Joe Biden is Really Cool.

He's the man - and I mean that in the "he's awesome and would make a great VP" way, not the "he's part of the establishment and hates love and happiness" way.


Here are some other people/animals/etc that are also the man:





















This is Winston Churchill's parrot, Charlie. This parrot, allegedly, continues to spew out obscene anti-nazi slander in a perfect Churchill imitation, even though his late caretaker has been dead for over 40 years. Bravo, Charlie! I'm glad we have someone still keeping the nazis on their toes.

(image from: http://www.golding.ca/maggie/images/parrot.jpg)














This is architect/artist Frank Lloyd Wright dressed as a goat. The photo was taken in the late 40s at a costume party thrown by a friend of Mr. Wright's who was dressed, that night, as the entire cast of the movie "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." It was due to drunkenly walking in circles in a goat costume at this party that Mr. Wright came up with his famous design for the Guggenheim Museum.


(image from:http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/
animals/images/primary/mountain-goat.jpg)























This is one of the coolest muthafuckas ever to have lived ever. Among many other things, he said:

"I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping."

and

"I make it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time."



And now, a shout out to Calvin and his tiger buddy.














And finally, of course, a shout out to my tiger buddy.





















Roar,
-Walt

Menace of the Seas

People often ask me "Matt - what's the coolest thing about being a pirate?"

Most people are under the impression that it's mainly about the the parrots, the hats, or the ability to say "Arrr" all the time without being socially outcast. This is all true. Upon reflection, however, it occurred to me that the absolute coolest thing about being a pirate is the lack of Anklyosaurus. There is not a single Anklyosaurus on my pirate vessel, and I, for one, intend on keeping it that way.













(image from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinos/Ankylosaurus.html)


As long as we keep the seas free from this menace, we may still have hope, a chance for peace, and I've quite lost my mind.



-Matthew

Bear Withdrawal

I realized today that the primary reason that I've been so anxious and uptight recently is because I am experiencing bear withdrawal. There's been a general lack of bears in my life these past few weeks, and it's starting to show. I used to be surrounded in bears, but now I've scarcely seen a single one in ages. They no longer roam the streets of New York looking for salmon and a place to hibernate, as they once did. There are no longer any bears in my apartment, at least none that I can find. They seem to have become utterly absent from my life.

So the real question is - where did all the bears go? It could just be their off season (hibernation), but I think the real reason for their disappearance is because of the declining economy. Given the current job market, very few businesses want to hire bears these days. Bears are stereotyped as being unproductive and even destructive at times, and their inability to speak English, or any other language, can be a serious drawback when trying to run a business. Also, their dietary habits, such as eating their co-workers, can sometimes cause companies major financial setbacks. So it stands to reason that when companies are downsizing, the first employees to get fired are always bears.

I blame it on the Bush administration.



- Matthew

On Superheroes and Lonely Robots

For the last several days, I've been trying to pin down what I found so immensely unsettling about "The Dark Knight," and I think I've figured it out - it is the fact that even Batman can save neither his love interest from being blown to pieces nor his city from descending into utter chaos that I find absolutely frighting. Superheroes were once a form of escapism and hope - now they seem just as confused, terrified and human as the rest of us.

It occurred to me that of the last 10 or so movies I've seen, at least half of them have depicted, each in their own way, some sort of nightmarish, post-apocalyptic scenario. Forgive me for making grandiose assertions about societal trends, but it seems to me that this might be some sort of reflection of the times we live in. "Children of Men," "Cloverfield" (which I didn't particularly enjoy), "I am Legend," even the Disney Pixar film "WALL E," which I just saw tonight, all illustrate different scenarios of a very grim future for humanity. There have always been big-budget Hollywood disaster films, but the difference between "King Kong" and "Cloverfield" is that that the former has a happy ending. The two big Oscar winners last year, "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood," had a similar effect on me as "The Dark Knight" - they left me perplexed and scared.

"WALL E," which was absolutely brilliant, was not an outwardly frightening movie, but it had some very haunting moments which themselves are worth the twelve dollar ticket price. I can't possibly do it justice; I can only say that I think it was a beautifully made film. I believe what distinguishes it from any other Disney film that I can think of, is that it is not escapism that drives the film, but optimism. I think Hollywood is currently in desperate need of films that are not necessarily about escaping reality, but about the possibility that a brighter reality is still conceivable.


- Matthew

I'm Glad I'm Not Me.

The birthday party turned out rather well. No neighbors, no cops, no swat team, no KGB. Not even any vomit or broken glass, just a small(ish) crowd of very good friends and fun times all around. I even received a few delightful birthday presents, including one very charming wind-up back-flipping yellow monkey (though it might be a mouse in a monkey suit, I'm not sure), who I've appropriately named Napoleon III. I've wanted one of these for years, and have often hinted to friends my desire for one, but it was not until last night that this dream was fulfilled. There is one drawback to this gift, however, which is that it serves as a constant reminder that a wind-up monkey toy is in much better physical shape than I am, and is capable of much more daunting acrobatic feats than I could currently hope to preform. Perhaps it'll be a good incentive for me to quit smoking, though I think the likelihood of that pales in comparison to the likelihood that my monkey toy will start smoking, which, given its lack of opposable thumbs and free will, is not particularly likely.

It's gotten pretty bad. I'm currently in that murky area between half a pack and a pack a day, and I sure as hell don't seem to be cutting back very quickly. As a matter of fact, in a bizarre coincidence, I happen to be smoking a cigarette while writing this very sentence. I have no justification for it, and find myself (as many smokers do) in the situation of being a total hypocrite when it comes to cigarettes. I can only find some solace in the fact that my apparent doppelganger, Mr. Zimmerman, who smoked "100 cigarettes a day" (according to an article quoted in "Don't Look Back") is still alive. After reading the article in the documentary, Dylan responded: "I'm glad I'm not me!" I, like Dylan, am also not me, and very glad of it.

-Matthew

Happy birthday?

It's my birthday, according to facebook, and apparently I'm twenty. This came as very strange and unsettling news, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. I don't feel like I'm twenty, I certainly don't look like I'm twenty (deli clerks still think my learner's permit is fake when I try to buy cigarettes), and I'm frankly struggling to think of a single think I've done over the last five or ten years of my life. I believe I went to high school, but I may very well have not. It's all kind of a blur.

Today has been refreshingly uneventful, which does, I suppose, speak to the fact that I have changed somewhat since previous June thirtieths. Two years ago, for example, I recall that an anonymous friend of mine and I bought several bottles of wine in the afternoon, and after getting sufficiently tipsy, bought two plastic swords from a costume shop and had an hour-long duel around the streets of Greenwich Village. In previous years, as well, I've always had a massive party planed, and I would usually spend the day of my birthday advertising the event and acquiring sufficient booze. I am having a little party for myself next weekend, but I plan on it being a little more low-key and a little less stressful than previous years.

I've resolved, anyway, that today should actually be my eighteenth birthday, since going backwards in time is considerably more fashionable than going forwards. This gives me college to look forward to, and a very long list of exciting things that I want to accomplish during my last two years of being a teenager. I hope I get them all done!

It also means that twenty years from now, I'm going to be negative two. This is a very exciting prospect.

-Matthew

Bugs!

Bugs! I'm not particularly fond of them, but they do seem to enjoy my company quite a bit. About two weeks ago, I started to get something of an infestation of them in my apartment, so much so that I've had to keep each room supplied with a small pile of napkins, or "murder weapons" as most bugs refer to them. They've mainly been the harmless unintelligent kind that hangs around lightbulbs, but about a week ago, I discovered one in my bathroom that was a cut above the rest. It was about the size of my fist (a slight exaggeration) and it was so damned intelligent that when i came at it with my shoe, it recognized the potential threat and darted out of the way - the thing eluded me and hid behind the toilet out of my range of vision. Armed with a shoe, I waited for a good half hour for the thing to emerge, but it was clearly full aware of my intentions and stayed out of my sight. I quarantined off the room by stuffing a towel in the gap under the bathroom door (mind you, this is the size of bug that just closing the door would prevent it from exiting a room), and stuffed another towel under my bedroom door, just in case it broke through my first line of defense. I slept rather uneasily that night, jumping every time a hair on my leg moved, but luckily i discovered the next morning that the thing had not eaten my towels and was presumably still in the bathroom. I spent a considerable amount of time hunting for it over the next few days, but to no avail.

I've developed a sort of Moby Dick-Captain Ahab relationship with the thing. I gained a certain respect for it, as I believe it has for me. We disagree on a number of issues and lead very different life styles, but I think we have a sort of mutual understanding with each other. The thing is so large and intelligent that I'm half expecting to come out of my bathroom one of these days and ask me for a beer. I believe that it could develop into a very strong friendship, were it only not a bug.

I figure that there are three possibilities as to its current whereabouts. The first is that it died contently behind my toilet, fulfilled in its life's mission of scaring the shit out of me. The second it that it crawled back through the ventilation system from whence it probably came. The third possibility, of course, is that it still waits behind my toilet, waiting to catch me unaware.

This should not, by the way, dissuade anyone from entering my apartment. Just be prepared to carry a shoe with you when you go to the bathroom.


-Matthew