So long, farewell, auf blergersehen, goodbye

"Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there, the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.”

— George Saunders in today's Sunday NY Times, NOT TALKING ABOUT BLOGS

It's been over four years of blerging, first with Longtime, then by my lonesome. I'm a little softer, a little stiffer, definitely less wiser than when we started this little venture ("You'll get wiser... Budweiser," I can hear my father saying), and now it's time to close up shop. I haven't posted as much in recent months, not because Mitt, Ann, Ken, Barbie and the other Republican couples didn't give us fantastic material, but the whole "work/life" balance thing has been an issue and even I can't find anything to make fun of as twenty kids' bullet-ridden bodies lay buried under fresh graves in Newtown, Connecticut.

Blerg is still the word, but now it's time to get a little more serious and figure out how to try and say something that actually dignifies and improves me, career be damned! I sincerely thank all of you for reading and *MOST IMPORTANTLY* sharing my posts on social media. I'd also like to give a special shout out to the blerg's number 1 fan, Eric Smith DDS of Solon, Ohio, because if you're ever in need of dentistry in the Cleveland area, he is your man and he's also just a goddamn delight. 

I'll leave you with Longtime and my first post, written over giggles on G Chat during work hours as we witnessed the political Bump-It that was Sarah Palin (thank Kenyin Muzzlin' Jesus we can say that in the past tense): Sarah Palin and the possible titles of her inevitable Lifetime made-for-TV movie.   

Windexing the Glass Ceiling: The Sarah Palin Story will always crack me up, Longtime. And screw you, HBO and your serious film adaptation Game Change.

A note from Sandy-land

This is an email I wrote to my family and friends last night after spending the day at the Rockaways. I'm pasting it here because it has become even clearer the massive work that lay ahead for its residents. If you've read my blog before, know my usual sarcasm took the day off and for everyone who reads this, please give if you can.

I've abbreviated all names for privacy's sake.  

I'm writing you because a) you're kind-hearted, generous people; and b) I want to share what I saw post-Hurricane Sandy today. My area in Brooklyn was mercifully spared and on television Manhattan looks back to normal, but the rest of the boroughs are not as lucky.

A few of of my friends drove 20 minutes away to the Rockwaways, which cover part of the southern coastline in both Brooklyn and Queens and is one of the hardest hit in the tri-state area, to offer our time, resources and muscle-power for the post-Hurricane relief effort. Prior to, I probably saw and knew as much as you from television, Facebook and the news. After, I can say that there's a very different reality for the residents.

First, the Red Cross is not very organized. The volunteers are not from the area and while their intentions are good, they do not seem to have a lay of the land. They brought plenty of water, but I didn't see any tools to remove the sand that's piled up inside people's homes, or liner bags to handle the piles and piles of garbage and debris that cover most of the streets and what used to be yards.

Second, the army and their trucks line the shore but cannot go inside private property unless someone is in immediate danger. This is a fact that surprised me as I'm sure it surprises you. This means the able-bodied men in uniform, whom we all assume want to help, cannot do the bulk of the hard, taxing work like removing moldy furniture, shoveling sand, and removing debris from homes.

This is what my friends and I did today. One story I'd like to share with you/the world is a young man's named M. who owns, not rents, a first-floor apartment in a condominium complex facing the shore. He has a three-month old baby. He works in IT and immigrated to the United States. His wife, the baby and him are currently staying at her parents' studio apartment several miles away in a northern part of Brooklyn. His home, when we first saw it, was literally filled with sand, dirt, sewage and buried inside that, what remained of his belongings.

He has insurance but not enough coverage to recoup his losses. I think this is the lot most Rockaway residents will find themselves in -- not a lot of insurance policies offer Florida-level coverage to New Yorkers, nor could the residents afford it. Most of his furniture is gone because it washed away with his other belongings into the ocean, including the crib his child slept in.

When we arrived at his house, no one had been by to help him yet, though there were Red Cross and military officers just yards away. He was unshowered and clearly exhausted. Sandy hit ten days ago. Several other volunteers from New York showed up shortly after we did, and we all managed to shovel the bulk of sand from his living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath, but his basement is another story. The mud, sand and other "materials" rose above our ankles. My friend J. found a framed photo covered in black -- I'll just say it -- shit and wiped it off. It was his and his wife's wedding photo. When we brought it to M. he looked stunned, then began to cry.

We went to other places and one of the most effective groups distributing food and urgent materials like diapers, tampons, soap, etc. was Occupy Sandy. Yes, this is an outpost of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but they were the only ones we saw handing out what people need not only to live, but to begin to clear apart their wreckage.

Occupy Sandy has set up a wedding registry link with the most-needed items based on their assessment of the residents' needs and feedback. I shared on Facebook earlier in the week because it just seemed like a practical way for people to give who lived outside the area; now that I've seen it in reality, I can tell you it actually is. You can give to whomever you like, and it is all appreciated, but the things they need, outside of compassion and support, are the unglamorous items like garbage bags, batteries, flame gels, workmens' gloves and bleach. Here is the link to purchase:

http://www.amazon.com/registry/wedding/32TAA123PJR42?tag=gmgamzn-20

Some of you have already donated, and I'm including you so you can see where your efforts are going. The list is updated every day. If you prefer, they also update their website if you want to ship something directly to a school or center: http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/

I feel very grateful to know I live in a place where my fellow citizens and neighbors organize themselves to help those in need and that if it happened to me, I would too be the beneficiary of their kindness. Whatever your opinion of the Occupy movement, I will just say this: a problem is only out of our hands unless we don't want to pick it up.

Attached are photos from the Rockaways and M.'s apartment, which tell a better story than I can.

May God continue to bless us.

Why I am your most annoying political friend on Facebook

It's not even 7 o'clock on election night and I'm already in tears.

I literally just turned on the TV in my office and what was C-SPAN showing but a scene from my first job, one I started a week out of college: John Kerry's concession speech from Faneuil Hall in 2004. I was in the audience that day watching my friends' eyes blink back tears and their hands chap from clapping. I remember them as friends -- partisans sounds too whimsical unless you're standing offstage as Bruce Springsteen plays, comrades too theatrical unless a redneck is calling you a commie faggot, soldiers... well, we don't want to patronize the troops, do we? Ted Kennedy was there, cheerleading. Elizabeth Edwards had just told the campaign she had been campaigning with breast cancer this whole time. Senator Kerry was warm, effusive, and inspiring -- all the things he couldn't seem to muster during competition. He was relieved, almost peaceful, to be rid of the burdens that come with campaigning against a certifiable machine. Even the most ego-maniacal of the press corps looked sorry for us. I can't speak for the Bush campaign's Advance team, but we were not machines. We tried. We drank. We said smart-ass things out of turn. Occasional dissent was voiced.

After the inauguration, I began the rest of my life outside of politics. I'm not a cheerleader or a fighter, as if you couldn't tell. But rather than growing number in a post-Bush world, when the guy I ostensibly support is in office, I find myself thinking more passionately about our collective situation than ever. Disasters strike, anger blasts, immaturity blossoms. Humor sprouts, certainty recedes, faith asserts. Blame the town crier, Facebook.

Who knows how many innocent people would still be alive on this earth if there had been a different president elected in 2000, 2004, 2008 (Would the POW McCain have allowed drones, asks the choir) and now, tonight in 2012? We'll never know. If you've ever considered the math and included your own life inside that unknowable sum, you get it. As the best American writer I know James Baldwin said, a problem is only out of our hands if we don't want to pick it up. Posting a status update is hardly what he meant, but it does give one hell of an illusion you are, doesn't it? LIKE.

Just because something is shared doesn't mean it's known. This is our dear friend the town crier's eternal problem. And to a larger extent, mine.

JOBS! can't save you now

Oh, Sandy. Not only did that blowsy mess cause endless destruction on the Eastern seaboard, she prevented me and other freelance serfs from getting paid this week. Here's my IOU, landlord! On the plus side, I've been blerging and writing. This is the dialogue from of my new one-act play, "Everything That's Happened In The 2012 Presidential Campaign."

"I'll create more jobs."
"No, I'll create more jobs."
"No, I will!"
"I will!"
"Binders!"

Jordan Carlos will play the President and a gray Dyson can play Mitt.

After El Jefe Mas Bajo Del Mayor Bloomberg (homegirl loves his Spanglish) endorsed the President this afternoon thanks in part to Sandy, Mitt Romney promoted this tweet: 

Barack Obama is guilty of similar and worse insinuations, as I've noted before: he sincerely believes that the United States and nations can control the tide of global labor. It can't and never will. My smart-set friends like to say governments can "lure" or "incentivize" jobs. To which I reply, "Business DGAF -- she business! Tax credit that ho all you want, the corner in Shinzou is FREE. And no one can live on $2 a week anywhere in the United States. Also the manufacturing and short-term jobs I think you're referring to are long gone or temporary. What do you think of Britney on X-Factor?"

The executive branch has always had very little to do with "job" creation and always will, as if such a thing can be known or quantified. If you want proof the executive branch has nothing to do with why you're employed, ask the jefe at your company/school/NGO/institution/church/restaurant/puteria if the executive branch is why they hired you. (Also, I would like to find a place that is all of these things and buy their tee-shirt.) You already know they will not say Obama.

Also, please don't tell me the President created jobs by keeping the auto industry from going under; he saved them. Again, no plussin' there. Better than nothing, sure, but hardly meets the expectations we're told to have. JOB. CREATION! JOBS JOBS JOBS, leave your Jan Brady ratchet howls outta my presidential campaign.

In times of high unemployment, much like other times of uncontrollable strife, we like to blame someone. Capitalists especially like to blame everyone but themselves -- why is there no Bank of YOLO or YOLO Capital yet? can any MBA grads weigh in? -- and the blame is typically heaped on the best-recognized branch of government, the president's office. Now if you're unemployed or underemployed, ask your former boss why you and the rest of your coworkers don't have work. There's a strong chance that person will say: Obama. See the problem with thinking the executive branch controls your economic livelihood? Great, now go tell America.

But the bigger fallacy with Mitt Romney's tweeted message isn't just that like the President he assumes he can lure that puteria with tax credits, he also assumes the skills of running a business and governing are transferable. No one can accuse the President of this. Why does Mitt the businessman want to work for the government if it's so awful? Why can't you be happy just being rich? And why in Candy Crowley's magnificently waved halo has no one asked him this?

Because to be rich, you have to stay rich. Just ask my ancestors who really really really loved states' rights. But I'm a lefty now, which is the only reason why I can't pay my rent on time. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! Can't save me now and they can't save Mitt Romney. Republicans who purport to hate regulation pertaining to wealth creation want to control our taxes and laws for wealth... creation. And some vaginas while they're at it. If business should be free of government, then government should be free of business.

OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 in case you're wondering who I'm endorsing.

PhDiva on The Terminator's Slutty Ego

The PhDiva has returned to discuss Arnold Schwarzenneger's forgiveness book tour and whether he can blame his horndogging on a toomah. (Spoiler: no.) Her civilian name is Patty Jr.; you can follow her on Twitter @pfrcII. On to her blerging:

I have to admit I loved watching the Terminator films as a kid. It’s really because I love robots. Robots can be controlled and yet there is nothing robotic about Arnold Schwarzenegger'sn new book. In fact, though it is quite sad it's ALSO a social scientist’s dream. The autobiography NOT penned ironically, “Total Recall,” the former governor of California seemed to have a lot to get off his chest.

The chapter that captivates man folks who care enough to keep up with the former Body Building Champion is his indiscretions in his marriage. His marriage to the royalty of the United States, a Kennedy (Maria Shriver) did not prevent him from having his cake and eating it, too. On repeat. Arnold made little apologies for being in relationships and having affairs with other women in his book and promotional appearances.

For a person who studies men, this gave me pause. It’s not like this is new, political, spiritual and community leaders falling into temptation and spoiling public perception by their sexual indiscretion. This is a trend that is to hard to deny. But women seem to be bearing the weight of the lies.

Arnold, who is 65 years old, quips: "Instead of doing the right thing, I'd just put the truth in a mental compartment and locked it up where I didn't deal with it every day.” That is the curse and blessing of how men are wired to think. To habitually compartmentalize and as leaders in patriarchal positions, they never have to answer to or for their actions. Arnold is not alone in this. That human behavior can be controlled in such a way that would prevent a man from being seen in a negative manner is the arrogance of self-perception.

I would like to call this the “terminator affect:” the narcissism fed with the arrogance that such a man (especially in a leadership position) would not be found out. That sexual or relational indiscretion becomes a normalized behavior stems from entitlement. His secrets were privileged and in some cases only existed in his mind when he is caught. But this form of selfishness means that Arnold believed he’d never get caught. That who he is and what he does never intersects. Many people who write about morality of men in office or leadership positions try to excuse this kind of behavior -- unless it involves a child (cough Jerry Sandusky cough).

Excuses are not apologies. They are not repentance. They are not the summation of what society as a whole views as an ethical cornerstone. If one cannot keep their personal life in a truthful space, then how can we expect them to be truthful in the public life? If you can’t keep your bed made, how can you ask others to sweep the floor? And that internal struggle eventually will come to light and perhaps even overwhelm their ability to maintain and succeed when their organization, business, or political office.

We know that if a woman were to succumb to the terminator effect, her career would be over. She would come under trial and by fire. She would not be seen as someone fit to lead. Of course the morality of man(kind) ultimately falls on the woman. But at the same time this double standard has allowed for men to not be accountable for their actions. We know that the former governor of California will continue to “act.” [Editor’s note: “act” in quotes was all me.] In fact, if his divorce is finalized, there will be a line of women waiting to date Schwarzenegger.

We cannot same the same for women like Nancy Pelosi. Can you imagine if she had an affair with an intern or maid? She’s been a faithful mother and wife before she even entered the political arena. Sadly when an unmarried woman like the Twilight star Kristen Stewart cheats on her boyfriend -- and neither publicly acknowledged they were a couple until the scandal-- there is no quick forgiveness for her and she’s now labeled a slut and all its euphemisms. I do not remember Bill Clinton ever being referred to as a slut, but I am positive Monica Lewinsky was.

The time Mitt Romney strangled himself with his own bootstrap laces

As you probably saw on your Facebook feed, in between ultrasound photos, likely from that shrill college roommate who Took Back the Night from the innocent shadow-dwelling catcallers, Mitt Romney has once again put the cool, metallic, silver spoon-shaped extremity he calls a "foot" in his mouth after he said during a secretly-taped video taken during a fundraiser that 47% of Americans don't take responsibility for their lives. Fiddle-dee-derp!

Here's my favorite part:

He's earned everything he has BY HIMSELF. Like a big boy. Nothing was handed to him. (That would be too much affection from ol' Dad -- the check was slipped under his bedroom door by Mother.) The prep school which enabled him to attend the most elite institutions was of course all paid for by Mitt and his legacy status and family income had no influence on his admittance to any of these fine organizations. And his father, a former governor and GM CEO in no way passed him any clients at Bain. So it's not his fault -- white people, haven't you learned that after slavery "ended" America became a civil, just and equal economic society where opportunity reigned down on our shoulders like schmutz from an asbestos factory? -- because Poor Latter Day Church of Khaki was just keeping it rulz. He's a numbers guy see, his offshore bank account is piling them up as I type, so he knows the facts about you, Americans. And darn near half of us are just not pulling ourselves up HARD or FAST enough by the bootstraps.

Also, what "kind" of Americans are we in these fugly boots with straps, president of the Stockard Channing fan club? Home Depot rebate redeemers? LL Bean catalogue page-markers? #TeamEvaMendes? Maybe we need to pick ourselves up by nice, cute loafer tassels?

It's a long ways until November and we still have the "October Surprise" to wait on with fingers crossed, but right now, as he's just endured the Jew-less press conference (L'Shana Tova, my beloved argumentative spirit culture!) Mitt will go back to the home base, ask his sweetest Guatemalan daytime maid to slip off his bootstraps, make a good Aguila Scout knot, and tie one end around the tallest rafter of this ski chalet by standing on the back of the other help... And yet. The string dangles just out of his reach, taunting him. "Forty-seven, forty-seven," the ceiling fan seems to purr. He turns it off telepathically, with his hands. That celebrated, invisible bootstrap hangs motionless above him, right above his reach. And it's saying "Your move, genius."