Self-Awareness, do you speak it?
Jan 13th
Alright, painfully-white-guy-at-Subway, I know that you probably have no idea what it is like to work at Subway because you were an over-privileged sack of shit in high school. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not fun. It’s the antithesis of fun. You’re putting meat on bread all day. Then school let’s out and since you work at the Subway located next to one of the most central transit centers in Brooklyn, you deal with a bunch of obnoxious fucking kids who are giggling and screaming instead of ordering and eating.
You wanna take a stab at what the three underpaid, under-appreciated women working at Subway today don’t need? You, you fucker, and neither do I. So please don’t stroll up to the counter in your bright red fleece and cargo pants and start shooting the shit with them. I know you probably think that using the Ladies of Subway as a captive audience for the third time in your entire life in which you attempt to flirt with a girl is good thinking, but just stop it. People want to eat, and no one wants to hear your bullshit.
“9-Grain wheat? I didn’t even know there was more than one kind of grain!!”
and I hope you choke on the other 8.
“Why yes, I will have it toasted. But only so long as you’re careful!”
Oh, your chivalry knows no bounds, Sir White! Surely this lovely lass will swoon any second now and you may vault over the sandwich counter to catch her before she hits the ground. Your sexual superiority over the 13-year-old customers and myself will be absolutely rock solid after such a feat.
“Let’s do just a smidge of olives. Just a smidgeon. A dash, if you will.”
Aaaaand fail. “smidgeon”? Really? If you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot with a word like that, try not to cut it off afterward by defining what the word smidgeon means. Jesus christ. You look like a guy in a fucking powertool commercial, you’re wearing a fleece, and you’re delaying my order. Wipe that grin of your face and get down to business. Lupita over there doesn’t want anything to do with you. She’s smiling because she DOESN’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY.
Yes, I am using the chair next to me and no, no one else is joining me. You know why I’m using my chair? Because that’s where my jacket is. I realize it’s the last chair in the entire establishment and that’s precisely why I put my jacket on it. I don’t want you to sit here because it will end in a felony. Get your sandwich to go and get the hell out of the store.
Also, to the (other) white guy in the actual subway, fuck you too. When I am standing in front of the doors waiting for them to open so I can get on the train, this is not a signal for you to occupy the one foot of space between me and the door. That’s the yellow line, it means caution, and it’s serious business. Nice job getting the last seat on the train though, you’re a real winner. I’d assume you worked in the financial sector except for your general appearance and severe lack of hygiene. Eat shit.
Love,
Neil
You guys like Electro music?
Jan 9th
Me too. Dadalus gave me a camcorder for my birthday and I bought this badass little synthesizer a few years ago. Combine them and you have something fun to show the internet.
Welcome home, if you ever get there.
Jan 9th
I was really worried about returning to New York. After spending 2 weeks in California, in 70-degree weather, I had begun to seriously doubt my commitment to Brooklyn. So after kissing my mom on the cheek at the car, late for my flight, I trudged into line to check my one suitcase.
There’s a certain breed of frustration only indigenous to airports. It’s a similar species to freeway traffic, but the special trait is the constant nagging in your mind that if you miss this flight, you’re paying out the ass for it. So every inch gained in line must be carefully measured against how long it took the herd in front of you to move forward, a ratio of minutes to inches is then calculated and approximated so that you can figure how long until you’re at the gate, boarding the plane.
But then some asshole stuffs his codpiece with TNT a few days before and everyone loses their minds.
Thus airport security was especially cautious, and my ratio especially high on the one day that I woke up late and had to rush through an airport. During my entire trip to California I flew 3 times during the Christmas season. Each time I arrived at the airport at least an hour and a half early only to breeze through the airport in 15 minutes and sit around in the airport with nothing to do. But the ONE time I cut it close, everyone decides to fly.
At the bag check counter, I weigh my suitcase. 67 pounds. “That’ll be $50 dollars please,” the disgustingly upbeat girl at the counter says. Doesn’t she know how low her line’s ratio was?! It suddenly occurs to me that I have the Calvin & Hobbes complete collection occupying space in my suitcase and it is a heavy beast. I picked it up in California, which explained my shock since I didn’t have to pay fifty bones on my way out. I tell her. “Oh! Well, do you have another suitcase you can put the book in? Then you won’t have to pay anything!”
“Who made up that moronic rule? So you’re saying that I can occupy the same amount of weight on your precious plane, but if I opt to take up more space as well, you’ll reward me by not charging me extra? This is why airlines are hemorrhaging money: your guys at the top don’t think things through.”
All cheeriness evacuates her face. “Look pay or don’t, you’re holding up the line.” Suddenly I am the guy skyrocketing the ratio. Fine, I’m carrying the book. In front of at least thirty annoyed customers I open my suitcase, which is spring-loaded with dirty laundry, and fish out this 20 pound behemoth. Re-weigh the suitcase, 47 pounds. I’m out.
Now I’m carrying this brick under my arm, awkwardly attempting to balance it against my hip, and recalculating the ratio for airport security. It becomes very clear half-way through the line that I will be missing my flight.
They took my soap. TSA took my soap because it was over the 3 ounce liquid limit. Except that it wasn’t. It was a 6 oz. bottle clearly less than half full. My secret suspicion was that the agent was alarmed by its lime green color. It looked like the green shit that Nick Cage has to save us from at the end of The Rock, and by this stage in the game I wanted a 12-inch needle like Nick had at the end of the movie so I could jam it in her chest. Or mine. Just take the soap, I don’t care anymore.
Defeated, I pass through airport security with no further incident. I am a threat to no one but myself at this point. It’s 10:23 and my flight leaves at 10:25. Out of some sort of masochistic need to punish myself for being late, I decide to run through the airport. Perhaps the flight is delayed? I’m rationalizing, the book under my arm is playing my ribs like a washboard, and I’m running. It should surprise no one at this point that my gate is number 13, the LAST GATE IN THE AIRPORT. It’s closed, I’m toast.
I fantasize about throwing the book through the glass, leaping through its shattered remains onto the tarmac and stowing away on the plane’s landing gear. I saw it in a movie once, big deal. Instead, I inquire when the next flight is. There’s one. In two hours. Sold out, I’m on standby, and #5 in line. There’s no way this is happening.
So to recap, I could’ve either woken up 10 minutes earlier and saved $150 and a day, or, I could’ve opted not to get out of bed with the girl I found myself next to in the morning. Why I picked curtain number 3, we’ll never know.
So to rescue the day, I called my surrogate sister for a pickup. Turns out she’s running errands with her parents and 4-year-old twins today. At least it’s better than sitting around an airport. I book my flight for tomorrow (same time and place!) and trod back out to the entrance to the terminal. Hopefully this day will get better…
On Ms. Noonan
Jan 5th
Peggy Noonan’s article: The Adam Lambert Problem
—–
Dear Peggy Noonan,
I think you’re a pretty sensible person. As a 20-something political product of the George W. Bush administration, I usually have a knee-jerk reaction to Beltway conservatives simply because none of you spoke up as he radically diverged from Reagan’s conservatism. During the 2008 campaign, I fully expected conservatives to line up behind Sarah Palin even though she embodied a continuation of Bush’s personality politics, and for the most part they did (maybe even while holding their noses a bit).
You didn’t, though, and I respect you for that. Unfortunately, you didn’t have the fortitude to say what you really felt on television, instead inciting scandal by telling the truth only when you believed you were safely disconnected from your microphone. Setting that aside, though, I don’t believe you to be particularly cynical or calculating.
But this article of yours stinks. It’s not just because I have a personal bias, or a fraternal instinct to defend the guy you’re attacking. It stinks because it reflects exactly the moral degradation of the American character that you’re accusing others of. Let’s break it down, shall we?
- Adam Lambert, in an act of offense and poor taste performed some lewd acts on television, and children were watching
- The parents of these children are simply exhausted by constantly shielding them from the modern vulgarity of television.
- Lambert’s “creepy musical act doesn’t matter much”, but he represents a certain type of selfish personality that is infecting the public sphere a la the Salahis and Octomom. They do what they want at the expense of everyone else, just like the financial sector, and it is frankly exhausting the American heart and mind.
- Given this new, vulgar strain of public persona you assume that we’re degrading culturally, and that the moral fiber of America was softer and stronger 50 years ago than it is today.
Please, correct me if my summary is inaccurate. Allow me to respond:
Perhaps what offends me most about your article is the subtext that Adam is somehow raping our minds. That his lewd acts are creeping into our homes and that we’re powerless to fight back, that we cannot simply turn off the television. He’s some ghastly, sexual monster creeping out of the static in a true life Poltergeist or The Ring. You define this characteristic as a selfish desire to impose upon others and profit from others’ defenselessness. To your credit, Peggy, you accurately assign this personality to the people responsible for the financial crisis as well.
Yet you state at the beginning of your article that this selfishness we see all around us is perhaps more (if not equally) offensive in our entertainment personalities than our political ones, and that’s what I cannot abide. As a parent, which I thankfully am not, I can change the channel, but I can’t flip a switch and change my stock portfolio or turn up the volume on my 401k.
You think that I consider the entertainment media and political sphere equally in my life. That is offensive. My elected officials are robbing my future children, allowing their oceans and air to become toxic sludge, and you think I care MORE that my kid might see a scantily clad woman or a man on television? Peggy, this is the problem. You think that “faux oral sex” is horrifically, irreversibly imprinted upon the fabric of American culture and that that is somehow worse than the financial and environmental destruction of American culture. It’s simply staggering that you, and many conservatives, think like this.
On second thought, I just re-read your article. You kept a straight face while pining for the simpler, happier time of 1960? Fifty years ago, the moral fiber of this country was stronger you say? The Civil Rights Act wouldn’t pass for another 4 years. Women were but a shadow in the work place. Let’s not forget about the shreds in our moral fabric back then. I’m certain those times were more egregious than the present incursions upon your puritan borders.
Do you want to have a discussion about moral and cultural degradation? Why a considerable swath of the American moral fabric believe that healing the sick is not a human right despite their religious texts stating that it is? Or maybe the fact that I can’t convince half this country that torturing someone to death is not what our country is all about? This culture war sideshow you and your ilk have been peddling for years is simply tired. Maybe you’d like to talk about that instead of having one’s world shattered by someone flaunting their sexuality.
This is why Americans don’t think we’re on the right track: our moral compass has simply stopped pointing the way and you are part of the problem. Our moral code isn’t being desecrated by people like Adam; it’s being dissolved by people like you focusing attention on things that simply don’t matter. Talk to me about torture, habeas corpus, the wars in Afghanistan and our involvement in Pakistan. Give me a conservative solution to our banking and healthcare problems and shut up about the TV show you watched last night. Or would you rather me conclude that you simply have nothing useful to talk about because your party’s agenda just ruined the last decade?
Case in point
Jan 4th
click to zoom
Sure, you might not be a craze, obsessed ’stalker’, but you want to show me pictures of my family that you have? What. the. fuck.
Yes, AFTER I posted last night I received this request. Come ON, Claire. I don’t normally single people out, but jesus christ. You read the post, and then did this, and you expected a positive result? This is negativeneil, not makeanexceptionneil.
Update: Please understand I have no problem with fanfare and think it is great that my brother makes so many people happy. It’s just that I’m not him and facebook isn’t the way to contact me, Twitter and nn.com are. That’s why there are links at the top-right for those two things. Sorry, Claire. I’m sure you meant no harm.
look, we need to talk
Jan 3rd
I view facebook as the last safe haven of my social networks. Having turned my twitter account into a cesspool, discovered that my myspace account was picked apart by a 15-year-old girl and all my pictures (and friends’ pictures) used in some sort of bizarre internet shrine, I have vowed to keep my facebook account sterile. I regularly delete friends that I don’t immediately recognize, or if I can’t remember why we’re friends in the first place.
That said, I get a pretty steady stream of friend requests. This is not to brag, but to simply inform you of my situation. Usually there are about 5-10 requests per day. Cool, I guess, but not really. I’m not a celebrity and though I make no secret of my identity, I don’t think I should really bear the burden of fame. Perhaps you’re thinking that we could be actual friends if I got to know you or something through the internet which I guess is possible, but I will not be going down that road. At least not on Facebook.
Typically when someone looks me up on FB, there are telltale signs. Do we have mutual friends? No. Is your profile picture actually a picture of my brother? Yes. Is it a picture of him as a child? fucking creepy. Is it actually a picture of you but your hair is jet black and you have the exact same haircut as my brother? Wow. And you’re a woman? ok, that one’s fair since it’s basically Sharon Osbourne’s cut dyed black.
Here’s the kicker though: the fan pages. When you click on someone’s profile you can see what fan pages they’re members of. And that’s where the crazy can’t hide. Yes, I’m talking to you, girl-with-48-separate-taylor-lautner-fan-pages. In fact, most of you are Twilight fans to some degree and you should know that the only legitimate way to like Twilight is ironically. And liking it ironically does not include obsessively joining every single facebook group dedicated to its cast.
My thought process, therefore, goes like this: hmmm, a random girl from the internet wants to be my friend. 95% chance of being Lambert fan and 5% chance of being a porn account. Let’s check the profile, shall we? Ahh! I see 3 Taylor Lautners, a Twilight, and an Adam Lambert. Ignore.
I know that this address comes off as very pompous. If that will assist you in deciding not to be my friend on FB, then let it be known that I am very pompous. Anything I can do to save myself from the soul-crushing task of coming face-to-face with the reality that the same people who tell me they enjoy my writing are the same people who like Twilight, then I’m all for it. I’m beginning to suspect that my not wanting to write negativeneil anymore is partly based on this common thread.
That said, get up on Twitter. That shit is hilarious and I will happily make fun of you all day.
Crashing The Party: Part 2
Dec 17th
Now that we’ve completed our signs, it’s time to put them to good use. If done properly, there should be a natural strengthening of trust between you and your targets once you’re able to compare signs and ideas in person. Once you feel that your fake opinions seem to hold real merit in the conservative eye, follow these guidelines to brew a healthy self-doubt in even the most ardent Tea Partier:
1. DO take care in disconnecting your personal demeanor from the hateful bile displayed on your sign. Act polite and courteous towards everyone (because, hey, they’re just like us! We’re 99% white, working class Americans and the other 1% wishes they were.) As soon as the purpose for your protesting enters conversation, however, immediately embark on a frenzied rant. Be sure to hit all the trademarks along the way: paranoid delusion, xenophobia, and flagrant misunderstanding of policy are a great start. Upon winding down, be sure to reapply an affable smile and take a breath. After all, you just completed a Two Minutes’ Hate in thirty seconds and it should definitely be four times as tiring (and terrifying) to anyone but your ideological peers. If done correctly, your schizophrenic tirade should have them wondering how such an obviously unstable citizen could appear so… familiar.
2. DO be on the lookout for the inevitable outsider. That bleeding-heart sonofabitch that will eventually accost you with a camcorder and hammer you with questions. He or she could be any of the 9 people at the protest under the age of 35! These guys tend to blend in and fool you with signs that satisfy your worldview. Perhaps an Acrostic or two, maybe even a “Stupid Concept”. However, within a few minutes of talking to them, you might find that they ask clarifying questions that require you to re-examine your (misguided) ideals. If your suspicions are aroused, raise an eyebrow! Be sure to ask, “who are you with?” All interlopers at Tea Parties are naturally part of a vast liberal conspiracy to paint you as the crazy one. Can’t we just shill for the insurance companies and compare liberal policies to Hitler’s in peace? Besides, if you do meet an obvious liberal at one of these rallies then they aren’t making any effort to subvert the rally and thus should be removed by any means necessary. The easiest method is to simply point at the outsider and say a word that your fellow protestors hate or fear. The most effective seems to be either “CNN” or “ACORN. WE’VE GOT ACORN OVER HERE.” This should strengthen your alter ego’s right-wing cred and further captivate the masses.
3. DON’T, under any circumstances, Google definitions for any of the terms with which conservatives casually brand Obama. As far as you are concerned, anything ending in an –ism (except capitalism!) is evil, and all evils are created equal. If curiosity truly gets the best of you, go to town on “socialism”. Look up every definition you want so that you might seem educated in the eyes of your peers when you rant at each other about Obama’s passion for volunteerism and community service. Avoid researching fascism, though, because it’s hard not to feel like an idiot while calling someone a socialist fascist once you actually know that the two terms are mutually exclusive. If you make the mistake of learning even a single thing about these completely opposite ideologies, an onlooker might spot the telltale stifled cringe on your face and start yelling about ACORN. Be careful!
4. DO casually mention the Tea Party corporate sponsors and/or corporate healthcare insurance benefactors whose agenda you are supporting. Be especially mindful of this if you are also carrying a Don’t Tread On Me flag. Tea Partiers are a strange bunch and while corporations have been treading on individual’s rights for decades, it’s important to remember that they provide valuable services such as price gouging and monopoly that Tea Partiers simply adore. It’s probably best for you to ignore the Left’s support of labor and simply concentrate on how tragic the weakening of corporate America would be. The collapse of Cigna or Blue Shield might force you to actually support the free market that you pretend to care about.
5. DON’T wonder aloud why no one complained about spending 5 years ago. Remember: during the previous administration’s consecutive years of record-breaking spending, we were fighting brown people on the other side of the world. Now we’re fighting a brown person on the other side of the aisle. It’s a completely different thing! If this rule’s tough for you, make sure to avoid any of the healthcare protestors with signs that are against spending taxes on abortion. Naturally, taxes to kill innocent children are only acceptable if they aren’t American citizens. It’s simple: any mention of Bush paints a giant scarlet L on your chest. It doesn’t matter if you’re pretending to honor the man, no one can ignore the smell of bullshit that strong.
6. Finally, DO make sure to ask as many people questions about their favorite President. 95% will tell you Reagan because even they can’t stomach Bush’s abysmal failure. Upon hearing this, scoff. Let them know that as a true conservative, you cannot support any Republican President who appointed a czar in his administration. Remind them that the last true conservative President was Hoover, immediately pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and walk away with your head held high. Bonus points if your target says, “Hoover?”
By wielding your ironic sign and following these strict guidelines, anyone can be a productive member of the Tea Party Contradiction Corps. Unfortunately these were lessons learned in hindsight. During my actual foray into the Tea Party I managed to violate almost all of these rules and permanently blow my cover. Stay tuned for the conclusion of Crashing the Party!
Crashing the Party: A Guide to Pretending to be Right
Dec 17th
With the healthcare debate devolving into more and more of a parade of disappointment and stupidity, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the anti-healthcare Tea Party rally I attended in September in Washington. I even wrote an article about it for The Faster Times. That article was a very truncated version of my original piece, which I finally show here to celebrate the relaunch. Enjoy this how-to guide a made for Guerilla Tea Partying!
Step One: Sign Making
Your signs are the key component in subverting a right-wing protest. They have to disarm your fellow protestors and force them to conclude that anyone carrying your sign is obviously misguided, paranoid, or angry enough (preferably all three) to be a true believer. Remember: tea partiers are impervious to contradiction and irony, so feel free to lay it on pretty thick. The golden rule is that as long as you explain your signs with conviction, no amount of crazy is too much. You can carry a sign that says that Obama is, without a doubt, an intergalactic Manchurian Candidate and as long as you carefully explain his abnormally large ears and wide-set eyes, they will listen! Here are a few sign options at your disposal, in order of decreasing subtlety:
1. The Acrostic
This sign is a staple of the Tea Party movement. While it is true that acrostic signs are a presence across the entire ideological spectrum, they possess a special level of idiocy at Tea Party rallies. Remember acrostic poems from grade school? At a tea party, it’s simple: arrange the letters of a person or concept you dislike vertically, and create a telling acronym from it. If it makes sense to a third grader, it’s more than enough to get through to 90% of these folks.
The Acrostic
This is the acrostic sign that I created for the protest. The beauty of this sign is that none of these terms belong together, yet Obama has been accused of each of these separately by prominent conservatives. He’s a godless communist, arugula-eating elitist who wants to implement Sharia law in the United States. Your first reaction might be that this one is a bit too obvious, but rest assured: people loved this sign. The affirmative nods it elicits from passersby makes it easy to spot your most gullible targets for conversation because they obviously have no idea what any of these terms mean.
2. The Stupid “Concept”
Anything except Jesus and Freedom can be put into quotations and Tea Partiers will conclude that you hate the same things they do.
The Stupid "Concept"
This sign is a rare victory because it is true to anyone who reads it. Glenn Beck told viewers on his show that when liberals plead for social justice, they really mean socialism. But people who actually fight for social justice know that it is precisely for the benefit of the losers in society. It’s why our system of government explicitly protects against the tyranny of the majority and also why conservatives think that the ACLU is un-American. The perfectly subversive protest sign is one that people on both sides of the debate can use to call the other side stupid.
3. The Too-Insane-To-Be-Fake
Or is it? This is a high-risk sign. If you don’t have a properly prepared explanation to accompany it, this sign will blow your cover and identify you as a member of the Contradictory Corps. With great risk comes greater reward, though, and it’s hard not to smile when you use the right’s most treasured ideals against them.
The Blatant Sarcasm
To the skeptical Tea Partier, my explanation was simple: “Jesus didn’t heal the sick for free. He healed them and converted them to Christianity. OBAMA is trying to convert us to Communism and that’s NOT WHAT JESUS WANTS!” All but one of the protestors walked away convinced that I was sincere, but all of them concluded that I was at least anti-Obama. It is telling, however, that none of them doubted that Jesus insisted on some quid pro quo for his miracles and that makes the sign worth it.
That rounds out the 3 signs I used during the Tea Party. There were more, of course, but those were my mainstays. Next, we’ll discuss the do’s and don’ts of infiltrating a Tea Party. Stay Tuned!
Well ain’t this nice.
Dec 17th
New theme, better website. Threaded comments. Twitter. Rss feeds.
I’m still working out the kinks from importing all the old content on the new site. let me know if anything is out of whack.
Content impending!
Buffering…
Sep 23rd
It’s coming, dear reader. My only excuse for the amount of time my 9/12 post is taking is that it is the first of what I hope are many posts that are not typical NegativeNeil posts. In other words, this one is a bit more mainstream. Stay Tuned!