What does it Mean?

After years of thinking like an Anthropologist, training and reading about different cultures across the globe, I have come to realize that I have a favorite anthropological anecdote.

Generically redacted: When the anthropologist asks the African villager why he accused his neighbor of sorcery against him, since it was not atypical for elephants to run through the town and stomp on gardens? The villager responded that while elephants may run through and trample all the time, sorcery is involved, not because they destroyed town gardens, but because they destroyed his garden.

I get the textual, sub-textual, and post-textual (or, the significance ascribe to the tale after it was reported) meanings. But thinking about this anecdote leaves me sad and maudlin – a feeling that is augmented by my late night listening of the Magnetic Fields, as if the world were a Busby Berkeley routine that may have been scripted by Vonnegut and colored by the famous Armenian artist Rabo Karabekian.

None of this make any sense… Fuggit!

Coming Correct Don "Juan" Imus

Apologists for Don Imus tried to spread the heat by comparing his rants to Snoop Dogg's and other Gansta Rapper's ryhmes. But the boy from Long Beach did not like this. Here is what Snoop had to say about the matter:

"Rappers are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC. I will not let them muthafuckas say we in the same league as him."

Word!

Things we do to be pretty...

(or simply have teeth in 15 years)

I had my second bicuspids on my maxilla pulled yesterday. It took me 30 years to get those suckers; 30 minutes to pull them out. I knew what the obstacles for a healthy bite were going to be, but actually having bloody, gapping holes where once there were (ecru-colored) teeth is a reality check. I have the best dentist and everything went smoothly. In addition to a painless procedure, i have no swelling, no pain afterwards, and clotting is going well.

I guess that in the long run I'll have the benefits of straight teeth. But what are these benefits? I already made it through high school without too much agony. I am already cocky with high self-esteem, I date an incredible woman, and my career is entirely in my hands.

Maybe part of me just needs to know, as my blogmate Rex told me, what it is people go through to be/feel/appear beautiful. In this case, all this fuss is an anthropology of teenager transformation. From what I have read online, braces in this country have become a common place experience for many 12 and 13 year olds, regardless of their actual orthodontic needs.

Whether this whole procedure makes me more beautiful, I don’t really care or know at this point, I just know it's a bitch to have invasive orthodontics at 31 (or any age).

What I am listening to:

"True I'd give my right arm
To keep you safe from harm
And, true, for you I'd move to Ecuador

And I'd keep a little farm
Chop wood to keep you warm
But I don't really love you anymore

I don't have to love you now
If I don't wish to
I won't see you anyhow
If that's an issue

Because I am a gentleman
Think of me as just your fan
Who remembers every dress you wore-

Just the bad comedian
Your new boyfriend's better than-
'Cause I don't really love you anymore

There'll be some day when your eyes
Do not enthrall me
I'll be numb, I realize you'll never call me

'Cause I've read your horoscope
And now I've given up all hope
So I don't really love you anymore

'Cause I've read your horoscope
And now I've given up all hope
So I don't really love you anymore"

I Don't Really Love You Anymore, by the Magnetic Fields

Some people need the right constellation to be in love; some people need the right constellation to realize that they are no longer in love. What about being in touch with one's emotions and knowing one or the other. It is in ourselves my dear Brutuses.

Hail for Halo

It has happened, I am a Beta Tester for Halo 3. Can't wait to see the upgrades. This makes having braces a little easier. :)

Brace Face

After 31 years of looking beautiful, I am about to start a 3 year program that will render me even more handsome. (Hold on to your knickers ladies, I am about to go up to "eleven"). Yesterday my orthodontist affixed braces to my upper teeth. Hopefully, this will correct my jutting overbite and return my teeth to where they belong -- above, not in front, of my lower incisors.

It is an odd thing to share more than one thing with teenagers. Besides kicking their collective ass on Halo 2 Multiplayer, now we all share the same metal smile. The ortho assistant fastened grey rubbers around each bracket. It seems that for my face, this color is the most discreet one; this is because my beard and hair also have lots of grey. Grey hair, grey beard, grey teeth... No I'm not that boring, I promise!

Copenhagen; Point Break II

Jokes and Funnies

Taking a piss at a local bar, i looked up and to the right over the urinal.

There I read this: "What are you looking up here for?, cuz the Joke is in your hand!"

Very Funny

Then I look down and to the left.

There I read this: " As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita Falls"

Very Witty

Image above: Mooninite Scare in Boston

Very Very Funny

Fooling us on the Sly

Don't ask me why, but I am addicted to 80s Sylvester Stallone movies. It all started with casual channel surfing three weeks ago. As I lazied my way from TBS to SciFi, I came across Rambo II on AMC. Instantly enthralled by the explosive action of a bow-wielding Vietnam vet who is busy rescuing American POWs out of Vietnam, I forgot about my 6 o'clock appointment with Stargate Atlantis. I have seen the movie many times, but it's been 10 years or so since my last viewing.

Since then, I have come across a few other Stallone movies on TV. The worst (i.e. best) of the bunch is Cobra. Here Sly plays the laconic Det. Cobretti, a tough and unshaved sort-of man who is willing to act ruthlessly and roughly with the worst of L.A.'s thuggary. Cobra, short for Cobretti, single handedly defeats a militia group who is bent on bringing about a revolution through their own brand of terror tactics, namely a murder spree on the streets of L.A (maybe not what Marx had in mind). But when the militia group's leader is spotted doing murder by a passerby, the anonymity of the entire organization is threatened by this witness's potential testimony to the police. The militia group tries to kill the witness; Cobra defend the witness and defeats the militia. Fini.

There is no surprise that the witness is a supermodel who, like Cobra, happens to be single and to Cobra's delight "a little crazy". The attraction between the two is instantaneous. The surprise in the whole movie is the tightness of Cobra's jeans and how he is able to perform the necessary acrobatics to defend the supermodel and defeat the militia group. The jeans are as tight as a second skin, and despite the absence of room for even an oxygen molecule, Cobra manages to carry his gun tucked in the front of his jeans. Every time Cobra shoots off his pistol, he never worries about an overheated barrel as he "holsters" the weapon in the waist of his pants. He never burns his abdomen, and never complains about the hot zipper effect that you could expect from a hot barrel touching the copper-teeth and pull lever on pants. Heat should go all the way down leaving a long linear burn in the down-there area. No worries for Cobra though.

(According to my friend Snotboy he most likely enjoyed it. After killing bad guys, and making the sweetness with the supermodel, he probably ejected a Klingon growl and put his gun away. Who knows what things people do to remind themselves of being alive)

Some shit is just too unbelievable. What is worse is that I sit and watch it.