Everyone is always so surprised that rewarding and promoting antisocial activity results in more antisocial activity. As a species we are amazingly prolific and unbelievably immune to learning from the consequences of our own acts. #thisisengland
For a sad, desperate six months I worked at Borders and we used to joke about what edition of these books the customers were there to buy: "Chicken Soup for the Serial Killer's Soul", "Chicken Soup for the Junkie Child Molester's Soul", "Chicken Soup for the Uptight, Bleach Blonde Head of the Co-Op Committee's Soul".
@TRexstasy: Wait, one more: "Chicken Soup for Aforesaid Journalists who Obsessively Watch Food Network Programs and are Currently Contemplating a Career Shift to Cookery."
@snugbug: "Chicken Soup for the Clergy Person Who is Pulling her Hair Out Trying to Undo all the Horrible Pie-in-the-Sky Psycho-theology in These Chicken Soup Books Which People Also Give Her Regularly As Gifts".
In Beth Lisick's comedic memoir from a few years ago, Everybody Into the Pool, there's a scene (or two, can't recall) with this guy. I can't remember if she dates/fucks him or the guy in this guy's band .... but yeah. If you want this story a bit more fleshed out/insight on his character, check it out. And no, I am not Beth Lisick, nor do I know her. (Although I did want to BE her when I was sixteen...)
@superconnected (is it time to leave?): I knew them in SF. Her husband played in a band with Oren, who was a trainwreck, (drugs) but an incredible musician. He played about 10 instruments that I knew of. I hope he stays clean, too much talent to waste.
I once worked at a TV station where I had the pleasure of watching H. Jackson Brown, of "Life's Little Instruction Books" fame, have an absolute shitfit from hell because his IFB (in-ear headphone that let him hear his interviewers) was fucking up. Dude cussed everyone in the studio, got up and stormed out live. Good times.
The very greatest commentary on comestibles and consciousness-raising was delivered on the old Dick Cavett show by one "Jerome I. Rodale, the publisher of (among other things) Today’s Health Magazine." Besides offering a concotion of asparugus boiled in urine, a notable quote from the evening by Mr Rodale: ""I’ve decided to live to be a hundred." He famously did not last to the next commercial.
A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Actually, I believe there are some very good self-help books out there, especially the ones that delve into psychobiology, written by therapists and are based on actual research. The tripe is easy to spot, they all claim happiness can be achieved by one, over-arching, simple technique. The Secret, for example, galls me no end. I live in LA and cannot tell you how many people I've met who have quoted The Secret, grrrr.
@pony_express: Interestingly, Jack Canfield is featured in the video for "The Secret." He tells a very candid story about how he was really broke and "decided" he was going to make $100K. According to the story, this was the beginning of the Chicken Soup books.
"Do as the priest says, not as the priest does" phenom.
Now by the love of G_d, do NOT tell me that author/pastor Robert Fulghum, he of the enormous early '90s inspirational bestseller "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things" is also a crook-douche. I sorta learned English by reading that book.
@MissTicklebritches: Oy, we is old, my friend. I've resisted revisiting that book. I suspect my cynical now-self would find it ridiculous; and I just want to preserve my 14-year-old memory that it's a cordial and inspiring bit of confessional lit.
@MissTicklebritches: I'd post a shout out to our class, but we really don't need to reveal our age. We had Fulghum in person, but every other commencement that year had the speaker cribbing from his book.
@snugbug: Everything I needed to know, I learned from cats: If you can get a gig where they feed you, clean up after you, let you nap all day, and all you have to do is chase a fake mouse around for their amusement a few minutes a day--TAKE IT!
@La Mareada: Oh eff it. Mid-30s here person here. Yeah, bi*tches: I was born in the fashion-challenged decade they call "the '70s," and my first conscious memory is my dad--in pink shirt with a ginormous collar--bouncing me up and down against the skies and imitating bird-twitter to amuse me.
@snugbug: Easy to say when your still mid 30s! I don't care about revealing my age, but there's at least two of us ladies of certain age on this thread. I wouldn't presume to speak for Miss Ticklebritches.(Maybe she was that extremely precocious 11 year old in the class.)
I don't enjoy the correlation between having to know what hipsters like so that one must know what they do not like. I'd rather there just be a blog called "What I Know Or Care About Concerning Hipsters," and it is just blank, and seven months later there is a coffee table book with three hundred empty white pages. I'll take my $40,000 now, St. Martin's.
11/05/09
"A U2 show marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has run into controversy - after organisers built a wall around the venue."
#tips #irony #u2
11/02/09
That's not ironic. It's just proof. #thisisengland
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You should try it, sometime. It's fun.
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[cavett.blogs.nytimes.com]
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Now by the love of G_d, do NOT tell me that author/pastor Robert Fulghum, he of the enormous early '90s inspirational bestseller "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things" is also a crook-douche. I sorta learned English by reading that book.
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