xtcian

for the love of god turn that so-called music down

2/28/10

I've been reading with some fascination about the so-called mosquito tone that some teens (ACH! KIDS THESE DAYS©!!!) are using as ringtones so they can text each other in class without the teacher knowing. Due to prebycusis, humans tend to lose their hearing in high frequencies as they age, meaning tones over 16 KHz are completely inaudible to many folks over 25.

Using the sound as a ringtone is actually a great fuck-you to the Establishment, who had been using the noise to drive loitering teens away from the outside of convenience stores and pubs in Europe. When I lived in Hollywood in the late '90s, they use to pump Vivaldi's "The Seasons" outside the 7-11 on Sunset Blvd. to chilling effect; no teen came within three blocks. Perhaps the Germans should have tried that first.

My dad (and by proxy, me) offers a good case study in staying aurally virginal... in the days before flat-panel TVs, that man could hear the CRT television tube whine (about 16KHz) in the house - while he was still in the driveway in a running car. We played our music at such low levels, and my pain threshold is so low that I have never actually listened to loud music without earplugs, which has left me a) a complete pussy, and b) able to hear the highest tones like a 14-year-old jerk smoking clove cigarettes outside the Kwic-Mart with a smelly jean jacket on.

Anyway, there are a few tests online that can gauge your hearing, but be warned: the tones can mess up some cheap computer speakers. Also, tones get unreliable above 18KHz and some sound cards simply give you weird harmonic frequencies. Most of you, however, should be fine. They recommend using decent headphones, and turning it WAY DOWN to start. This is the test from Plasticmind, so go there if it doesn't work here. Report back with your experience! Below are 5-second long .mp3 files.

i'm for the other team

2/25/10

Let's keep things voraciously positive going into the weekend, shall we? What, over the last ten years, has been Your Greatest Professional Victory?

our 28-day forecast: no frickin' idea

2/24/10

Around 1987, I was in a creative writing class taught by the renowned Max Steele at Carolina - it was about twelve of us, most of us pals, a cadre of deeply funny folks with a fair amount of talent. Max Steele himself was in his "last roar of the lion" phase, capping off his career as one of the last great Southern voices still teaching. When we saw the roster the semester before, we were jubilant, all thinking at least four great novels would come of it. The class was a disastrous bore.

My high school graduating class at Norfolk Academy was notoriously enigmatic. There were only about a hundred kids per grade, so it was possible to develop and foster a sense of kindred spirit. The class two years below us and the class right above us seemed like synergy-filled love-ins, even the nerds having Bulldog Fever™, raucous and full of inside jokes that all 100 seemed to get. Our particular grade, the Class of 1985, was balkanized and silent. When they used to list alumni donors by year, there'd be a bizarre drop-off in fundraising when it came to us.

Which leads, always, somehow, to my guys in baby blue.

I just can't pile this all on Roy Williams, I just can't. I know he's getting crucified - even after getting us our 2nd National Championship in five years mere months ago - but like all art forms, basketball is beholden to the curious whims of chemistry. It's the chaos theory of outcome, small trade winds in the mizzen topgallant sail that subtly push the warship into oncoming cannonshot. It's fourteen small, seemingly-unrelated events that combine into insurmountable defeat.

Yes, there is always "play harder!" and "box out!" and "take care of the ball!" and "make the easy shot!" but if you accept that these are kids that don't want to lose on purpose (and that we have a coach that dies a tiny bit inside with each loss) you have to dig deeper and find out why the little things aren't happening.

Which, of course, is a fool's errand. You'll never find the source, just as you can't unstir the milk out of the coffee. All of you have been involved in projects that just didn't work, no matter how solid it looked on paper, no matter how many awesome people were involved. There are words for it in English: snakebit, cross-starred, unfortunate, ill-fated.

We anthropomorphize defeat to make it easier to take, but defeat doesn't care. It is made of a list of benign ingredients that react when mixed. You can fight it, and sometimes you will win, but it'll take mind-bending focus. Often, it's in your best interests to take your lumps, and wait for the tincture of time, the infinite possibilities of the next day, to set you to rights once more.

poets priests and politicians

2/23/10

A billboard along Interstate 35 in Wyoming, Minnesota - purchased by business owners in the Twin Cities (or the "morphyne" jackass)

Do I "miss him yet"? Are you out of your fucking MIND? I wake up every day, and no matter the weather, no matter the circumstances, no matter what petty annoyance or gargantuan life issue is staring me in the face, I think "well, at least goddamn GEORGE W. BUSH isn't PRESIDENT anymore."

The entire planet weighed less the day that cackling lemur finally got his last pair of soiled underthings out of the White House. Countries all around the world rejoiced. Hell, scientists were so juiced that they turned back the frickin' DOOMSDAY CLOCK a few minutes. Losing that pitiless self-righteous nimrod was the best thing to happen to this country since the Miracle on Ice.

Are your tea-party brains so addled by the hoarse invective of your favorite cable-news carnival barkers that you actually think the rest of the country misses George W. Bush? If anything, your billboard accomplishes precisely the opposite of your intentions: any normal person driving by that sign will look at Bush's sickening smirk and be jolted into sudden awareness: "wow, things in this country are still messed up, but at least THAT SLOBBERING GOON isn't in charge."

You rabid, decency-free, angry conservatives may try to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy, but you'll never get any rational adult who lived under the reign of George W. Bush to wash the taste out of their mouths. You might find some other cruel fuck to trick Americans into voting against their self-interests again, but nobody will look back at Bush with wistful longing.

"Miss Me Yet?" I'm sorry, but... *ahem*

urp...

HOOORRRRRRFFFFFFF

i'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice

2/22/10

I don't know how many of you have ever had the croup, but it gets passed down through family lines, and unfortunately, my mom and I have given it to Lucy. I shan't go into the "seal barking" that accompanies the affliction, nor the impending feeling that you're about to be asphyxiated, but suffice to say it's scary as shit when you're a kid, and I'm up all night tonight making sure the Lulubeans can stay calm. Best that Tessa isn't here - she doesn't need the stress.

I, however, need the CODE WORD question to take care of the blog tonight, and in an attempt to keep things looking positive, I'll re-ask a question from a while back, then compare answers: what is your favorite and least favorite part of your own body?

No checking back and cheating, if you answered in 2008.

evolutionary constraint, or just indolence

2/21/10

It's the 21st century, and we still don't get flying cars, engines that get 500 mpg running on bottled cowfarts, or an adventure park on the Moon. They say man's technology outpaces our maturity (which is why somebody will probably get nuked because of religion) but I say there's an opposite and equal frustration: man's imagination always outpaces our ability to do cool shit.

I suppose it's not very gracious to downplay the elements of modern life that would have been considered "magical" a hundred years ago. My flight from LAX to Charlotte was 3 hours and 31 minutes last week. I video-chatted with Tessa in Denver five minutes ago. I have a pill that keeps my self-loathing set at "vaguely".

But I'm dreamin' bigger, dontchya know! In the '70s, "The Bionic Man" (and the even better show "Bionic Woman") taught us all body parts could get a hardware upgrade. In that light, here is my list of 5 Human Parts That Are Awaiting Version 2.0:

1. Sinuses. Those who went to med school will no doubt wince at my dime-store explanation, but apparently we have sinuses so that our heads can be large enough to carry around a giant brain; the air-filled sac reduces weight in the front. The problem is that everyone's sinuses suck. They act like the petri dishes of a 4th grade science class biology experiment, collecting every virus and bacteria on earth - except you can't throw this petri dish away.

We would like Sinuses 2.0 to be coated with that anti-bacterial covering they use on new grocery carts, natural immunity to all plant life, and we humbly request an upper limit on congestion, so that some of us can fuckin' breathe once in a while.

2. Knees. Yours truly has always had strong knees, but I have seen the greatest minds of the generation above mine felled completely by knee problems, and they've ruined a fur piece of my peer group as well. This has been a well-known design flaw from the get-go; you've got the entire weight of our bodies being supported by a few ligaments swimming in synovial fluid? Hell, a fruit juicer makes more design sense.

Studies show that arthroscopic knee surgery works as well as a placebo. Yes, you heard right - just making an incision in the knee and telling the patient he had surgery works just as well as the surgery itself. And our knee replacement devices are iffy at best, so let's just start over with the next build, okay?

3. Cornea/lens. Seriously, why do people have to be nearsighted or farsighted? Why can't everyone just see with pinpoint clarity? Everyone being forced to hang plastic frames with concave-convex lenses on their faces... we're lucky we have a nose that sticks out, or else we'd have nothing to put it on. Laser surgery, contact lenses and everything else - come on, let's get this one fixed ASAP.

4. Pancreas. Median survival time for someone diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is 3-5 months. You see where we're going with this here. Scrap the pancreas, and diversify: create four different organs in different places that do what the pancreas does (insulin, somatostatin, pancreatic juice, etc.) so that our lives aren't so beholden to one link. Many of us have a separate cable for television, phone and internet so that one tree branch won't shut down the entertainment - we'd like to see some of that thinking go into Pancreas Project 2.0.

5. Skin. We've got this stuff wrapped around us for our whole lives, and while some of us have exquisite epidermii (hi, my wife!) many others of us are prone to acne, sunburn, rash and scars. A lot of us would like to go out into the sun - you know, the star 93 million miles away that sustains life - without having to slather ourselves in sunblock. The teens of the world, billions strong going back in history, don't understand why they are given cystic pustules of painful zits all over their bodies at the precise time they are least equipped to handle the pressure.

No, no - let's get this updated. Obviously, we'd like to keep the endless variations of color and sensation, but ditch the melanoma, hives, pimples and August-ruiners like poison oak, and let's get a cleaner, more durable version running by Q4 2015.

Sound good? Go 21st century! We can do it!

just nursin' this lukewarm cup o' mud

2/18/10

The WSJ has an interesting article about coffee shops in New York - specifically Brooklyn - that have banned laptops. I cannot think of a better rule, and if caffeine makes you smart, perhaps the baristas in Los Angeles will follow suit. When I walk into a coffee shop and every 4-person table is taken by one motherfucker who brought a laptop, his own teabag and paid for a cup of hot water... and then SAT THERE FOR FOUR HOURS... I want to frisbee his 13" Dell into oncoming traffic.

I say this knowing full well that I was that guy in the late '90s. I wrote the first draft of two entire screenplays at a coffee shop off Beachwood Drive in Hollywood, because I hated my house and I had one of those tangerine iBooks. In my defense, this was before the days of wireless internet, and coffee shops had yet to explode into the cultural phenom they are today. Even now, I will occasionally open a laptop at a coffee joint, but that happens twice a year whenever I'm waiting for Tessa.

There are two times a laptop should be allowed in any coffee/eating establishment: when there's nobody else there, and when there's an actual bar-like situation, meaning stools that only allow you to take up one seat. Oh, and if the coffee shop in question is a national chain. Other than that, people who hijack tables with their computers are nothing more than goddamn parasites, draining both bandwidth and money from the establishment they frequent.

5% of men who work on laptops at coffee shops do so because working at home is infeasible. The other 95% do it because they want to put their penis inside someone else. You know it, they know it, and the struggling owner of an independent coffee shop knows it as they turn away customers because there's nowhere to sit. How about this, laptop people: pay for your own internet at home, and STAY there. And if you come to a coffee bar, bring a book and order lattés while you pretend not to stare at someone's tits - at least that way, the owners can make rent.

I know this rant puts me in "crusty old fuck" territory, and besides - in a few years, it won't be laptops, it'll be the iPad, flexible color Kindles, iPhones with holographic images and a Complete Awareness Machine called THE YouORB™. By then, the internet will be ubiquitous and beamed from the sky, making the idea of an access point inside a coffee shop as quaint as a lamplighter.

That's fine, but in the meantime, you laptoppers gotta quit hogging all the tables and actually spend some money at a local establishment. You could even try talking to people - we used to do it in a place called "college", and as I recall, it went pretty well.

got yips; seeking cure

2/17/10

I know there's a cadre of blog readers on here who automatically tune out every time I start talking about the North Carolina men's basketball team, and I totally get it. As I've said many times before, other people's sports teams are at best a creepy experience for you to endure, and at worst, a testosterone-fueled game-day mob that can only end in date rape.

I even tried to explain to my therapist today why Carolina hoops has always been my magnetic north, but it always fails in translation. I usually leave it at this: "deflect personal glory, act like you've been here before, value your family, play hard, play smart and play together." But even that can end up sounding like a motivational poster hastily taped to a conference room wall in a struggling company.

So many of you won't understand the epic fall from excellence our program has suffered over the last year, nor will you care, and that's fine. But we were supposed to be celebrating the centennial of UNC basketball this year, and it feels a little like America's bicentennial: an epic calendar event that happened to fall in the year 1976, when the entire country was malaised, depressed, stuck in gas lines and wearing checkered polyester leisure suits.

Most college basketball fans would say "boo fucking hoo, you won the National Championship in 2005, not to mention last year, while schools like Illinois, Texas, Purdue, UMass and Memphis have NEVER won it" and yes, that's true. But this year we're seeing a historic collapse, the kind of "first to worst" showing that is leaving most of us fans - and there are thousands and thousands - wondering what the hell happened.

We were pre-season ranked in the Top 5, returned some important starters (despite losing most of our team to the NBA last year), and had a stellar-rated recruiting class. The old cliché was trotted out: "Carolina doesn't rebuild, it reloads". Now we're beneath even rebuilding - we have to gut the floor plan, buy new material and start over. It's getting hard to see how we win another game this year.

Excellence is decades in the making, but success teeters on the pinpoint edge, a breath of air on a hair's breadth, felling it one way or the other. Look at the Olympics over the last couple of days - Lindsey Jacobellis (snowboardcross) and Lindsey Vonn (alpine skiing) are both excellent, but one caught an edge, and the other grabbed gold. Maybe the same could be said of our team this year.

Let's throw in a few elements: We lose the most determined player in Carolina history. Our point guard tries too hard, then is too tentative. Our big man relies on a soft touch that turns soft. Our freshmen are a little shellshocked. We lose a game in Charleston that punctures our vanity, but also puts a slow leak in our confidence. Eighteen games in, we're psychologically devastated, and then the real losing starts.

On Tuesday, we went to Georgia Tech and fell behind by 27 points in the second half. After the game, Adam Lucas summed it up best:

As [Deon] Thompson rounded a corner in the Alexander Memorial Coliseum labyrinth, he came upon [Roy] Williams. The big man, still clad in his uniform, said nothing. He just sank into his coach, with Williams wrapping his arms around Thompson and clapping him on the back several times. Both have been called upon to try and explain this season to the public, to tell us what's going wrong, how it feels, or how they're going to fix it. Both have been upbeat and resolute.

Now, though, they just hugged. Neither man said anything. There was nothing left to say.

All that's left of our season is recrimination, rumors of rifts on the team, unfortunate tweets from players, message board frenzy, transfers, and a lot of folks like me wondering what happened to the winters we used to look forward to.

We've been in worse states before, I've had this blog long enough to have documented horrors from the Doherty era, getting waxed by 40 points, and wandering out into the snow. Then, as now, I post a picture of Michael Jordan dunking over Maryland in 1983, as a reminder that we thrive in an era of excellence, even if we live in a moment of failure.

landing the quad

2/16/10

Yes, yes, I know I can't be trusted to deliver you cutting-edge commentary and effervescent persiflage every weekday, but MAN has it been hard to restart after this 3-day weekend or WHAT? While I climb back onto the horse, I can deliver my headlines, and then encourage you to do the same.

1. It is now 75 degrees and sunny in Venice, CA.
2. As much as I want to believe otherwise, the Tar Heels are basically done for the season.
3. I don't care what you say about Johnny Weir, I love him.
4. I can't decide if I want to make our new TV project a dramatic comedy (1 hour) or a comedy (1/2 hour).
5. I installed a Thule rack on top of our car, and I've now contused my head into it seven separate times, the last one drawing blood.
6. Tessa has a conference in Colorado, so I'll be a single dad for a week starting Monday.
7. Lucy skied for the first time this weekend, and after one lesson, she went down a blue-rated hill with us at Mammoth:

8. Oh, there's so much I can't say. How frustrating. O for the days when I could give myself suppositories while driving and still tell the blog...

So what are your headlines?

st. valentine was beheaded so you don't have to be

2-11-10

Okay, fans of virtual disclosure! How about four questions that are COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO ANYTHING?

1. What is one non-essential feature you truly crave in a car?

2. What plant or flower do a lot of people like, but you just find annoying?

3. Are you in love?

4. How would you like that cooked, sir/ma'am?

chicken egg and cheese

2/10/10

First off, a thank you to Andrew Dunn, Kevin Schwartz and the excellent folk at the DTH for honoring me every year with the old chestnut "Why I Hate Dook" column (they also printed another one from 2007). I have been around this great big world of ours and work daily in the dream factory of crazy fame, and yet, why does having both of the most-read articles at Carolina today fill me with so much more joy?

I swear, we'll get a hit show on the air, and my definition of success will be coming back to the DTH and writing about how we got a hit show on the air.

As I've oft-yawped before, this was my 25th home dook game in a row, and of all the Herculean journeys I've taken to get here on time, this may be the most Herculeanest. The fight from LAX to Charlotte was fine for the first 98%, but when we tried to land, the wind blasts were so bad that we had to retract the landing gear and try again. When we finally hit the ground - hard - the entire plane applauded.

But the flight from Charlotte to RDU? I know I can tend to be somewhat of a superlatist on here, but this was the kind of flight when people start re-writing their wills. It was only 25 minutes long (with a furious tailwind) but the landing was out of a sci-fi thriller. On our initial approach, the plane was blown three football fields off course just before we touched down, and AGAIN, there was an abort. Wheels up, thrusters on, people in the cabin weeping, screaming and laughing.

Detailing bad flights - like dreams - is always a terrific bore, so I'll just skip to the 2nd landing attempt, when the left wing blew up so high that I thought the right wing was dragging on the ground. When the brakes came on, and the plane righted itself, there were cheers and roaring applause.

Strangers hugged, people were crying, many looked upwards to their God with thanks, entire rows started telling jokes, and the two guys next to my friend Jim barfed all over their motion sickness bags. The silent army recruit next to me - just finished with basic training - quietly said "It all kinda makes you think how insignificant we all are."

I felt terrible for the kid, having his first true existential realization. I wanted to say "you are now one of us, my friend", but instead just smiled.

Because here's the thing: as some of you old-timers might remember, I had a decade when I was paralyzed by the fear of flying. I used to dread vacations because two weeks ahead of time, I'd be worrying about the plane that would take us there. I was a miserable wreck, and it grounded me for years.

But these last two flights? I actually enjoyed them - I wanted them to be even worse, so I could tell myself that I was really... for lack of a better word, "better". I had my headphones on, listening to symphonic pop music, lunging through the clouds, and all I could think was "I have a good life. And this is truly beautiful." While others were vomiting and yelling, I was at peace, and you know me, I've NEVER been that guy before.

Something about the day Lucy came changed me. Yes, and the drugs and therapy, but it was really that moment.

As for the game, what can you say? We were due for it. The same thing happened that happens every game this season, it just happened a little bit later than usual. Much later on, I found myself walking alone on Cameron Avenue, staring into the frigid midnight North Carolina sky. It reminded me of doing the same thing 25 years ago when it was all still mysterious, all ancient rituals, all friends I was yet to make and girls I was yet to understand. Seeing old friends and getting that old feeling back is worth the trip.

Oh, and this, of course:

her boyfriend took the picture, so you can't see that the dress ends 1/4-inch below her hoodlie-hah

receive all praises thine

2/9/10

There's no rational reason for me to be going. Flights have been canceled up and down the eastern seaboard, and there's a wind advisory for both CLT and RDU. My brother Sean was going to come with me, but our flights from New York were shitcanned, and now I'm going by myself, straight from California.

I'm mildly depressed, my brain is not settled, our team couldn't be playing worse, and I'm on the downside of an illness brought home by my 4-year-old. Why do I do this?

Because it is what I do, and no matter the circumstances, if I can walk, I can be in North Carolina for the home Dook game. This is my 25th in a row. That is a quarter-century, for those of you who like more flourish, a game I first attended as an acne-bedazzled zork of 18 years old in January 1986 with my future brother-in-law Jon Vaden and my still-wonderful-friend Kendall Crosswell.

You have to have some rituals in life, and when times are the leanest, that's when it's most important. I will keep doing this every year I can, and maybe soon I will be joined by like-minded souls when they get old enough.

Until then, I will be at the exit near the flagpole entrance at halftime, and would love to see any of you there.

Lucy watches Tyler being introduced at last February's dook game

i cannot tolerate your lactose, sir

2/8/10

Oh, vanilla. Why are you so maligned? As an ice cream flavor, you are the alpha and omega, and I'm happy to just have you by yourself. Who are these people who say you're boring? They've made you a synonym for "uninteresting", and that's not fair. I agree with the Barenaked Ladies; you're "the finest of the flavors."

Ah, pistachio, always the butt of jokes, because of the funny name. Funny like "vaudeville" funny, not actually funny... and not actually green, either, which was added in post-production. It's as if someone in a conference room decided you needed a color. Well, you don't need one with me.

Shit, there's butter pecan. When I worked scooping ice cream over those long, hot summers, the butter pecan would always empty first - meaning another trip to the freezer to load in the next case. You're the Garth Brooks of flavors, butter pecan: I just don't understand the appeal.

Oh, it's you, strawberry. The curious thing is this: you're not actually strawberry, you're what we think is strawberry (which means you've become, in essence, strawberry). I'd tell people not to put actual strawberries on strawberry ice cream, but it's just too sharp a differential.

Look if you dare at the black walnut. It brings nothing but bad luck. When we worked at High's Ice Cream in Norfolk, VA circa 1985, something terrible always happened around the Black Walnut. It slid off the top rack of the freezer cart and landed on a shift manager's head. A cylinder slipped out of a co-worker's hands and crushed his foot. When removing the metal top, the thin rim sliced open two different scoopers' hands, including Josie (who says she doesn't remember it, but that's the Black Walnut talkin'). After a while, word got out that the Black Walnut flavor was haunted. It's the only time I've ever experienced a haunted flavor, and pray it's the last.

Rocky Road, stop farting.

Oh, why HEL-LO there cookies & cream! I didn't see you! It's hard to go wrong with you (and your slutty cousin Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough) because every bite is different, and every bite is awesome. Unless, of course, you grow up with my sister Michelle, who would take the cookies & cream box out of the freezer and painstakingly eat every bit of oreo in the whole half-gallon, leaving her brothers with naught but a jagged lunar landscape to mourn over.

And while you're not my cup of tea, chocolate, my yin can't exist without your yang. I can deal with Neapolitan because you're in context, but by yourself? Well, let's just say that I'd defend you in a fight by the bike rack, but I won't sit next to you in Geometry.

oh when the sun begin to shine

2/7/10

Tessa at the Superdome with Lucy in belly, October 2004

SAINTS WIN! SAINTS WIN!

The Saints were created the same year I was, in my favorite town in America, and I've been a fan since I first started loving football, and especially since Tom Dempsey kicked the longest field goal in history. For years we've labored under that horrible moniker which I won't repeat here, because guess what, it's been RETIRED, chères!

For a town that was destroyed by nature, left for dead by our government, and was subsequently blamed for existing, this is the kind of redemption too big for platitudes. Yes, it's only sports, but during this season of such unrelenting bad news, we'll take the lagniappe when we can get it. Geaux team!

eat me, i'm a danish

2/4/10

I'm fucking low. My beloved Tar Heels are redefining "from first to würst" by shitting the bed every three days, our careers are suffering at the mediocre hands of unfettered cronyism, I motherfucking hate the town I live in, I'm not sleeping, my low-level fatigue has crept back, my daughter is in the other room crying herself to slumber through a cold, we have a parenting issue that is proving painful to solve, and I have no desire to do anything outside the house, which is good, because our car just got recalled.

Normally, this is when I write a chipper, frothy blog about something completely unrelated, and I get lots of nice emails and muddle through, but there's only so many times I can - or for that matter, want to - pull that trick. I'm not in this for affirmation, pity or charity, and yes, for god's sake, yes I know that true misery is being under forty feet of rubble in Haiti, but we all have our goddamn fish to fry.

Back in college, when I used to write the column every Wednesday, I decided to create a caricature of myself that was relentlessly positive - and despite my parents' divorce and various other debilitating issues, my life largely followed suit. I should probably do that here, too, but that's what you get when you try to write every weekday: the half-blown, first-draft thoughts of someone who wouldn't mind taking a baseball bat to a sapling.

One of you say something funny, so I can just sit in the back with a scowl, farting, and blaming the dog.

i can hear them breathing from here

2/2/10

Despite being in the midst of an admittedly-shoddy news blackout, a few things happen to sluice through the screen-door-on-a-submarine method I use to shield myself from current events. One such news item is the Research 2000 poll released today, a massive, non-partisan survey of two thousand Republicans that will make progressives, liberals, women, blacks, gays and sensitive life forms stare into middle distance as existential dread creeps over what's left of their body.

I'm not going to do the predictable garment rending here, but I will post some of the more "interesting" findings:

• 31% of Republicans think Obama is a racist who hates white people, and an additional 33% aren't sure. That's 64% of Republicans.

• 1 in 4 Republicans think their state should secede from the Union, with another 1 in 5 "not sure".

• 68% of the GOP believe that gay couples should receive NO state or federal benefits, with another 21% not sure. That's NO BENEFITS AT ALL, FOR ANY REASON.

• 73% believe that no openly gay person should be allowed to teach in any public school.

• 77% believe that the Book of Genesis should be taught in school to explain how God created the world; 67% believe that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ, and not through any other faith.

• 39% of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached - no matter what the reason - and 53% believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President.

• 58% either don't believe - or aren't sure - Obama was born in the United States.

• A quarter of all respondents believe "Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win."

Okay, so it's very easy to sit back once more and call these people names: morons, imbeciles, cruel fucks, racist thugs, knuckle-draggers, bigoted redneck assmongers, etc... but perhaps a more sober approach is necessary. After all, what makes me so much smarter? Are Republicans happier than me? Probably. Do they have a more grounded sense of community? I'd have to say yes. Does their religion offer them solace that I can't have? Absolutely.

For my part, I think I make the world a safer, better place than they do, I give more to charity, I'm generally nicer to people who don't look and act like me, and I care more about leaving a livable planet to my descendants. From my biased point of view, I think a neutral observer would say I'm living a more sane existence, if not necessarily happier.

All you can do when you see a study like that is to make no mistake about where you stand. I am not these people. I am different. Look at the answers above - or look at the detailed survey yourself - to get a crystal clear image of the other side. Just so there's no confusion.

These are the United States, but we're not united states by any definition. I don't want to be. I refuse to be classified with people who believe such things. At the very least, without fear of retribution, without fear of appearing arrogant, we have to be the ones who point to this swath of people and declare "THIS IS WHO I'M NOT."

urea, i hardly know her

2/1/10

I can't really bear to discuss the Tar Heels right now (my alma compadres will know why), I've been involved in a media blackout for a few weeks, and I have to get up early tomorrow for a parent interview for Lucy's potential kindergarten. As an aside, I did not interview FOR COLLEGE. This process is insane. But I digress.

Instead, you're getting a CODE WORD question today, and it is part of a series. Quite simply, what are you taking? You know... what prescription drugs do you take daily, or at some point during the week? As always, please be anonymous if you don't want the publicity.

Me? 300mg of allopurinol for gout/kidney stones, 40mg of Celexa for being batshit crazy, and 25mg of Dexedrine because I muthafukkin' roll like that. You?