I hate being a registered Democrat because they’re a bunch of corrupt, pork-fed criminals who say one thing and do another.  But Republicans are a bunch of corrupt, pork-fed criminals who say one thing and do another and are even more difficult to identify with.

Sometimes I take stock and see whether I am, in fact, identifying with the Democrats more than the Republicans.  After all, they’re basically the same.  As Belloq said to Indiana Jones: “Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me, to push you out of the light.”

Can’t most substantive political points be made by quoting Raiders of the Lost Ark?  If you said “no,” back to debate class with you.  You have much to learn.

Anyway, in regards to determining whether I still align a bit more with the left wing, all I have to do is look at the news and evaluate the most recent scandals that have engulfed past and present administrations.

- Democrats: Committed perjury and general wrongdoing because they really wanted to have sex with a young intern.

- Republicans: Committed perjury and general wrongdoing because they really wanted to start a war in Iraq.

Yup.  Still identifying just a bit more with the Democrats.

Ever notice how some people shout “Hold the elevator!” through a bullhorn and then run the equivalent of a football field while you stand there, holding the door and growing your beard?  By the time they arrive, the elevator could have floated up twenty stories and gently come back again.  These people don’t understand the concept of an elevator: it’s not a one-time thing and then you’re screwed.  They don’t even run hourly.  They go up and down whenever you push the button.  That’s why they call them elevators.  God bless!

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I saw two trailers for two new Dakota Fanning movies, and it seems to me that she looks exactly the same as she did in Man on Fire a few years back.  Is it possible that she has whatever Gary Coleman has that doesn’t let him grow taller?  Looking at Gary Coleman is like looking at a hot dog, doing a double take, and realizing it’s not just a hot dog but one that exploded in the microwave.  I think Fanning could end up having that same exploded-skull look in about twenty years.  I hope she’s spending her money wisely, because I see “security guard” in her future.

---

Washington has been up in arms over Harriet Miers’s lack of qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, but it turns out that it was all a misunderstanding: Bush never meant to offer her as a nominee.  He was simply saying that she’d do a really good job serving on a jury.  What a relief for everyone involved!

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Every year around this time, the controversy over slutty Halloween costumes rears up again.  And it’s true that a lot of people use Halloween as an excuse to wear slutty outfits. After all, the pagans in the Old Country didn’t invent All Hallow’s Eve so they could scare away the spirits by dressing up as Naughty Nurse Nora; they created fake blood out of the juice of raspberries and fake intestines out of ground beef and some of them also had some excellent Borg outfits.  The point is, I think wearing slutty Halloween costumes is only bad if you’re too afraid to dress slutty the rest of the year, and so you’re using the holiday as an excuse and giving yourself an escape route if people don’t like it: “Oh, it’s just for Halloween.” That’s dishonest, and therefore wrong.  Ask yourself these questions:

Are you comfortable with the idea of being a slut?

Are you using Halloween as an excuse, or does dressing like a slut embody an important aspect of your character?

Would you seize other opportunities throughout the year to unleash your inner slutness?

If you’re unclear where you fall on this spectrum, just email me a jpeg of you and your costume.  I can tell a lot by body language and nuance so I’ll be able to tell you if it’s the right costume for you--or if you should just go as Hermione again.  No, thank you.

We’re late to meet our friend.  We pass by a tall, thin woman with a face like a Pterodactyl.  Being thin must be how she gets clients.  It’s her gimmick:  “I’m a good buy because your wife isn’t thin like I am.” But maybe she’s not really a hooker, because she looks scared.  I figure the first thing hookers learn is to not look scared. And if she’s not a hooker, why is she wearing black fishnet stockings and a mini skirt?

Five teenage boys walking in front of us don’t overly appear to be scared.  They’re talking in low, rumbly tones. But they never venture more than five inches apart from each other.  They’re a gang of five, linked together by invisible handcuffs.

A guy leans against a wall covered with gigantic, swooping graffiti lettering. Five feet away from him, people are laughing and hanging out in a doorway.  Ignoring them, he lights a cigarette.  Just for an instant it lights up his entire face.

A pretty looking couple walk quickly down the sidewalk, arms clutched tight around each other.  They stare straight ahead and march in unison, reminding me of a guided missile. They don’t realize that they’re drawing more attention to themselves by looking anxious.  If they relaxed, people would just assume that they’re out to score some drugs and then go party with their friends.  They’re not in any danger anyway.  The only one noticing them is me.

We arrive at the theater ten minutes late.  Our friend is mildly annoyed.  She had tried to call me to see where we were, but for some reason I didn’t hear the ring.  She says, “When you’re waiting at the theater alone, you sort of join this contingent of single people who go stand out on the curb while they wait for a date to arrive.  They all pull out their phones and call their best friends and say ‘I think I’ve been stood up.’” I apologize, although I know that there’s much worse ways to be alone in the city.

(I walk through the front door, exhausted.)

TIVO: Hey buddy!  Welcome back!  Good day at work?

ME: Long, if you must know.

TIVO: Sure it was!  No problem, pal!  I’ve got some shows all ready for you!

ME: What do you mean, you’ve got some shows?  I didn’t tell you to record anything.

TIVO: Exactly!  That’s why they’re…

(Bursting with pride)

..."TIVO suggestions”!  You see, we’ve been hanging out for a few months now, and I can tell what you like to watch!  So I’ve recorded some shows accordingly!  And today I’ve got...Bonanza!

ME: What, the old western?

TIVO:  Yeah!  Yeah, that’s the one!  It’s great!  C’mon, sit yourself down and we’ll rustle up some cattle and head on down to the Ponderosa!  Yeeeee-hah!

ME: Look, I don’t watch Bonanza.  The show’s older than I am and I’ve never even seen a single episode in reruns.

TIVO: But...but...I’m “suggesting” you watch it.

ME: And I’m suggesting you stick your metal head in a cuisinart, you beeping, happy-noise-making freakshow.  You haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?

TIVO: What--what do you mean?

ME: If you’d really been paying attention while I’ve been watching TV, you know I basically watch two things: shows that make me laugh, and anything with a spaceship.

TIVO: Oh...but...y’know, Bonanza has some pretty snappy dialogue...and its star, Lorne Greene, went on to do a show with a spaceship…

ME: Shut the hell up about Bonanza.  Admit it...you haven’t paid attention to my shows.  In fact, you’ve been dozing off during them, haven’t you?

TIVO: Hahaha!  It is to laugh!  Here, let me make some happy beeping noises--

ME: HAVEN’T YOU.

(long pause)

TIVO: Look, no offense, I don’t care who the killer is on Veronica Mars--

ME: Why you--

TIVO: And Aqua Teen Hunger Force--to be honest, I just don’t get it--that guy looks like a bunch of french fries, and I’m supposed to laugh?  Your taste in TV sucks.

ME: Let me find a hammer.  I’m going to turn you into modern art.

TIVO: Okay okay!  You know, let’s start over again. I’ve made some mistakes, you’ve made some mistakes.  But don’t you like my convenience?  My ease-of-use?  Haven’t we had some good times together? 

ME: (Glaring)

TIVO: Let’s just start fresh.  C’mon, man, what do you say? 

ME: Yeah, okay.

TIVO: Here, sit down and we’ll watch some TV together.

ME: Okay, okay.  Fine.

TIVO: ...in fact, I recorded the perfect thing just earlier today.  Anyone up for some good, wholesome family hijinks, Seventh Heaven style?

My friend Adam threw an inventive birthday party for his girlfriend Meredith this weekend: he held an Iron Chef competition.  We split up into groups and had about four hours to research recipes, go shopping, and put together a minimum of three dishes--all of which had to use a mystery ingredient as their common thread.  The mystery ingredient turned out to be squash.

Adam was dressed for the occasion:

To say that cooking competitions aren’t my comfort zone is like saying that Joan Rivers has had a little work done to her face.  I can follow a recipe--if it’s a simple, basic recipe that involves two ingredients, cereal and milk--but I don’t have creative instinct that’s required for this sort of thing.  My primary creative contribution was to suggest that we take our bag full of squash, go to the pub, order some pitchers, and put the squash in it.  We may not win the competition, but we’d have more fun than the other teams.

If you’re curious about what my comfort zone actually is, I think it would be sleep.  I’d like to see an Iron Sleep competition sometime.  There would be no rules.  Why would you need rules?  Everyone would be asleep.

Fortunately, I had one amazing chef and two highly competent ones on my team, so I let them carry me.  I said to one of my co-chefs, Elizabeth, that I needed help slicing up the pumpkin because “I’ve never carved up a pumpkin unless I was trying to give it a face and stick a candle in it.”

She said, “Hahaha!  Greg, you are funny.”

I said, ”I’m completely serious.  How the hell do you chop up a pumpkin?”

And so on.  In the course of the afternoon, I did a lot of chopping.  If I was a cowboy, I would have been Chopalong Cassidy.  If I had been a composer, I would have been Chopin.  If I had been a building, I would have been a Chopping Mall.  What I’m saying is, I did some chopping.

The end result was an amazing squash curry:

By the way, I chopped the green beans in that curry.  The length of the green beans is extremely important for the delicate balance of complex flavors to be found in said curry.  The wrong quotient of green beans can completely destroy a meal.  For example, if you put too many--or, in fact, any--in a bowl of cereal, you ruin the bowl of cereal.  Yes.  I know stuff.  Suck on it, Williams and/or Sonoma.

We also made a pasta type thing, and bunch of delicious pumpkin muffins, bread pudding style, that you could dip into caramel and stuff your face with:

We won the competition and each received a silver statue and an Iron Chef apron.  And as the winners were announced, I realized that I felt absolutely no guilt.  It’s good to receive prizes and accolades for being in the right place at the right time, letting others do the hard part.  Think of all the great people throughout history who have done the same thing:

Dan Quayle!

Harriet Miers!

Andrew Ridgley!

Art Garfunkel!

Bert!

I’m proud to be one of their number.

Suddenly, Democrats see a possibility in 2006 they have long dreamed of: a sweeping midterm election caused by a growing feeling of popular discontent with the Republican majority.  That sense of political opportunity has Democratic operatives scrambling to recruit more candidates in Congressional districts that look newly favorable for Democratic gains, to overcome internal divisions, and to produce an agenda they can carry into 2006.

The agenda is the key issue with democrats, who are widely believed to have lost to Bush due to their inability to produce a coherent message that moderates and undecided voters could rally around.  Democratic leaders, though, feel that this time has past.

“We absolutely have a coherent message to give to the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.  “We have taken the time to craft a position platform that speaks to both historical democratic values and the future needs of the American public.

When asked what it was, Reid’s face lit up.  “Well, it goes something like this.  nyyARRRRHhhhhhhHuuughhhhhhhhh.”

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi took some issue with Reid’s statement.  “Harry is very enthusiastic, as are we all, about the opportunities in front of us.  But I don’t think he’s quite got it right. I see the democratic message more as HUUURRRRRuhhhddingerGARRRR.”

Senator Barack Obama smiled knowingly when the conflicting quotes were recounted to him.  “Harry and Nancy are both highly committed people, and they’re important engineers of the new democratic message.  But it’s true that, as a group, we’re still picking through specific wording and phrases, in order to ensure that we are making the maximum impact possible when we launch this campaign to the American people.

“Personally, I think our final position will be a combination of both--something like nnnnnARRHingerGARRRR.  And I’d throw in an Ecki-ecki-ecki-ecki-pclang-zoop-boing-gberzhowliziv.  You know, what the Knights Who Say NI! turned into.”

Today a junior employee asked for my help with her section of the 2006 marketing plan.

- I’m stuck on the word “intrinsic.” I want to say “The use of targeted messaging is intrinsic to...to...”

- “...our ability to reach buyers in new markets and raise brand awareness.”

- Right!  “With tightly integrated campaigns, we can...”...uh…

- “Build the sales pipeline and add volume to our lead recycling program.”

- Right, good.  And..."We need to launch programs that are...”

- “...magically delicious.”

- Good, right...right…

- ....

- ....

- ....

- .............wait a second.

- Do you want my advice or don’t you?

If Murphy was still around, he’d like my new law--

--and where is Murphy, anyway?  Talk about your one-hit wonders. I imagine he’s bellying up to some bar somewhere:

- Pour me another one.

- You bet, man.  You’ve been here a lot lately, haven’t you?

- Just trying to forget the past, man.  I used to be somebody. I used to be famous.

- Oh yeah? Do anything I’ve heard of?

- Ever hear the expression “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”?

- Well, sure I--hey wait a minute. That was you?

- Yup.

- My...my God.  You’re--you’re Murphy?

- That’s me.

- Listen, hey, I love your work.  I mean...I love that saying. It changed my life, y’know?  It’s great.  Great.

- Thanks man.  I appreciate that.

- Wow, so...what happened to you?  Where you been all these years?

- Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard the tune a million times before.  Guy hits it big, makes a breakthrough--then no one wants the time of day from him.  I mean, it’s not writer’s block.  I’ve thought up tons of other laws.  It’s just...none of them became popular.  No one wants to hear them.

- You’ve got other laws?  Listen...I’d consider it an honor if you’d tell me some of them.

- Really?  Okay, cool. Well, here’s one I like..."a man who butters his bread on two sides had best keep his fingers clean.” Heh.  Pretty good, huh?

- Uh…

- Or “Teacher who keeps her eyes open wide, makes her pupils smart.”

- Uh…

- You too, huh?  No one ever wants to hear my new laws.

- Listen, pal, the next round’s on me.

I didn’t mean to start riffing on Murphy.  My point is, I have a law that I thought of last week when someone went up to me and said, “I’ve got a really stupid question to ask.” And he proceeded to ask a question that not only wasn’t stupid, but made me completely rethink how I was approaching a certain issue.

I thought about that, and then I thought about the times that someone has interrupted a meeting and said “This is something that’s been on my mind for a while.  I’ve given a lot of thought.” And proceeded to ask a question so mind-numbingly vapid that it nearly stopped time.

People who say “I’ve got a stupid question to ask” invariably don’t.  People who issue some long-winded preface to their question invariably do.

Which leads me to my law: the real problem with stupid people is that they have no idea that they’re stupid.

Devout Scientologist Tom Cruise and his seriously-considering-Scientology-fiancee Katie Holmes have just announced that they’re expecting their first child.

Some have suggested that Scientology and its belief in space aliens might affect or change Katie in some way.  However, a sonogram picture reveals a completely healthy, normal baby:

There’s a billboard on my way to work that really gets on my nerves.  It shows a concerned doctor looking right at you, and the caption reads: “Child Obesity.  Don’t Take it Lightly.”

Here’s three ways to improve that caption:

“It’s 2005, and Fat Albert is No Longer Funny.”

“Tell Freddy to Put the Fork Down.”

“Your Apple Didn’t Fall Far from the Tree--Because It’s Fat.”

On Thursday I was challenged twice.  The first was at 6 a.m. when I went to drop off my car at the mechanics and a bunch of picketers started yelling at me.  “Do you know what’s going on here?” Well no, I didn’t, but I had come here so that people would get all up in my car’s grill, not mine, so I ignored them and left my car and went on my merry way.

I was curious enough to read the brochure they gave me later, though.  It was pretty bad.  A new owner had bought the place and fired all the senior workers and replaced them with less expensive, just-out-of-college talent--many of whom hadn’t even been professionally certified.  I recognized many of the people who were on strike as mechanics who had maintenanced my car for years; the place’s current workforce were all scabs.

My response to this?  Screw you, picketers, because you bothered me at six in the morning.  But screw you even more to the new owners who fired all the people I remember.  I’m never coming back, and I hope all the cars in your shop suddenly burst to life and go all Christine on you.

I was challenged again 18 hours later at the midnight screening for Serenity.  I thought I was feeling pretty good and dorky with my “Sunnydale High School Dept. of Phys. Ed” shirt, but some girl said “Nice shirt; how about mine?” And it was a Trogdor the Burninator shirt, which I had never heard of, although I looked it up later and it’s apparently some HomestarRunner thing.  She actually looked offended that I didn’t get the reference.  I think we all need to be confident and secure in our own geekiness--mine, which is the endearing, non-threatening kind, and hers, which is a completely different species and phylum.

I spent a good chunk of this weekend in Sacramento helping my friend prepare a bedroom for his new baby.  It took longer than we thought, because it wasn’t just painting a room--it was painting it two toned, with molding running across each wall to separate the colors, as well as hanging curtains and attaching shelves.

I said, “Why two toned?  Babies don’t appreciate color contrasts.”

“It’s really for the parents, more than the baby.”

I said, “Why do the curtains say ‘Love’ on them?  Babies can’t read for several years, or even longer in the case of Tara Reid.”

“We think it’s cute.”

I said, “Why are we hanging shelves?  Babies are too small to pick things up and then put them back.”

”Shut up and paint.  When you have kids of your own you’ll understand.”

People with babies always say things like that.  In point of fact, I have no plans to have kids of my own--which is why I finally stopped going to that weekly lamaze class.  What waste of time and money that was.