Month / June 2005

by DrMabuse

Persona Non Grata

Maud pointed out the Neal Pollack/Dave Eggers fracas this morning and made a case for honest criticism.

I don’t have any self-serving magazine manifesto or “woe is me” Eggers-style panegyric to contribute to this argument, but there are two additional misleading statements in the Pollack article that should be pointed out. The first needs to be corroborated, but if it is true, then I will update this post with the rather interesting results. If true, Pollack doesn’t have nearly the sense of humor or “thick skin” that he claims he does.

The second involves Pollack’s misleading statement that he “had a five-figure credit card debt.” As reported here last November, the film rights for Never Mind the Pollacks were sold to Warner Brothers’ Bill Gerber for a mid six-figure sum, somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 — enough to take out a five-figure credit card debt and more. (This news was, as I recall, originally reported in Publisher’s Lunch. But the deal was also reported in Variety and at Done Deal.)

I don’t care if Pollack is writing under a persona or not. I’ll only say that I’ve enjoyed Pollack’s satire in the past, but find his recent non-satirical work stiff, humorless and far from genuine. If Lenny Bruce or Andy Kaufman came up to you and told you that what they did was an act, would you have as much respect for them in the morning? That’s like telling a four year old kid that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

Pollack, by his own admission, has settled into yuppified complacency. That’s a shame. Because he’s become about as lively as a tired Catskills comic waiting for the septuagenerians to laugh. This isn’t a “hateful” statement. It’s an honest criticism for a writer who has, to my great sadness, turned chicken.

by DrMabuse

Partial List of the Class of ’05

William S. Morricone-Goldsmith; Joaquin Stick; Enrique Insalada Suavo; “Little” Nell Carter-Mondale; Henrietta Hi-Fi Tapa; Georgia Savannah Cargostygian; Gilbert Fishernie Scale; Christian Muslim Disciple; Patricia Pedunda Removal; Abigail Winslow Flexbreeze; Gershwin Girthloss Waverley; Zachary Payne Lastoo; Faith B. Initiative; Octavia Gregoria Calendar; Jesse James Cleaner; Freddie Friday Freedom; Vernice Itralia Carnal; Ryan Whiskian the Fifth; Huey Louie Dewey; Stephanie Stair Io; Debbie Does Dallas; Ami Amy Amyself; Abby Road Listener; Milford Paperchevy Treedodge; Gino Effyes Emaybee; Connie Artis Tree; Quinten Common Divider; Buster Chops; Carl S. McDonald, Jr.; Dusty Bowler; Jay Kline Mien; Flo Eventia Absentee

by DrMabuse

James Howard Kuntsler Goes to Raging Waters

While on my book tour for The Long Emergency, I attended a place known as Raging Waters, a “waterslide theme park” that’s a first-class cesspool devoted to energy-wasting frivolities. Given the name, I had hoped that the place might sustain my relentless anger and high blood pressure. But the cabana boys were friendlier (if nowhere nearly as smart as me) than I expected. So I was forced to concede that because I wasn’t in my comfortable, heavily secured and energy-efficient bunker in upstate New York, this waterslide park was yet another unfortunate component of our Clusterfuck Nation.

kuntsler.jpgIf anything, Raging Waters demonstrates in name and in principle that the American public will continue marching to a steady clueless beat. This summer, like the summer before it and the summer before that, people will contend with these horrid monstrosities called waterslides. Popular in California, these wiry eyesores can be found along the outer edge of the great suburban nightmare. The waterslides show no signs of abating and regularly obstruct one’s view of the sun. They are sometimes green and sometimes blue, a crummy aesthetic that should remind anyone of that domestic regularity known as cleaning the toilet.

Waterslides are essentially sinuous slaloms that use up a remarkable amount of water and energy, as if people think they can have all the fun they want without consequence. Even more distressing is the sight of overpriced popsicles and young and fit bodies wearing various Speedos and swimming trunks. As any intelligent person knows, both of these garments use far too many joules during the manufacturing process and were likely produced in an export processing zone. The continued manufacture of swimming trunks will be a seminal part of The Long Emergency, where people will be forced to replace their precious swimwear with empty potato sacks that they find in what remains of the empty supermarkets that have been looted. Most of these supermarkets will, of course, be burned to the ground.

Beyond the summer attire, there remains the more problematic aspect of supine bodies being shot through a tube at remarkable speeds. It hasn’t occurred to the Raging Waters management that their hundred foot high platforms not only use up a good chunk of precious wood (which will be needed for the Long Emergency when the oil runs out), PVC plastic tubing and fiberglass, but are designed to use as much water as is humanly possible.

What these yokels call “fun” is a very deadly onslaught upon my own delicate sensibilities, which of course matter more than yours. If we are to avoid the Long Emergency, then it is essentially that the United States have the least amount of fun possible. Fun uses too much energy. Fun feeds the horizontal expansion of minimalls and endless fast food franchises. There can be no fun in the United States, not now and not during the Long Emergency. A pox upon water slides! And a pox about enjoying a single moment!

by DrMabuse

Fuck Two Buck Chuck

Everywhere I go these days, from swank parties to low-key affairs, I see people — charming and intelligent people who should know better — gripping their red plastic cups (and sometimes actual wine glasses) with this godawful ruddy swill called two buck chuck. The whole point of this ghastly red liquid is to get as drunk as fucking possible using as little money as possible. (In this case, two measly dollars.) Which makes it another part of this goddam lofty American ideal: Get there as fast as you can in the cheapest manner possible. To hell with quality, to hell with life, to hell with savoring the moment.

These people have the audacity to call this shit “wine.” As in “Can I pour you some more wine, Ed?”

No, motherfucker. You can pour me a half-decent glass of something with actual taste and texture that I can nurse for an hour while you and the boys get blitzed in minutes. All because this crap is named after a motherfucker named Charles Shaw, whose name sounds suspiciously like a vicious investment banker who takes every dollar in your savings account and leaves in a cloud of dust before he can hand you a receipt.

I have to ask this all-important question: Does it feel good to drink a “wine” whose only real achievement is underpricing cheap Gallo?

I’m no vintner and I’m hardly a wine connoisseur. And the last thing I want to do is advocate that Sideways wine snob bullshit that shows no signs of dying among the hipsters. But I’ve learned over the years that wine isn’t meant to be guzzled. When I taste this shit, it conjures up the unsavory notion of fermented Kool-Aid. And the last thing I need when I’m relaxing is to be reminded of that shifty pitcher-sized son of a bitch with the permanent smile on that bulbous and untrustworthy face.

What makes two buck chuck any difference from grabbing a forty ouncer? If you’re going to inhabit a alcohol paradigm this low, why not drink two buck chuck in a paper bag? While you’re at it, have a glass of this junk to wash down with your crappy Big Mac meal.

If this is about getting trashed (and by the way that people slam their two buck chuck, that’s certainly the ostensible goal), why not bourbon? Hell, why not ether? Drinking two buck chuck feeds into the blotto impulse but it tastes like a poorly mixed girly drink. And the sad thing is that the bartender’s not there to fix it right. It’s the drinking equivalent to a pup staying on the porch while the big dogs play.

Plus, two buck chuck rhymes with “fuck.” Outside of Orangina (as pronounced ni New Jersey), I can’t think of a single successful beverage that rhymed so bluntly with copulative terminology. It’s a wonder that no one has suggested “two buck chuck and a fuck.” That honesty (get trashed, get fucked, wake up with a hangover wondering who the hell this stranger is) would make me feel so much better about the deceit of it all.

So fuck two buck chuck. Fuck it hard.

Me? I’ll be drinking my Kendall Jackson pinot. It’s eight bucks more, but it lasts a whole evening. And when you compare the dollar-to-drinking rate of each (a bottle of two buck chuck in an hour versus a ten dollar bottle of Kendall over five hours), the balance evens out.