Words Matter

On March 18, 2008, Barak Obama delivered one of the great speeches on race, or any topic, in our nation's history. It's not unlikely that this speech will be remembered for years, perhaps even decades or longer as one of the defining political sermons of my generation. It is arguably so merited as to join the annals of great American oratory in the Library of Congress. (Take that, Mitt Romney's tour de force on Mormonism!)

Far be it for me to assail a man of Obama's background and credentials for taking the name of African Americans in vain. Yet the elegance, zeal, and, no doubt, sincerity, of his speech notwithstanding, what gives Obama the racial capital to mitigate Black Liberation Theology or pontificate on slavery's acrimonious legacy? Especially when he has far more credibility as a race-less candidate or, indeed, a Hawaiian one.

Honor System

Granted, I wouldn't be a fan of this thing myself, but how can the AFL-CIO or any other hack labor group defend outdated work-clocking? It's not really creepy unless you consider someone who makes sure you carry out the duties outlined in your job contract as creepy, right? Are they against the means or the idea of oversight? If oversight itself is creepy, why don't we just switch to an honor system, since all of these workers are clearly enamored of their jobs and willing to log extra hours for their labor of love.

radio lab

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/03/23/sound-off-was-radiolab-out-of-line/

public radio wars!

In response

In response to the last post about Bill Richardson's latest look. I'll try to clear a few things up. 

The Richardson tan. It is well known that Bill Richardson is half Mexican what is not well known is that his other half, is also Mexican. (Smigel line) 

The new beard is his stylist's response to his bloated corpse like chin. A beard line is no replacement for jaw line but is much more effective than walking around like this.

(joe lieberman)

Senor Richardson

What's up with Bill Richardson looking like a cartel runner from south of the border? Those Hollywood tans and that Rio Grande coyote beard are some serious upgrades over his relatively pale, puffy-cheeked look. Is he running for VP of the USA or Chair of the Sinaloa Cartel?

You Don't Know Symbol Dynamics? Fuck YOU!

Here is a man who gives hope to all of us non-Bretts still struggling to solve the star puzzle...

About That Monkey Wedding

Another propitious simian match made in India. But isn't it time we let monkeys be agents of their own fate, and choose their own mate? If we truly come from these noble creatures, what better way to honor them?

Good thing this was the one game that wasn't nationally televised

Well congrats to the Cornell basketball team on a great season and all, but all I really wanted was to not look like the worst team in the entire tournament. Too bad about that.

See My Vest

Cloning technology may not quite be there yet, but you can reunite with Fido or Rover today--or at least have him keep you warm through the cold, lonely winters. Too bad I didn't cryo-freeze my long-dead parakeets. They'd have made some nice safari hats.

Snoop Song

Everybody go out and get this OG's memoir. It's the real, yo. Straight cheese.

obama sold out his white grandma

I thought the Obama speech on race was very good. But my fellow Americans from Hannity's America seemed to disagree. My favorite caller said "we can't trust a man who would sell out his grandmother like that, Sean!"

Preview

A taste of things to come: Reverend Jeremiah, monkey weddings, a new story, and why Sinbad matters...

TGIF

In the corporate (or even average office) world, Friday is frequently cited as an excuse for any misstep, slip of the tongue, faux pas, or questionable action. While predominantly displayed among the lower rungs of the officer hierarchy, you're guaranteed to hear "It's Friday" at some point during your 9-to-5 (or 8-to-12) adventure from the lips of a superior. From botched water cooler refills to faulty customer service to negligent machine operators, the much sought-after day is something of a wild card, a panacea and Get out of Jail Card for any offense committed on the clock. If you're putting off risky, unadvised work activities, Friday is your day. Spilled coffee all over your coworker, scalding her and blotching her cashmere cardigan? "It's Friday!" Let out a racist quip in the presence of a sensitive coworker? "There I go again!" After all, you've been working hard all week, counting down the days so you can wrap yourself in the casual quilt of a lay-z-day. Ice Cube and Chris Tucker were right.

Utah Loosens Up

The state that brought you polygamy and Orrin Hatch is finally seeing the light on booze restrictions. Wait, no, they're not. Certainly a group of Mormon lawmakers who presumably have never touched the stuff are the best arbiters of mixology. Did no one think of bringing in frat consultants from Arizona or Colorado?

Harvard Sucks

For once, Cornell played Harvard, it was a big deal and it wasn't on ice. Who knew that Cornellians could storm a court with zero previous experience in doing so? The only question remains is whether the bandwagon stays filled after the inevitable first-round drubbing in the tournament.

That seals it up!

Cultish hero-worship aside, I was already behind Obama, but if he is good enough for (NBA) veterans than he is certainly good enough for me!

The Real News is Fake

Campus activism at its finest

Of Giants and Dwarfs

Last week brought us such gems as the diminutive celebrity weightlifter from India and Gary Coleman's wedding...thought it appears the marriage remains unconsummated. Are these dwarfs among giants or giants among men?

feb 14.

to all you Casanovas out there who forgot to get roses for you significant others.

Love Fests

It's February 7, 2008 and we're still no closer to knowing who our next president will be. GOP is falling apart, with loathsome radio hacks pushing their bilious lockstep ideology against conservative McCain! A lifetime pro-lifer, mind you, who doesn't like taxes or spending and who's arguably more hawkish than Bush and Co. The talk radio nincompoops seem to want some combination of Bush (are they sore the brainless George Allen was undone by racist indiscretion?), acting buffoon Fred Thompson, and xenophobe demagogue Tom Tancredo. Sorry, all you're getting is a bona fide war hero who's unafraid to pick a fight when he believes in something. Live with it, you stupid, worthless assholes. Only in our decadent Western society is there room for these opinion-makers.

On the Democratic side, the Cult of Obama has completely obviated any capacity for common sense assessment. What are this guy's accomplishments? What does he really believe in, other than his own branding? Change is not a policy. Hope is not principle. I swoon for this guy as much as the next schlub due to his unlikely skin pigmentation, but what's his case for the biggest job in the world? Hillary has better start making a case for herself. Her experience campaign might be suitable for state senate, but it's slightly more inspiring than a fart on an empty train.

TOR

Myriad lights surround the halo

Like a million fireflies

Bracing air and steamy mist

Mingle dancing cheek to cheek

Dem Mellons

John Cougar Mellencamp emerges from semi-obscurity to complain about McCain using his songs. Why not use someone more friendly to Republicans? Like Jessica Simpson, KISS, or 50 Cent?

Hey Salesgenie, you failed everything, even animation!

First of all, congratulations to the Giants and their real fans on the rousing Super Bowl upset. Second of all, to my one-day fellow UVA alum Tiki Barber, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Finally, no surprise that there isn't a huge uproar over the latest attempt at Charlie Chan/Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips-inspired Asian minstrelsy. Then again, that Darfur comment from davidfuzznut does put everything into perspective. Just let me know that I should worry about human sex trafficking in Thailand when Salesgenie unleashes its new blackface campaign, ok Dave?

They Can Take Our Lives...

But they can never take our freedom!

War Without Symmetry

Al Qaeda is now using retarded women to bring death to Iraq's teen population, and to our GIs. Classy! If there reports are true, I say we fight back by parachuting in the most lawless members of our society, as once suggested by a N'owleans hobo. We pick a good number of sociopaths (especially death row and equivalent killers) currently littering our prisons, hand them Kalashnikovs, and drop down right into Al Qaeda territory, sending them on commando missions. Yes, a number of problems will arise, but we'll be killing two birds with one stone.

Study: Math Profs Are Huge Nerds

I remember seeing my English professor walking in a 3-man circle with a picket railing against Afghanistan in between classes. Nothing wrong with free speech and expression of dissent, but I remember thinking it undignified and unbecoming of an intellectual to publicly parade his sentiments in the style of a Union Square hobo. But hey, 100 years from now, this guy will be lauded as math reformer. They'll be building statues to him in the United States of Iraq while Bohemigrant's bits and bytes crumble in a void of online oblivion like a stale chocolate-chip cookie.

Santana a met

Johan Santana a met? It seems a tentative agreement has been reached between the Mets and the Twins. Santana's agent has to agree to a deal with the Mets before the trade is official.
I was just listening to Steve Summers on WFAN when a string of Yankee fans called in and complained. "CASHMAN SHOULD BE FIRED! WHY DIDN'T THEY TRADE HUGHES AND KENNEDY! SANTANA'S THE BEST PITCHER IN THE LEAGUE!"
It's morons like these that that make the Yankee fans look like spoiled jerks. Hughes and Kennedy proved themselves to be possible number 1 starters for years to come. Santana (who isn't a big guy) is clearly on the decline, and not only that, he will want a 6 or 7 year contract. NONE of those contracts turn out well. Remember the Dodgers and Kevin Brown? or the Giants and Barry Zito?
I'm glad Santana didn't go to Boston.

Bohemigrant Yaks!

Nothing more manly than these dudes.

What's Eating Vermont?

The state is admittedly a beautiful place to ski. But what's in that Ben 'n Jerry's, yo?

How all the good convocation speakers roll

LOL Lt. Murtaugh

This looks like the work of no-good punk kids

I am definitely getting old, cause this would definitely bring out a south asian-bashing tirade out of me now.

Yawwwwn

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/33364.html

What the Heck?

So Cruise is finally losing it over the Web. What to think of this? Why are respectable celebrities so drawn to the cult of the Scientist? John Travolta? Anne Archer? Beck? Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson)? Chick Corea? Doug E. Fresh? Paul Haggis? Jason Lee? Juliette Lewis? What, even funnyman Jerry Seinfeld dabbled a few years back? 'Tis true! Hear yee, hear yee!

Physical Fitness Greeting!

Politicking

This being 2008, Bohemigrant Blog will predictably devote a good amount of blogspace to presidential politics. Few public spectacles are as entertaining or, dare I say it, exciting. We have, for the first time, the possibility of a woman or a black man becoming leader of the (for the time being) free world. We also have the clear and present menace of a populist huckster pitching his patronizing sermons on wealth disparity.

On the republican side, we have a bona fide war hero with principles, a celebrity mayor whose common-sense politics don't fit his party's mantra, an unctuous, joke-cracking preacher, and a morphing Mormon opportunist. Sadly, the possibility of a Huckabee- or Romney-Edwards election is all too real, denying Bohemigrant an opportunity to vote in his first presidential campaign ever.

Still, with mounting suspense (see Bloomberg's teasing maneuvers), we should have one of the most exciting elections to date. And we're off!

Best/Worst

To continue the rundown of 2007's greatest hits and misses, I give you the top shows, as judged by Bohemigrant's theater and entertainment editors:

1. La Vie (Spiegeltent)
2. Fuerzabruta
3. The Seafarer
4. The Farnsworth Invention

Worst attraction: Bodies (read an anatomy textbook instead)

Happy New Year Weekend Everyone!

Now watch this baby say "truck."

Man Bites Dog

The story of 2007!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071228/tc_nm/dating_dc

Wonderful Tragedy

Something struck Bohemigrant the other day: like it or not, the Holocaust is chiefly responsible for keeping mainstream Judaism alive into the 21st century. Ironically, if not for Hitler's pesky little plans to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the Earth, the partially successful mission resulted in the kind of Jewish resurgence the world had never known. Without the WWII genocide, the German reform movement that engulfed much of European Jewry in the 19th and early 20th centuries would surely be whittling away synagogue attendance through social assimilation and liberal political mobility. The Orthodox (as they surely still will) would become the stewards of the Jewish tradition.

Instead, the impossible to ignore (thanks to mass media and the Jews' growing political power) massacre effected the most unintended and unprecedented of consequences: A Jewish state drawn up overnight and mandated by world powers. A Jewry wielding the (temporary) power of guilt that, along with their rapidly expanding geopolitical and economic capital, gave it strong sway over the foreign policy of the world's greatest superpower. The Jews effectively came under the protection of the toughest kid on the street (or the world's greatest bully, according to some). Without the Holocaust, God's chosen might still be, in a relative sense, "sucking their paws" as the Russians say.

Why is this important? Secular and reform Ashkenazi Jews, the ones threatening assimilation over half or more of the race, are the ones with the talent, success, the cachet. The Orthodox, more often than not, are the poor students, the nuisances, the radical extremists. How long would a group of bearded yokels dressed, as a friend of the blog might say, like 17th-century Lithuanian nobility, be able to effectively lobby a government for protection from the vicissitudes of Jewish existence? What pride would they inspire beyond the undistinguished pride of faith? Would there be a Jewish state? A Jewish army? The keepers of the Torah, like the Hassidic anti-Zionists smooching Iran's president, are more concerned with breeding and eschewing pork than they are with preserving the dignity and legacy of an ancient people.

Rootless, survival becomes a goal, not a source of pride. Today, we build museums to commemorate our resilience. We honor fallen heroes and celebrate our victories. Thousands of years into human existence, we are still God's chosen people. And we have the Holocaust to thank for it.

Russian New Year's Special

Russia, You've Arrived

music fobbery

this has been an exhausting semester and year for me, so i can't really say anything conclusive or comprehensive about the year in music. anyway, here are some of the albums i enjoyed the most this yr (no particular order):

okkervil river: the stage names (best track: unless it's kicks)
radiohead: in rainbows (best track: videotape)
the national: boxer (best track: fake empire)
arcade fire: neon bible (best track: intervention)
lcd soundsystem: sound of silver (best track: new york i love you)
the ponys: turn the lights out (best track: double vision)
beirut: the flying cup club (best track: nantes)
sunset rubdown: random spirit lover (best track: for the pier (and dead shimmering))
spoon: ga ga ga ga ga (best track: the underdog)

and here are some trax i really enjoyed (not off of any of the aforementioned albums):

voxtrot: blood red blood
aesop rock: none shall pass
pharoahe monch: desire
electrelane: to the east
los campesinos!: you! me! dancing!
frog eyes: bushels
cajun dance party: the next untouchable
menomena: muscle 'n flo
les savy fav: the year before the year 2000
misha: summersend
fiery furnaces: my egyptian grammar
white rabbits: the plot

Vox Populis

Social commentators often unfit to comment socially often overstate the case against modern crowds. Are we duller, dumber, less demanding than previous generations? Or are we sharper, savvier, more critical? Watching the end of No Country for Old Men the other night, one could hear the groan from the full house enjoying I Am Legend across the megaplex.

Harp as I might on the banalities of herd mentality and the LCD. I'd rather focus on the tragedy of low expectations. Now, we all know what a reliable majority of the small audience (who earned points by even coming to a showing of the Coen brothers flick at the blockbuster-driven UA theater) wanted at the end, despite all logic and faith to adapted text: the cleanest, tidiest ending possible to make up for 2 hours of disturbing, unapologetic violence. As the genre shift from noir to western back to noir jerked the audience back and forth, they became that desperate gambler trying to break the ball in a spinning roulette wheel away from the force of inevitability to land on a single number.

After all, they invested a long time in coming to this rarefied movie--not the crime caper or quirky comedy the Coens have been known to make in the past--certainly not the zombie flick or CGI fantasy their friends had opted for. They even sat through the slow pacing, the drag of the dialog, all the way through the unsatisfying conclusion, all the while getting their wads ready to blow at the payoff point. But it never came...at least not in the way they expected.

With the modern gimmickry of the last decade and a half, audiences have gotten used to slick editing, narrative shifts, and all manner of twists. How is it that these audiences still expect the most prosaic coup de grace in a movie whose mood and trajectory, enigmatic as it might be, has been firmly established in the first act? Vin Diesel and The Rock are expected to come through and annihilate their enemies. We usually know that Mel Gibson will stick a flagpole through a Redcoat's windpipe at the end of a revolutionary revenge epic. Yet how can we expect the same in a movie whose stakes, if not higher, at the very least like on a different emotional plane. Never mind that--give us payoff or give us death!

All my dreams revolve around eating

I don't get it, I usually don't have very lucid dreams. For a long time, I barely had dreams where anything happened at all. But lately in all of my dreams, I'm always about to eat a huge meal, craving a huge meal, or somewhere with a lot of potential to have a huge meal. As an SF vagrant (and old running joke) might say, "what does it all meeeeann?" Do I want to become a super fatass? Am I unfulfilled? Do I not eat enough? WHAT IS MY SUBCONSCIOUS TRYING TO TELL ME? I'M SO CONFUSED I MIGHT WATCH ELF AND THEN OLD SCHOOL.

Eastern Medicine

Wouldn't you have to be mad to run against One Russia?

not you too Ron Villone!

As a Yankee fan I'm obligated to comment on the Mitchell Report.
(Or the REDSOX version of what happened in the last two decades REPORT)

20 million dollars for 20 former Yankees. Though only ONE true Yankee was on the List (and I'm not talking about Ron Villone).
As many of you know George Mitchell is a Share holder in the Redsox. What you don't know is he sleeps in Redsox pj's too, often massaging the back of John Henry. Why is it that the only people he could get to talk were a former Yankees trainer and former Met's clubhouse boy.
What about David Ortiz's comments last year. "I used to buy a protein shake in my country. I don't do that anymore because they don't have the approval for that here, so I know that, so I'm off buying things at the GNC back in the Dominican (Republic). But it can happen anytime, it can happen. I don't know. I don't know if I drank something in my youth, not knowing it." LIKELY! take a look at his pictures from when he was with the twins. Was that Eddie Griffin or ORTIZ?
I think the pressure got to Mitchell and he knew he had to put some names in there to spice it up. The report had no substance, there was weak evidence and he tried to mask that with Clemens and 80 something other names. As much as I enjoy seeing the Rich shamed, I'd rather it be fair.

A Work of Fiction

We met at Park Bar after a brief exchange on Match. She was quirky and cute, just my everyday type, the perfect quick date. The dark bar struck the the right balance of pretension and conviviality. In a New York minute, I grabbed two seats vacated by financial types (hard to isolate—the bar’s full of them). Checking my phone for texts, I scanned the room, making sure I knew where the hot girls to keep my eyes from straying.

Inadvertently eavesdropping on an Aussie’s Myth of Origin and other ex-pats’ bland tales of world travel, I awaited my date. She arrived shortly after I did, looking cute as a button in the I-just-got-out-of-college-and-have-the-acne-to-prove-it way. We slipped fairly comfortably into a fairly predictable line of questioning. Another Jew from the South. Always fascinating.

It was a half-hour into our chat when something was afoul. Now, I’d been eating free food pretty much from the time I’d entered the office shortly after 9, when I polished off several pastries, till sometime around 6:30, when I was sinking my gluttonous teeth into a bag of Chinese fish snacks. In between were several sandwiches, wraps, salad, and fruit. And some more pastries.

Back at Park Bar, there was no doubt—something foul was in the air, and it wasn’t the usual: snobbery or liquored-up fratboys. With swift sangfroid and aplomb, I calmly continued the conversation. Until a Senegalese immigrant ordering a drink over our heads shouted, “Who sprung dat leak, man?” Only two suspects. Deciding not to cop to the charge, I hung my head—in my mind, anyway. On the outside, I was cool as a flatulent cucumber.

Truly, what could I do? The popular middle-school option of blaming an anonymous loser was closed to me—lest I wanted to open the possibility that my date was the culprit. Apologize? It’d be more acceptable to confess to a murder at that point. I had no recourse—so I kept sipping my glass of California Pinot and playing twenty questions with my companion.

Then, just as I thought her confidence had been restored, I smelled it again! Are you fucking kidding me? I asked my gastrointestinal tract. This time, a more sportsmanlike yuppie stood, extending money over my head in exchange for brews, keeping the mockery to a polite chuckle. But the damage was done. Fart once, shame on your oblivious ass. Fart twice, shame on you, asshole!

Looking at the clock, I decided to call it a night and save the poor girl from the burden of courteously lingering. I even walked her home to her West Village domicile. I figured we could both use the fresh air.

Stickin' It to the Man

Take that, Airport Security! Not a drop spilled, atta boy!

Back to Pinot

The 2006 Chalone was a steal on sale for $13. Lots of cherry and sweet, ripe fruit with a legitimately medium body and hints of spice. Doesn't linger on the palate, but has all the velvety, fruity character you expect of a good Pinot. 92

O'Donnell Raging Again

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2007/12/08/larry-odonnells-anti-mormon-rant-demented-racist-pro-slavery-crazy

Boy Who Cried Adolph

It strikes me that in the wake of all the political hand-wrangling and self-congratulation over the nuke report, the real winner is Ahmadinejad--not because he's been acquitted--but because we've lost trust no matter what we say next. No one actually know how far along they are, but does anyone doubt the regime's intent to harness nuclear energy for purposes other than lighting the Jewish minority's electric menorahs during Hanukkah?

Courage

Some of you may be following the campaign trail. Last week, Mitt Romney made an ostensibly ballsy speech defending his Mormon faith, the "faith of his fathers." What is so courageous about stating that you follow the same faith your father indoctrinated you into, the same faith your father's father indoctrinated him with? Never mind the merit and tenets of the Mormon faith. I find little courage in being born into tradition you don't question. Those who find or lose faith, based on life experience, scrutiny, and personal choice, can sometimes be considered courageous. Is Bohemigrant courageous for not renouncing his ethnic background?

Politics by the Fat Man

Does anyone else find the drastic difference in Huckabee's before and after hilarious?

Music

I know you're all really here to see whyduck's Best-of-Music list, but here's my early shortlist for 2007:

1. The National - Boxer
2. Fiery Furnaces - Widow City
3. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
4. Voxtrot - Blood Red Blood
5. Radiohead - In Rainbows
   

Build-a-Bear, You're on Notice!

Faux Grace

In another example of how absurd placating PETA can be, there's this pate-ntly insincere attempt to create "guilt-free" liver spread. Now that they're no longer being force-fed to harvest fois gras, the birds are sure to be lining up to donate their own livers to the noble effort. Ducks and geese could not be reached for comment.

Look Who's Talking

Anglican uberhack Rowan Williams uses his credentials as a "theologian" to rebuke U.S.A.'s exercise of sovereign rights and criticize the Western civilization that makes it possible for a clergyman to speak his mind freely. No word as to when Williams might be clipping his owlish eyebrows.

Danish Wisdom

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
-SK

Saturday

Thursday

Wednesday

Congrats, NERDS!

Author Weinreb delivers a hard-hitting expose of the chess world after following the players at Bohemigrant's alma mater, E.R. Murrow H.S., around for a year. Winner of the Quill Award and one of Amazon's most recommended reads of the year. Whaaaaa?

Finally, Something to Cheer About

What Jets fans do when they're not hauling cement to Piscataway.

Language Lessons

Young Russian protester comes out of the closet via facepaint. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Renaissance Man

John Mayer is the Leonardo Da Vinci of our generation. Not only is he a competent singer/songwriter, but an amateur comic, enthusiastic designer, avid sports fan, and occasional columnist. Still, despite some females at work comparing him to Frankenstein, the role he'll be remembered for is heartthrob. But do we really need to see him out and about every other weekend? And what's the deal with his bosom buddy sidekick Sherrod Small? Surely he's just hoping for leftover nookie?

hitman

There's a new movie called Hitman based on the video game. I'm not sure if it's been pointed out before but Hitman the video game is some nerd's wetdream re-imagining of the Besson movie Leon. Leon was not a great movie, but it was a cool movie. So cool in fact nerds would use the same motif for other assassin films.

"The "Hitman" is a genetically-engineered, elite assassin known only as Agent 47. His hallmarks are lethal grace, unwavering precision, and resolute pride in his work. But even 47 couldn't anticipate a "random equation" in his life exactitude: the unexpected stirrings of his conscience and the unfamiliar emotions aroused in him by a mysterious Russian woman. "



The protagonist is a shaven more handsome version of filthy frenchmen Jean Reno. The hot chick is an older chris hansen-less version of the mathilda character. Here is a movie that tries so hard to be cool it resembles Marky mark's The big Hit. I don't even think tits can save this movie.
please movie viewing audience i implore you to not watch this movie.

also this movie was produced by vin diesel.

Rap Major

I can't promise this is as entertaining as bitching about grad school, but you can't fault me for trying.

The Farnsworth Invention

The Farnsworth Invention, from talented West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin, is a new play concerning TV's invention and ascendance in the 20th century. Simpsons voicer Hank Azaria plays Russian-Jewish immigrant David Sarnoff, who becomes head of RCA after the requisite struggle to wrap his arms around the American Dream. His chief opponent in the race to invent TV is Philo T. Farnsworth, a Mormon prodigy and grade-A egghead.

Fans of West Wing and The American President will pick up on Sorkin's fascination with television--the great promise and the grim reality. It is in these moments that the play veers into social utopia and grandiloquent monologue. Mostly, though, Sorkin pays homage to an even greater fascination--the urge for exploration and discovery. The highly effective script speeds the story along without excessive exposition or moralizing. The actors are charming and engaging, helping the writer tell his story--a simple--but highly entertaining one.

No More Heinous Crime

Israel's existence might be to the 21st century what being called a Nazi was to the 20th. From Gaza:

"Abbas, who dismissed the Hamas-led government after Gaza's takeover and governs from the West Bank, compared his rival's actions at the rally with "crimes of the Israeli occupier."

See That and Raise

Who knew formulaic right-wing fake news could be so fucking bad? This show might make the Fox News' transcription of The Daily Show look good.

On Thought, Part I

Far short of bringing new insights, getting older reinforces old prejudices. This is evident in every observation or meaningful idea I've had in the last few years of my life. My once fertile mind now populates a little leather-bound journal (ideas book to some) with regurgitations of past suppositions and undeveloped arguments. To some extent, no doubt, this is a direct result of existing outside academia for half a decade. While I could hardly claim more than incidental scholarship during my school days, it must be said that a university environment, at the very least, provides food for thought and fodder for intellectual feuds, no matter how childish. Post-collegiate life, it seems, offers 2 general paths: the path to financial success, and the path I'm on, littered with refuse of vague and receding goals.

Few people left to fend for themselves in the arena of reason and intellectual curiosity have enough motivation and drive to pursue questions beyond immediate concerns: amassing personal wealth, finding a reasonably priced urban apartment, climbing onto a more prestigious perch. Schools show us how to fly on a blackboard, fly patterns, trajectories, aerodynamics and all, then shove us off a cliff before we've had a chance to spread our wings. Reluctant slackers, among whose numbers I must count myself, are left to make gross assumptions about others and form generalized opinions of life in the vacuum of relatively carefree living. Ideas become informed by subway rides and bar crawls; creative energy misdirected at solipsistic trifles and snarky condescension; until a caricature emerges--another wasted mind?...

Old Dogs, New Tricks

Certain as I am that Bohemigrant's esteemed audience is well aware of those corner handicapped seats on the 6-train (you know, the ones that make that slamming sound when released), I offer the following not-so-original observation: people are retarded. Rarely if ever has Bohemigrant seen an actual cripple occupy said seats. Instead, they are usually taken up by a zit-faced teen, overweight laborer, or sleeping woman. Yet that's little matter to gripe. What really gets us steamed is the fact that people still haven't learned how to gently let the motherfucking seat fold up without causing so much as a stir. Instead, 90% of the seats' occupants are content to let it come crashing up with a sharp thud, scaring the bejesus out of me and other sane riders.

Manumission

All year they spit, curse, and hurl distrusting looks on one another. And then, one fine day on the second fortnight of October, they throw their inhibitions out the window. Brotherhood and sisterhood always a pair of horns or cat ears away, a mere viking helmet, Scream mask, or go-go outfit enough to free their minds and loosen tongues. There's revelry. And then, it's back in chains for most of them. Silent and supple, they slip the fetters back around their wrists. See you next year!

My Life is a JDate Profile

For roughly a month after I got back from Israel, my office served as nothing more than a Mac-based environment for receiving JDate and Match alerts as well as Facebook pokes while getting paid. Two months removed from my Jewish reawakening, my work commitment is barely more intense as I continue to "mail it in." Probably not the definition of the ambitious mensch those frauleins are ransacking the NY dating scene trying to grab. And what do I do it for? Mediocre dates, trite interrogations over drinks, jaded girls too afraid to show their emotional cards? And some of my best material wasted on this half-appreciative audience. Sure, there are a few nice chicks sandwiched here and there. And I may not be the smooth Lothario I fancy myself to be every time out. But is it too much to ask that a girl not immediately assume that I'm the spiritual brother of the last 10 J-clicks she's gotten drinks or dinner with?

Then there are the dispiriting times I assume every girl worth knowing is either taken or halfway across the world volunteering for Peace Corps or building an oil rig in Riyadh. These are the times a boozehound hits the bottle, while I drown myself in the desperate folly of indiscriminate emails and flirts...
tbc

Ranting and Okenshield's Raving

(I want to put out the standard disclaimer towards anyone out there that may read this and be concerned about my mental health: I'm fine, just disgruntled about various idiocies, mostly my own.)

You would think that a semester in which I helped out in writing my first grant and got my first journal article accepted (in addition to being published in a humor anthology coming to a B&N bargain bin near you--LOL!) would be cause for me to be "excited" about my progress as a graduate student and human being in general. Think again!

Since I am assisting in writing grants and such, a perceptive reader might infer that the only way I actually receive money to buy takeout Chinese and large coffees is through being a teaching assistant. But of course, most of you knew that already--this is the dumb shit I've been doing the last year plus, without much eventfulness, aside from the fact that I wasn't entirely terrible at it.

Unfortunately for me, in the less than two months of the current school year, teaching (or teacher-assisting) has gone from something I have to do to something I despise exponentially more than Will Ferrell, Willie Randolph, and dance parties combined. Why? Well, as luck would have it, I was assigned (by default) to a first-semester graduate course of roughly 40 students. Now I had taken the course before but as it was "under transition," I became vastly underqualified to be the TA for it. Meaning all the material is completely different (i.e., stuff that I had barely learned well) and the professor had to put everything for the course together from scratch. Which basically means, that I had to put a shitload together from scratch. So in addition to grading all the homework, holding office hours, and handling all the stupid e-mails, I have to write up all the solutions and do all the homework in half the time that students did. And since the course's textbook has no solution manual, and is generally a worthless collection of paper, I am essentially taking this dumbass course as a TA for no credit, and am subject to much embarrassment during office hours.

So now roughly 90% of my time is taken up by something which I get no credit for (besides the measly pay and the hatred of students) and which has nothing to do with getting me the hell out of grad school. And the reason why I couldn't instead be spending roughly 10 minutes a week as a TA and earning the semi-appreciation of annoying undergrads? Because some stupid rule says that people with bachelor's degrees must take the class that is killing me--even know-it-all students who bug me over every last point deduction on HWs and who come to office hours to nitpick stupid shit rather than out of confusion.

And I just can't help getting beyond salty upon realizing that people who finished as undergrads one, two, three, hell even four years after I did will be finish a PhD before I ever do. I can't even make the excuse that I worked before going back to school, all I have is wasting two years realizing how horribly inadequate my undergraduate education was and how much harder I should have worked before I became a grad student. But it's all good, really. At least I'm not making six figures somewhere or something in some awful place like NYC.

The Case Against Science

Any article relying heavily on a 1960s adaptation of Time Machine's gets my attention. Now that we know what happens we can start planning accordingly. Gee, I wonder where my future scion will land on the genetic map 100,000 years from now. I feel for them, assuming girls on JDate in the distant future still won't look for ugly, Morlock-like goblins. Fucking Eloi!

J-Date Blog

Many of you have been clamoring for Part II of the wildly popular J-Date Chronicles. While that's in the oven, let me whet your appetite with some brief periodic updates. This just in: Urban Planner supplants Teacher for most popular J-Girl profession! Sustainable development or burst!

So That's How He Did It

Well, gee, that explains it. Byrd was on HGH that night against the Yanks!

When Commie Nazis Attack

Bohemigrant wrecked his brain trying to find an overarching theme connecting these sundry protesters. Then it hit him: none of them have a shred of fashion sense!

Date Me: A 2-Part Bohemigrant Special

Help me. I’ve got a problem…. Mencken said there were 2 things that ruin a writer: women and drink. As an evolved, 21^st-century man I take issue with the former (though a dash of truth is undeniable), and readily admit the latter. Contemporary life offers many vices besides: the Internet, video games, pornography and, of course, the classics remain: gambling, sex, and drugs. To date, we can’t resist temptation’s soothing hold. Compulsions, addictions, and bad habits will survive the corrosion of the ozone and the Rapture.

A far more dangerous menace has us in its infernal paws. The wicked lure of JDate, most diabolical and unholy, forged by the elders on Mt. Zion’s summit, is now my bane… One day, stewing in a post-cannobial stupor, I clicked the payment button and became what the J-gods term a “Premium Member,” a new world opened up to me. A world of bleach-blonde, cliché-spouting Jewesses from every corner of Nassau, Suffolk, and North Jersey. A veritable harem of degree-wielding JAPs, a few marriage-minded Russian professionals thrown in for good measure.

Unbeknownst to me, romance has become a hodgepodge of formulaic truisms dull and facile enough to make Dr. Phil swallow his own vomit. Any number of Jewish, mixed, and even gentile (they learn quick) speech pathologists, PR assistants, schoolteachers, lawyers-in-training, and non-profiters beckon with comely photos, immaculate profiles, and totally reasonable pre-reqs. Who doesn’t love a sense of humor? Equally comfortable staying in with a book of poetry as they were shaking their milkshake at the club, these ladies are fond of fine art, sports, extreme adventure, quiet moments by the fireplace, and super-quirky weekend jaunts to Peru. More than enough to send a young man’s heart racing in romantic anticipation…

Sleep Easy Tonight

The King's alive!!!

Watch Out, Rostov Ripper

Looks like Russia's catching up to US serial killah standards.

It Was Racist...or Sexist...Well, It Was Somethin', You Ignorant-Ass Hoes!

Hat tip for Duke Bloggins for still receiving Daily Sun alerts on his DukeBerry. Ridiculousness from the Ivy Belt. Why I'd never!

George W. Dobkin

Ah, a perfect bohemigrant moment. Sit back and enjoy the Mayor of Kharkov, Ukraine, display his rhetorical prowess.

Pretty F'in Cool

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3456456,00.html

Does Torre have an open seat on the bench left?

Bye-bye Willie, it's been fun. Actually, wait, no it hasn't. It hasn't been fun AT ALL.

You Go, Sarko!

France is finally moving in the right direction, being the American-Zionist-Papal-Martian Conspiracy. Quite a realignment for Old European powers.

Threats and Ultimatums

Amid a surge of apocalyptic threats against Israel by some of our favorite figurehead supervillains, Bohemigrant Blog shall be commandeered by the Ministry of Propaganda to resume ad hominem attacks against all offending parties. We're the Leni Riefenstahl of the YouTube generation. You've been warned.

The Juice Is Loose

Every cat has nine lives, and OJ must think he's a cat. Instead, he's just a burnt-out, pathetic killer whose post-acquittal innocence charade has made a mockery out of justice, the memory of his murdered wife, and his children. With Attn. JC rotting away in hell, it's up to the Juice to generate persuasive "If the ski mask don't fit..." rhymes. Good luck with all that, OJ.

Shana Tova, Motherfuckers

This a-russian's a gone-a fishin!

You must mean, "Worst of the Lunatic"?

Seeing as how I introduced myself in a discussion section a few weeks earlier as a graduate of "some school in upstate NY," it's quite clear that I am more than willing to dissociate myself from my white trash Ivy past. And if I couldn't care less about the school itself, then surely I'd have even less love for the one activity to which I dedicated any appreciable time, the campus "humor" rag--the only connection to which I maintain is my own middle-school picture which has served as a default avatar for many stalking-only social networking profiles.

So of course yesterday, in my weekly convo with my parents, I found out that I'd received a package from said humor rag's founder, a man best known for writing books about how to use shaving cream to clean your patio. Apparently a "Best Of" collection has been in the works, and a half-dozen items which I wrote or co-wrote were selected to appear. I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or horrified by this, but then I realized that my "pieces" were actually sent as part of the package and that my parents had perused them. If I thought some family gatherings were awkward before, imagine what they would be like with my parents knowing what Duke Nobbins is. Maybe I should have just written about ping bombs and that dude in Cascadilla who always were shorts.

Eh, Nyet, Peg?

That's right, it has happened. Russian further assimilates American culture by adapting the seminal 1990s sitcom Married With Children. Can't wait to watch him squaring off with Russian Marcy, attending NYETM'AM meetings, and denying Russian Peg sex and affection. The question is, does Russian Al even have a septic tank to flush?

(Hat tip: Duke Bloggins)

Fratboy Disses Swissboy

Andy Roddick says what we're all thinking. Roger Federer is a bot. A finely tuned bot who destroys Roddick and all other pretenders to the throne. Watching him is like watching a robot play. It's a different experience than marveling at Jordan's airwalking domination, Barry Sanders' silky smooth evasiveness, or Tiger Woods' record-shattering swing. A pretty-boy robot with a tennis racquet, who just happens to endorse Nike and shred his opponents with Teutonic efficiency. He may be hard to root for, but so was the T-1000, and you just had to admire his skill and finesse.

Craving Complexity

Now there is scientific data to explain why Bush can't help being an idiot and Gore can't resist his natural penchant for complexity and ambiguity. It's the neurons, stupid.

Happy Sunday

Foot-Tutzed

Thanks, Senator Craig, for ruining it for the rest of us. Oh, to be in the innocent days of yore, when tapping your foot gingerly on the bathroom floor indicated nothing more than your gushing zest for life--and for the dance. Sometimes I tap because I've got cause it feels good...sometimes I tap to get the bowels movin'...sometimes I tap cause I've got a charlie-horse. And now, I tap no more.

Why We Lobby

A winding path of desert, braying ibex goats, high-rise developments, endless military exercises from dusk till dawn, pomegranates, cranes, banana groves, Bedouin slums, up-and-coming vineyards, sprawling manmade oases, Hassidic shtettles, simple tombs to unknown soldiers, green lines from filth to fresh, price-gouging food vendors, horny soldiers, virile Jews, coconuts and pineapples, Druid shops, Bahai temples, hummus dripping olive oil and mango nectar on a blood filled alley.

lucas in love

Yankees update.

Ok. Here's a list of what the yankees should do.

1. trade Mike Mussina. when the yankees signed him they thought he was the next david cone, instead he's the gimp version of cone.
2. can't find a taker? move him to the bullpen for long relief, drop Vallone.
3. bring up Ian Kennedy, there's still time to have him in the playoff roster. There's no way he's worse than pussina.
4. edit the joba rules. if he thows less than 10 pitches an outting, he can pitch the next day.
5. who the fuck is sean henn? get rid of him.

painful series vs the angels.

Top Gun Motors