed Dreams

...said it was a "pre-existing condition." Well I never wanted to be an Astronaut anyways!

The dream and delusion is back on mf-ers. On Monday (a week from tomorrow) I will hit the sometimes great American highway known as I-95 and travel south to Florida (with my Mom). Hooray! She's really just bumming the ride and we'll all have Thanksgiving down there.

From there - I head West across the South! Then it's up the California coast to the Redlands! Then it's, how the hell do I get home?! (via ft. collins? and maybe chicago?)

So pep-up because hopefully soon your workday will suck 3ish minutes less than it normally does. Pending a computer overhaul and fix, I'll have an unreliable computer at best, that I can upload the video podcasts to. One week...

And for the last time - do you know anyone in San Diego?

Bored To Death

The first season of Bored To Death just rapped on HBO.

At first I was very hesitant about this series because it stars Jason Schwartzman. He plays a writer who tries his hand at being a private investigator via craigslist. He annoys the crap out of me. After seeing the series I can say that I believe he's typecast and still annoys the crap out of me. However, this annoyance is incredibly more tolerable in this role than other so far.

The two supporting roles make this show! Zack Galifianakis plays the struggling artist best friend and Ted Danson plays the big suit Alec Baldwin, 30Rock-ish boss. They are super fantastic. I always like Ted Danson - Becker is/was a great TV show no matter what you think.

This show had a solid plot line with a disappointing cameo by mac nerd favorite John Hodgman. If nothing else, white wine and weed will always make for a humorous running joke. I'd reccomend this show to you.

Meth Linked to Andre Agassi's Hair Loss

According to Andre Aggasi's new autobiography, he smoked some crystal meth back in 1997. Oooooo - well whoopide-freakin'-do!

What outrages me about this is that other tennis players are outraged themselves. It's not a performance enhancing drug by any stretch of the imagination. I bet it's hard as shit to play tennis not even high on crystal meth but even the day after smoking crystal meth! If he was able to be one the best tennis players of all time, en beteven though he slumped during his meth using days, then bravo to him. That makes him even better than we originally thought!

Rafael Nadal said something to the extent of "This is terrible, why is he saying this now that he's retired?" TO SELL BOOKS YOU MORON! One day when Nadal is retired his autobiography will probably contain stories of cross-dressing prostitution, but at least he'll know then, that he's really just saying it because his days of high paying sponsorships are over. Pimps gotta get paid, 'ya know?!

It's not like he was hiding in the corner of the court rocking back and forth tweaking out, making people nervous that he would pop up and shank them in the throat or anything like that!

Remember when Ricky Williams was kicked out of the NFL for smoking weed? Ridiculous. If he could smoke and run the crap out of the football, they should have said, "that's completley amazing - you a truly gifted athlete, please come to my team for millions and millions of dollars and we'll convince you to quit so you can be even greater."

Yes, athletes doing drugs is looked down upon because they are supposed to be role-models for the kids. When can we say as a nation that that idea is absurd?

Tim Lincecum of the San Fransico Giants was just arrested for marijuana possesion and the kid (he's like 23) had a pitching record of 15-7 this year. That's good! He's a great pitcher and could be a hall 'o famer some day. Now he's gotta deal with this.

In closing - to say that athletes shouldn't use performance enanching drugs like HGH but shouldn't be given crap for recrational drug use is in fact, not hypocritical. Oh, and tennis is boring.

When The Teabaggers Come Back...

we all win. As a pedicabber, I'll invite 10,000 people down to the national mall any day of the week! The Teabaggers (hehe) were back again today because FOX News told them to do so. And just like last time, they tip well. Ultimately, they don't want my family to exist and think I'm going to hell, but I WILL take their money. suckers.

The lack of knowledge these people possess about how government really works could be the most horrifying thing about it to. Or maybe it's a pure blinding hatred thing involving the President. But I had a teabagger ask me today on the cab, "Do you need a liscense to do this?" I said, "No, pedicabs aren't regulated in this city yet." Immediatley he responded, "Well wait until Obama gets his hands on it."

UGH. It's not nice to tell people who you are relying on a tip for that they are in fact, a moron. I said, "Actually, Washington D.C. is it's own city with it's own government. We have our own taxicab commision that is trying to deal with it. Obama has bigger issues to deal with than liscening 40 pedicabs."

----

The other thing I'll mention that irritated me, besides everything was after the rally was over, they were encouraging people to head up to Nancy Pelosi's office for a sit-in. I almost feel like these people aren't worthy enough to take part in such a historically strong protest method. The sit-in is most notable for its role in the civl rights movement. These teabaggers (not to generalize) are racists.

So please come back soon so the pedicab business can boom. And please continue buying crap (illegally) like "don't tread on me" flags from dudes on the street who have no liscense to sell and are most definitley illegal immigrants.

Mini Road Trip - South Carolina(ish)

My consolation prize for smashing my car and messing up my buddy's vacation plans was a nice little rental Hyndai Accent that the insurance company covered most of, for 7 days. So he and I went down to his Dad's house on Dawtaw Island in South Carolina (just outside Beaufort). It's essentially a retirement(ish) country club community. It takes about 9 - 10 hours depending on how strong your need to stop at South Of The Border is...

The car ride there and back wasn't bad at all as it was filled with Animaniacs sing-a-longs, revisitng albums of our youth, rap battles and some smelly farts. But in total I put over 1,600 miles on that little car. I'd recommend checking it out if you need to buy a little cheap car.

One day we golfed, one day we went to Charleston and the following day to Savannah, Georgia. All in all it was a good time. Pictures are on facebook for your conmsumption.

The one thing I do need to point out is the BBQ we had. Amazing stuff. A la Veggie Booty:

Don't worry I put hot sauce on it. And I did this to it:


I guess thats not really healthy living, huh? If I lived in Beaufort, SC I would weigh approximatley 400 lbs. I'd also be a redneck hillbilly who knows nothing of the world and hates that Tiger Woods guy in the oval office... but fortunatley I'm not.

Also, the road trip is being re-thought / re-tooled - not all hope is dead yet. Stay tuned...

Pedicab Confessionals 2.1

Let me tell you a story about a nice young beared Jewish fellow who got royally screwed.

The day was something like Tuesday, November 3, 2009. It was a slow day pedicabbing on the Nation's Mall, but the young pedicabber who for the sake of anonymity, we'll call, Brian Graber, had a fantastic book to read.

Ok I can't write like this much longer without poking my eyeballs out.

I talked to a young prego and Air Force hubby before they went into the Air and Space Museum. They said after it closed at 5:30, they'd want to see the Capitol, White House and Lincoln Memorial. I said we usually get $60 an hour. She said they didn't really have that kind of money, I said whatever, we'll work something out.

The time comes and off we go to see this crap. We do the Capitol and head down Pennsylania Ave. We stop at the ATM so they can eventually pay me and then CVS so they can get a disposable camera. They come out of CVS saying he left his ATM card in the ATM. Moron. We go back. After its been taken (it's still DC, fools) we head to the White House and down to the Lincoln. I'm waiting forever for them at the Lincoln and they finally come back to me at 6:50, almost an hour and a half after picking them up. (Keeping in mind that they're going to give me less than $60)

They said they wanted to check out the Vietnam Memorial and I said, "I gotta go. I've been out with you guys for a while and I gotta be back around 7."
'Oh I'm sorry we didn't know," she said. "We were taking out time, if I knew you had to go we would have hurried."

SO YOU'RE OK TAKING YOUR TIME WHEN I'M ALREADY CUTTING YOU A FUCKING DEAL ON THE MONEY? (they're from Savannah, Georgia. Not intelligent.)

I get them back to the metro just after 7pm and they give me, wait for it... $29.
Now this isn't the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination, but definitley shitty.

To make matter worse, when we were on Penn. Ave, she said her feet were cold because she was wearing sandals like a moron. I told her I had a clean pair of sock in my bag if she wanted to borrow them - she accepted. Well in my rage/annoyance for only getting $29 bucks I let her walk with my nice fucking socks. Again, not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagingation but the botton line is: fuck those guys.

When Is It Okay?

One of my new most favorite blogs belongs to my friend Laura. It's called District Ramblings. She actually writes about interesting things worth reading most of the time in comparison to me, who never writes anything worth reading.

Long story short, she elicits some very strong reactions from her readers (friends) and usually can provide me with a day full of entertainment and arguing with strangers (not MY friends).

Today the topic was essentially, would you give up meat to be with Natalie Portman? The answer: In a heartbeat. But someone who was responding and didn't actually answer the question used the term "manjuice" [sic]. That alone made my day.

When is it okay to use the phrase "man juice?" Just amongst close personal friends? In an open forum where you can hide your identity? In Presidential speeches? Israli Bond pitches? Golf courses? Or just general every day conversation?

Do you have any other favorite phrases that are commonly overlooked in society?

Gaslight Anthem/Murder By Death/Loved Ones - 9:30 Club - Washington D.C.

Anything I could write would not be as succinct or accurate as what Andy wrote.
Same show, but in D.C with my buddy Ross. Good times all around!

A few things I want to mention in bullet format:

• I feel like I've seen this show a million times and I'm always uber-excited to see it again.
  
• Holy crap Dave Hause has hair?! And a lot of it too. We thought he was balding so he just made an effort to shave what little he had all the time. We were wrong - dude's hair is wild.
• Every time I see The Loved Ones live, I love them even more and Andy is right when he says it's probably the best set I've ever seen them play.
• I forget on which song by former Loved Ones bassist, Mike "Spider" Cotterman came out and played on maybe Arsenic or Player Hater Anthem. Shit was solid.
• This was the first time I've seen Murder By Death live and their singer's voice does not match his look at all. Very interesting, just bizarre.
• They turned the sound way up for Gaslight which kinda distorted it which was upsetting. But either way they're playing to bigger crowds who know their music and it almost feels like maybe when you've realized that you're baby has grown up. Andy has it right when he says that they need to play more from Sink and Swim.