Bloomsday

I once engaged in a vigorous round of literary flirtation with a fellow writer. Scratch that. He was an aspiring writer. He would send lengthy e-missives designed to make me swoon, or at least open up my, uh, Rolodex. He wanted my agent’s information.

In the words of Alicia Silverstone’s Cher in Clueless, “As if.”

What made him especially odious, however, was not his naked ambition. It was his blathering nonsensical jabberwocky. He concluded with one simple sentence that I shall never forget.

“I’m speaking, of course, of Ulysses.”

Let me paint a portrait of this artist as a young man. He, and innumerable other numnuts, gather every June 16 to read the novel Ulysses (which takes place on this day), dress as the book’s characters, embark on pub crawls, and indulge their inner McAsshole.

The bloom is off this literary rose. While I generally applaud literary events of every kind, Bloomsday acolytes, in my experience, are not a cause to re-Joyce. They are pretentious prats who smoke pipes, affect accents that don’t exist in nature, and reference films that never made it out of the film festival circuit.

I’m speaking, of course, of punching each and every one of them in their monocle. And yes I said yes I will Yes.

(photo: vicbooks.wordpress.com)

Celebutard authors

Nicole Richie did it. The Sisters Kardashian did too. Snooki, Lauren Conrad, and Teresa Guidice did it more than once.

I’m not talking about making a sex tape.

These dimwits all wrote books. Everyone mentioned above, save Teresa, wrote novels. And by “wrote,” I’m guessing that means they slapped their name on something a publishing intern knocked out.

Don’t you need opposable thumbs to write a book?

These celebs have all added “author” to their multi-hyphenated bios. Well, I’ve got a few choice words that might sum you up: Fame-seeker. Cooch-flasher. Grammar bungler. Low forehead.

Teresa Guidice can’t even string words together with any sort of proper syntax. She’s like Jersey’s version of Yoda. “Kidding me you are?”

And box of hair Snooki is even less believable, not because she’s mostly likely illiterate but because she would never take time out of her GTL regimen to direct her ghostwriter. I see it going something like this: “Um, yeah, let’s write a book—is nonfiction or fiction the one that’s not real?—where there’s a girl who, you know, is DTF with a juicehead she meets at a club. Wait, is that a pickle?”

Fuck yes, I'm mad bitter. Like prescription eyeglasses, let me have this. I’ve never been cool or tan or on a reality show. But I write. I have been published. You can have your reality show, oily bohunk and what will assuredly be an orange baby. Just let me and other writers have our bylines. I may not be a triple threat but I can live quite happily with my multi-hypenate of blogger-author-malcontent.

(Note that I'm talking about a select group of "famous for no reason" celebrities who parlay their celebrity into other products to extend their brand. I love loads of television personalities—Hello, Stacy London!—who bring integrity, wit, expertise, and intelligence to book projects. I'm a niche, not a broad-brushed, hater.)

(photo: celebritychatta.com)

Women who play with their hair

You are amazing. Smart, stylish, a polished public speaker who demands attention with your passion, insight and—wait!—what were you were saying? I was distracted by your lustrous locks…and not in a good way.

You had me wrapped around your little finger, but I was swapped out for a lock of your hair. I see woman after woman playing with her hair like a nervous tic, tucking it repeatedly behind an hair, twirling it around a finger, pulling long locks from one shoulder to another, as if in an attempt to find a best side. You’re not Mariah Carey and your hair isn’t a binkie. If you continue to use your bob as a security blanket, I’m going to have to split…and you’re going to have a shitload of split ends. I speak the truth.

(photo: whatwomenlike.net)

The ever-present Bluetooth

Are you a cyborg? Ari Gold? A sex phone operator? No?

Too bad.

If you were, I might give your face a pass (particularly if you’re a T-800) but now I’m going to have to give you a smackdown that will leave you black and Bluetoothless. I know the frequency, Kenneth, and you and I are on different wavelengths.

The 2012 version of a pager clipped to your waist, an eewtooth not only receives messages, it sends one. It communicates one thing loud and clear: YOU’RE A MASSIVE TOOL.

If you have to try that hard to look important, chances are you’re not. Unless you’re driving or performing surgery or tracking down Sarah Conner, stuff that thing in your pocket. Heck, clip it to your belt. Maybe I’ll think it’s a pager, which is almost old-school cool by comparison. Almost.

(photo: submergemag.com)

Nicholas Sparks’ oeuvre

I’m a sucker for romance. Speaking of suckers, I don’t need my lovefest to be sprinkled with unrefined sugar. Romance is sweet enough on its own without the leading man—who, by the way, never remotely resembles Zac Efron in my dreams—uttering crap lines like, “You need to be kissed every day, every hour, every minute.” Even Robert James Waller would be ooked out by that. In any other universe, this soldier-turned-stalker would inspire a scary thriller. But this is Nicholas Sparks’ world, and we’re just the not-so-Lucky Ones to live in it.

His treacle makes me want to take a walk to remember…right off a cliff. I want to put a message in a bottle in hopes that someone will rescue me from Nights in Rodanthe and its ilk.

Dear John: It’s not me; it’s you. I have to stop seeing you or risk type 1 diabetes. 

(photo: freefreedownload.net)

Burning Man

Someone recently sent me a video of Burning Man revelers reciting Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

It sent me to the medicine cabinet.

Just watching it gave me a sugar rush by way of heatstroke via straight-up migraine. But nothing can cure what ails me.

Lacking a peyote button or those handy Hunger Games suicide berries, I am forced to resort to blogging as a way to alleviate my malady. Burning Man started in the mid-80s as an artsy-fartsy homage to the Solstice, burning effigies as a form of “radical self-expression,” clearly a hippie euphemism for a low-grade case of pyromania (and not the totally rad Def Leppard kind). I love fire like the Heat Miser but this creeps me out. After sitting through The Wicker Man only to watch a dude burned alive as an offering for the harvest, I am not down with towering infernos.

Then there are the hipster hippies dropping acid while dropping trou. No. Just no. The Places I’ll Go? Pretty sure my list doesn’t include Black Rock City.

Things I Want to Make Out With

The time is nigh: the book version of Things I Want to Punch in the Face is now available for pre-order, thanks to Prospect Park Media! All of your favorite posts, plus a few new ones—100 gems in all—have been gathered in one gorgeous book that you crack open when: 

• you can't sleep on a red-eye because of that yammering man behind you
• you need to sober up by reading my peach schnapps cautionary tale 
• you want to feel better about yourself in comparison to the seat hogs, sidewalk hogs, emo punks, steampunks…