Fiona Apple-Every Single Night

A new McDonald's ad strongly suggests that one can meet a beautiful woman by buying a 20 piece Chicken McNugget, going up to an attractive female and offering to share them with her. Ummm... best idea EVER! I decided to put this seemingly fool-proof plan into action yesterday. I will recount my experiences in this, my 200th post of all time.

I bought my 20-piece Chicken McNugget with a mixture of excitement and self-loathing, rationalizing the purchase with dreams of the beautiful woman I was sure to score with the patented McDate technique. I then walked to nearby Golden Gate park to scope out the perfect target. It had to, first of all, be the kind of girl who wouldn't immediately retch at the sight of a twenty-piece Chicken McNugget. That immediately eliminated 93% of the female population of San Francisco. The remaining 7% primarily consisted of real homeless people, poseur homeless kids, and easy-going East Coast transplants that grew up eating the occasional fast food meal.

There isn't a specific look to an East Coast girl, so I decided that I simply had to take my chances with someone that could possibly fit the bill. I saw a brunette sitting on a park bench reading a magazine, and I decided that she looked kinda hungry. I put on my best "I'm Lovin' It, and So Will You" smile and walked over.


ME: Is someone sitting here?

HER: Oh, no. Feel free.

ME: Nice day, huh? Never thought this weather would last.

HER: Oh, yeah. It's great.

ME (surreptitiously taking out McNuggets): You know what two things I love?

HER (scrunching her face at this apparently strange question): What?

ME: VALUE. And SHARING.

HER (nervous laughter): Well, those certainly are two great things.

ME: You look hungry. Have you eaten yet?

HER: Well, just a spinach salad and some Kombucha.

ME (not really knowing what she just said): Well, sounds like an appetizer! How would you like some McNuggets to round out that meal?

HER (sudden look of disgust): Are you kidding me? Is this some weird candid camera show? I wouldn't eat that crap if you paid me to!

ME: Uhhhhh...

HER: Do you know what they make that with? Pink slime! It's the inedible parts of a cow mixed with drano or something. It's vile!

ME: But, but... I got a Spiderman figurine with it, and if you drown the nuggets in honey they're pretty good. I'll even let you keep the figurine if you eat with me.

HER: Uhhhh... sorry. I gotta go. I suggest you worry less about collecting figurines, and more about dying before you hit forty!

Suffice it to say that I feel McDonald's has led me astray. Maybe they don't understand how powerful their advertising messages are. When I was a child, I believed that the only authority figure that really had my best interests in mind was a tall clown that hawked burgers, and now they spread propaganda telling America that the only way to find romance is through McNuggets. Well, I'm all grown now, and Ronald McDonald is nowhere to be found. And McNuggets? Well, far from being attractive to the opposite sex, they peg you as a pariah, a freak, an outcast. THANKS A LOT, MCDONALD'S!

Fiona Apple has a new album! Here's a good song from it. She has an octopus on her head in the video. It's not a great look, if you ask me.

Burial-Kindred

I've written before about how rare it is for me to go grocery shopping, but the mood struck me the other night at about 10:30 pm, as I noticed a Safeway on the drive back home from a friend's house. The conditions were perfect: I didn't need a lot of items, there was no access to hot bar, and some of the items I was purchasing were for a weekend party I was pretty excited about. I purchased the products within the allotted eight-minute window (think Supermarket Sweep without the free money), and made my way to the check-out line.

I bought around ten items, and had only one middle-aged woman in front of me in line. She had scraggly gray hair and those large glasses that kids used to wear for their school pictures in 1984. Behind the glasses her brown eyes darted about like there were snipers hidden behind every bag of Chex mix and jug of Tropicana. She had approximately twenty-five items with her-but she was only one person-how long could it possibly take? Well, as the cashier started to run her items, the lady slowly reached into her pockets. My mind flew in a dozen different directions. She's already got her purse out. What could she possibly need? Maybe she has some change in there. Surely she can't be reaching for... NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Coupons. She was reaching for coupons. At 10:30 at night, in an otherwise abandoned Safeway where I thought I was going to escape with a twelve to fifteen minute shop, I got stuck behind coupon lady. And I was starting to fear that this was a rare breed of coupon lady: batsh*t crazy coupon lady. She fumbled around with the coupons and asked the groggy-eyed cashier question after question. Did you run the coupons for the Yoplait? Does this Lean Cuisine coupon apply to all items, or just the Culinary Collection? What do you mean this Brawny paper towel coupon expired in 2010?

I felt kind of bad for her at first, cause she did seem bewildered and generally overwhelmed. A lady that came up behind me in line, though, had much less patience. While she wouldn't directly say anything, she sighed heavily, shifted her weight from side to side with dramatic flair, and rolled her eyes at me as if to say, "Can you believe this wack job?" I smiled thinly but quickly looked away, not wanting to form too intimate a bond with a lady wearing what seemed to be a discarded 1970s bridesmaid's dress, with eyebrows that looked like they were painted on with brown whiteboard markers.

It got really weird after the Brawny rejection. Crazy coupon lady argued for a bit-like she could win an argument about 2012 coming before 2010-then she started frantically swapping out items to try to get the total where she wanted it. She couldn't make up her mind, though, and her eyes blinked more uncontrollably the more confused she got. I really did feel bad, but after fifteen minutes, as the clock drew to eleven o'clock, I finally said something. "Ummm... there's people behind you," I offered as politely as possibly. She snapped her head at me and said, "IT'S MY TURN." Having the full force of those eyes focused on me is something I will never forget, but my words empowered Batty Bridesmaid behind me to let loose. "WE'VE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR TWENTY MINUTES. FIGURE OUT YOUR COUPONS LATER. IT'S ELEVEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT. HAVE SOME RESPECT." I immediately let her have the stage, as I didn't know if this was going to quickly escalate into some sort of feral cat-fight. Thankfully, a cashier ran over and opened the next aisle, and I finally got out of there. Lesson: shopping at off hours might result in a shorter line, but the clientele is also more likely to be purchasing bath salts than the sodium kind.

I've posted about Burial before, but I can't help but do it again. He is just so damn great. If you have a short attention span like me, just put this song on in the background (on good speakers) and let it play all the way through. It's amazing.

Beach House-Myth/Cocteau Twins-Lorelei/Beach House-The Hours/The Beatles-Because

So my pathetic, depressing, laughable, second-class citizen New York Mets are actually playing pretty well! Of course this could be fleeting, but darnit, my love for them is permanent, etched in stone from the earliest days of childhood, so I'm going to enjoy every minute. And was there ever a moment on Friday! Johan Santana, the Mets ace pitcher who missed all of last year due to shoulder surgery, pitched the Mets' first ever no-hitter. I've heard for years about the Mets being one of only two organizations in MLB never to have pitched a no-hitter, and how they obviously should have had one by now because of all of the great pitchers they've had, and blah blah blah Yankees rule, Mets suck Victor Zambrano Oliver Perez September collapses Ponzi scheme SHUT UP OH MY GOD I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.

Whew. Deep breath. Some people aren't into baseball. They don't understand how the struggles of a franchise can affect a person. That's ok. I don't expect them to understand. But let me tell you something. IT HURTS. It hurts when everyone says, "Yankee this," and "Yankee that" all the time. What about our feelings? What about our needs? We're special, too! We've won two World Series, and participated in two others. Sure, that's nothing compared to your eighty-three or whatever, but you've been around since the Stone Age, and... uh... you suck! Remember the 80s?! We were awesome, and you guys blew! You were Don Mattingly and twenty-four guys named Kevin Maas. The most interesting thing you guys did for fifteen years was when Chuck Knoblauch had a schizoid break and couldn't throw to first base for about six months. Meanwhile, we were partying our asses off, winning a World Series, and partying our asses off some more. I know I've been using the word "we" when I have no real affiliation with the team. Screw you. Don't EVER forget that decade.

Ummm... so, this was supposed to be a happy post. I'm going to listen to some peaceful music to calm me down. Beach House has a new album out called Bloom. It has a cool cover, and though it's not a huge stylistic step forward from their last album, I really liked their last album, so it's all good. Not every band has to reinvent themselves every album. Beach House certainly wears its influences on its sleeves. In fact, they should probably paint their faces with Cochteau Twins album covers when they perform live. But, hey, I freaking love The Cochteau Twins, so once again, I'm fine with it. ARE YOU?! Man, you really need to chill out. I'm just listening to some Beach House over here. Sheesh.

"Myth" is a very Cocteau-influenced track, so I will post the incredible Cocteau Twins track "Lorelei" along with it. Listen to it incredibly loud in a small enclosed space, and the meaning of life will suddenly appear to you in the form of a periwinkle dove with satin wings. "The Hours" intro is incredibly reminiscent of the Beatles classic "Because," which is part of the second half of Abbey Road, the most unf*ckwithable thirty minutes or so of rock music ever committed to tape (or eight track, or stone tablet, or whatever they used back then).

The Weeknd-What You Need

Today is the first day of summer, and I'm giddy. The sun is out, the air is brisk, and there is nary an essay taunting me from the corner of my classroom. My mind is filled with books I want to read, things I want to write about, places I want to go, and concerts I want to see.

I feel like I lost a bit of the school-life balance this year, and as a result I haven't been exercising as much as I'd like to. I'd been thinking that I would just go back to jogging and playing tennis this summer to get back into shape, but as the fog of school lifts I'm realizing that, as a San Francisco resident, I have a plethora of exercising options available to choose from. I'll brainstorm here, and perhaps you can get some ideas as well:

-Jogging: Gotta have good music to listen to, or this is boring. And make the playlist at least somewhat upbeat, or the second an Elliot Smith song comes on it's all over.
-Tennis: Duh. Best sport ever.
-Swimming: Kind of tough to find a public pool in SF that isn't either half-filled with urine, or completely overrun with families (children are awesome, but I don't want to swim with them). If you can find the right pool, though, swimming is fun and great exercise!
-Hipster toss for distance: Hipsters usually only weigh about 83 pounds, and skinny jeans are easy to grip for maximum toss length. Tell them there's a free Neon Indian download in it for them and they'll be totally down.
-Rock climbing: A teacher friend, who's over forty yet could end me with two arms tied behind her back, does this a lot, so I'm intrigued. I'm also kinda scared of heights, though, so I'm slightly hesitant to try it out. Looks fun, though.
-Bicycling: I've been doing this a bit lately. My friends and I did a winery tour on bikes a few weeks ago, and that was fun, and today we also had a good time biking around Angel Island. If you live in a homely-looking place with brutal weather (like Florida [sorry]), then it's kinda awful, but if you live in a beautiful place with temperate weather (like SF) then it's pretty groovy.
-Bicep curls with a hardcover copy of James Joyce's Ulysses: This book should be read in a hip cafe, and the cover should be clearly visible at all times. This way people will know that you're an interesting person that reads challenging literature while simultaneously maintaining an impressive physique.
-Sailing: Umm... yeah. I don't know anything about this.
-Urban Hikes: Sounds kinda weird, but it's actually fun! Walking and exercise, without all that annoying nature stuff. Explore a great city, and enjoy some brutal hills at the same time!
- Frisbee Golf: Is this exercise? Whatever, it's outside, and you throw stuff. I've only done it once, but it was kinda fun. I drank beer, though, so I probably gained more calories than I burnt.

Any other options I left out? And please don't say the gym, cause that's already off the list. SO BORING.

The Weeknd is better at singing than he is spelling. "What You Need" has great, Burial-like production and a dark mood. I really dig his voice, and his woe-is-me-life-is-awful-being-super-hip-and-partying-with-beautiful-women lyrics remind me of some old Roxy Music songs.