My sister-in-law doesn’t read this site, so I can say: I hate realtors.  There’s a particularly annoying couple on the advertisement of a bus bench I always pass on the way to work.  They’re a husband and wife team, and they have good cheekbones, nice teeth, and shiny yellow hair.  I wouldn’t have voted for them as prom king and queen, so why the hell would I want them to help me with a real estate transaction?  No, you can’t have my 6%, but here’s a nice colostomy bag.

Then there’s another couple on a different bus bench and they make a point of mentioning that--I’m not making this up--they take ballroom dancing lessons, and therefore they’re “realtors in motion.” What the hell does that mean?  I don’t want realtors in motion; I want them to help me buy or sell a house.  Twirl your way in front of the bus that’s coming to pick up the people who are currently squashing your faces with their butts.

I’ve also seen the realtor who helped me get my own place on bus benches, but she doesn’t have her husband in the picture and she doesn’t talk about ballroom dancing, and also every year her company sends me a gift certificate for a box of See’s candy and a magnetic fridge calendar, both of which I like.  So she’s okay and she gets a pass.

I guess technically I’m drawing a distinction between good, sophisticated, knowledgeable realtors and those who advertise on the back of bus benches. But let’s get real.  You could easily start to draw a similar distinction between good, sophisticated, knowledgeable lawyers and those who peer at you from your TV screen and ask if that fender bender you were in last week gave you whiplash--but ultimately, it’s a wasted effort because everyone hates lawyers.*

*Except the ones in my immediate family who do read this site.

At the bar:

SHE: Shouldn’t you be wearing a white outfit?

ME: Uh...I don’t know...why?

SHE: Because you’re really nursing that drink.

I love living in the San Francisco Bay Area, but lately I’ve been thinking of moving near Austin.

No, not Austin Texas.  I mean, I’m sure it’s a very nice city.  But no thanks.

I’ve been thinking of moving near Steve Austin, the once-famous Bionic Man.  Oh sure, he’s getting on in years--when he runs in slow motion, he’s actually going in slow motion, and you hear those weird, ‘70s synth noises whenever he has to open up a jar of mayonnaise.  But still, we could hang.  At night we could sit up and do shots and he could tell me about his glory days with Jaime Sommers and the gang, and bemoan the fact that his career didn’t turn out to be more like Michael Knight’s. Eventually he’d pass out and I’d steal his wallet and go out and have some fun.  I mean, sure, he hasn’t worked in decades and he’s probably not worth nearly as much as he used to be.  But you can still go out and raise some hell even if you don’t have six million dollars.

When you’ve been blogging for as many years as I have, it’s easy for you to get complacent.  You know that you can walk into any situation and turn it into blog fodder.  You can absorb it and spit it back out.  You eat up reality like a plate of doughnuts.

So it’s very surprising when you sit down to meet someone new, and she takes off her jacket to reveal a T-shirt that says “I’M BLOGGING THIS.”

And you think, well, how interesting. So this is what it feels like to be prey.  How novel.  Okay, done with that now.  Can we go back to being the hunter?  I’m ready to go back to being the hunter now.*

*When I say “hunter,” I don’t mean this hunter.

If you ever need to recognize the sheer gulf of separation between Man and Woman, simply understand that there’s a pop culture artifact called “The Vagina Monologues.” People don’t even think twice about this, because they intuitively understand that a vagina could actually recite a monologue.  But can you ever think of the word “monologue” alongside the word “penis”?  Penises can’t even give you directions to the interstate, much less yak for several minutes.  Women are always saying “Why don’t you talk more about your feelings?” and Men reply “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got twice the equipment for that.”

Penises don’t understand language.  The only way they relate to the world is in terms of traffic lights.  The penis understands “Stop” and “Go"--and it also registers “Time to slow down,” but usually takes that as an invitation to speed up and get on through before the signal actually changes to red.

I recently went to a club and saw a band.  I may have danced a bit.

The band was taking pictures of the crowd.  I thought it would be fun to see the pictures. So I went to the band’s web site.  And I saw the pictures.  And I was in one of them.

And I realized that there are two possibilities:

1. That I close my eyes and sing to the lyrics if there’s a song I like.

Or:

2. Someone stepped on my foot and I cried out with pain.

Dear God, I hope it’s the second. Otherwise it’s way past time to stage an intervention.

As a kid in the ‘80s, there’s one thing I loved: Side A and Side B.  That’s right, my young friends.  We didn’t have mp3s--or, for a while, even CDs.  We had cassette tapes, and they had the best two things in the world: Track #1 from Side A and Side B.

Why was this so good?  Because the creators always put catchiest, most interesting tracks up front.  Those are the ones which are supposed to grab your attention and make you listen to the whole album.  Sometimes they were the singles, but not always.

Here’s a dumb example.  I never liked Paul Young, best known for “Every Time You Go Away.” He was a big haired, annoying ‘80s goofball. But the first track of one of his albums is a great song called “Bite the Hand that Feeds Me.” This song had way more hooks and production than anything else on the album, because it was the kickoff track.  See what I mean?  You could be a no-talent dingleberried diptard and still manage to squeeze off a good Side A, Side B, or both.  Every time you put in a cassette on either side, you know you were getting the album’s best shot.

But then CDs came along.  I distinctly remember reading an interview with Don Was, who produced Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time.  He said, “CDs will change everything.  You won’t have Side B anymore.  Instead, all the strongest tracks will be frontloaded at the start of the album, because you never know if the listener will get all the way to where Side B used to exist.”

If you actually listen to Nick of Time, you realize that Was had already adjusted his music strategy.  All the catchiest songs, like “Thing Called Love” and “Love Letter,” are on the first half of the album.  Then it kind of peters out.  Was’s prediction came true, and most CDs are now structured exactly like this.  Somewhere around the late ‘80s, I thought to myself “Fine.  So I don’t get Side B anymore. But Side A will never leave me.”

You know what?  Even Side A is now in jeopardy.

It’s still around, but it’s an endangered species.  Mp3s are changing the landscape yet again.  We hardly even listen to albums anymore, preferring to rip songs from own collection and yank tracks down off the Internet, leaving behind the bloodied corpses of the albums they came from.  The best albums always had an internal logic to them--you could listen from beginning to end and not just hear a collection of songs, but feel as though you had an experience.  Now songs are now disembodied and without context, inhabiting Playlist spaces in random assortments.  Musicians will start to make records just as an exercise in Playlist Fulfillment, not as works of art unto themselves.

I feel a little sad about it.  But ultimately I don’t care.

Because God, I love the experience of that massive playlist.  3,000 songs on “Shuffle"--a substantial chunk of anything of consequence that I’ve ever listened to.  With the headphones in place, I often feel like a big, dumb, walking A.M. radio station: “Welcome back to GREG IN THE MORNING!  Featuring cherished classics from the ‘70s!  the ‘80s!  the ‘90s!  And last week!”

Well, also the ‘50s and ‘60s.  I’ve got your “Bee Bop a Lula” right here, fella.

Yeah, there’s no order or structure.  It doesn’t meticulously meld together to form an organic whole.  But instead it does something that may even be better.  It relentlessly hurls bits of my past and present at me like a drunken carnival knife thrower.  It’s like sunlight glancing off a windshield; it’s blinding, and chaotic, and gorgeous.

Gym time is precious.  We don’t have the luxury of spending all day there--and even if we did, whoa, that would be really lame.  Here are some important tips for helping you get the most out of your exercise hours.

Always look as though you’re between sets.  If you stand around looking intent and out of breath, people will always think that you’ve just finished an extremely difficult set and that you’re about to start a new one.  The way to achieve this expression is simple: squint, clutch a bottle of Gatorade, and perform a difficult calculus problem in your head.  Anyone who passes you will think that you’ve just finished a triathalon.  Remember, perception is reality--so if people think you’re in shape, you will, in fact, be in shape. And without having to lift a single pound or run a single mile. 

Wipe down your equipment...some of the time.  The general rule of thumb at the gym is that it’s polite to wipe down the equipment after you’re done using it, allowing others to enjoy it without getting covered in your sweat.  In point of fact, though, this should be done sparingly.  If the people next in line are more out of shape than you are, definitely wipe down the equipment.  After all, they’re making you look good by sheer virtue of being in the gym, and you should afford them every possible courtesy.  However, if the people behind you are more in shape, leave the equipment sweaty. With any luck, they’ll slip on your perspiration, bang their head, and be carted out on a cot--thus lowering the attractiveness quotient in the room and ensuring that you rise up the food chain.

Visualize your goal.  Exercising is meaningless if you don’t have a goal that you can focus on and provide motivation to you in your quest.  For example, it may be helpful to visualize a martini.  Try to imagine it in your hand.  Try to taste it.  In fact, before you leave for the gym, have one so you’re mentally equipped for your workout.  Have two or three.  How do you feel?  Not to worry.  After you sleep it off, the gym will still be waiting for you.

Don’t be afraid to engage your fellow athletes in conversation.  One of the best ways to get through a long, hard workout is to talk to other people and gain a sense of teamwork and community.  Not sure what to say to that stranger next to you?  Here’s a few tried-and-true gems that are guaranteed to open up your world and gain you a few extra friends:

Fingernails: A Williams-Sonoma Cookbook

Annotated Guide to Ten Heavenly Seasons of Seventh Heaven

Straight, White, and Middle-Class: A Stirring Memoir of Childhood

30 Things I’ve Done at Work that Should Have Got Me Fired

Sort of Left Behind, Maybe, Depending on How You Look At It: A Chilling Parable for Agnostics

Being an Idiot for Dummies

Retire Rich by Age Eight

The DaVinci Cold: A Guide to Allergies Suffered by Major Historical Figures

The Mel Gibson Guide to Hebrew Mythology

Origami!

There’s a popular band among the kids these days called A Fire Inside, also known as AFI.  The drummer, Adam Carson, was my next door neighbor growing up.  I was surprised to find out a few years ago (from my parents, no less) that the band was starting to become popular, and that Adam had become a millionaire simply from touring and managing the band’s finances intelligently.

But I didn’t feel bad about this.  First of all, Adam and I were only friends briefly.  Don’t get me wrong: he was the nicest kid in the world.  But there was a five year age difference between us.  We both lived on the outskirts of town away from our other friends, so we liked the idea of being friends.  But he was five and I was ten, so we’d hang out a little after school but it didn’t last too long.  We were friends long enough to build a makeshift clubhouse and play some board games and then we drifted apart.

The other reason is, AFI just sucked the first time I heard them.  My folks wanted to hear a song from the band, so I sent them an mp3 called “I Wanna Get a Mohawk (But My Parents Won’t Let Me).” It was barely music.  It sounded like cats being tossed into a wheelbarrow and rolled down a hill.  Okay, so he was getting rich. But was this ethical, to make alleged music of this kind?  At least I could sleep at night, conscience clear.

But then I realized that AFI was getting even more popular.  I’d see people wearing AFI T-shirts.  The band played on the MTV Music Awards.  And I caught some of their newer songs, and I realized they had softened their sound and made it more technically interesting.  More mainstream, if you will.  One song in particular, “Miss Murder,” is now a frequent participant in my iPod playlist.

This is absolutely intolerable.  It’s one thing if an old friend of mine is successful doing something I don’t respect.  It’s another if he wins the lottery, which is purely a matter of happenstance.  But if a friend becomes rich and famous doing something I admire due to hard work, talent, and perseverance?  Boy, I hate that.

So congratulations, Adam.  And by the way?  The clubhouse was lame.