Internal Hard Dive

During my early journaling days, I kept running lists of every book read, film seen, TV series watched, and album listened to during a given year. In addition, I also made notes on my favorite sporting events/games, miscellaneous observations, favorite quotes, and that year’s potential Hall of Fame/Shame nominees discussed with Moore. Upon re-reading the 2005 Word doc housing said information while searching for something unrelated on a hard drive—“Probably a photo of himself masturbating to a photo of himself watching himself masturbate,” you’re thinking—I’d forgotten my becoming inspired to write a fake awards presentation prior to unveiling the lists to, uh, myself. Here is said piece along with a peak behind the curtain at the nascent OCD recordkeeping days, plus sporadic contemporary commentary on my cringeworthy opinions. Enjoy/good luck!

Bush wins Person of the Year in politically incorrect office worker’s list;
Mosquitoes, in other news, still assholes!

(Double-lined bold-faced 20-point centered headline copyrighted by America’s best tabloid, The New York Times. No unauthorized reproduction of this style permitted without express written consent of the newspaper so important it must go to press prior to the ending of every single sporting competition ever begun after 6:30 p.m. ET!)

Enfield, CONN.—This just in and out (like Kevin Kline)! The third annual AHF Annual Awesomeness Awards™ have been announced—and while everyone is a winner (and God has been thanked by all of those couldn’t-do-it-without-Him unselfish $25 Abdow’s gift certificate recipients aka The ’05 Winners)—their achievements will never be known by just about everyone alive!

“Due to the fact that I’m a more-than-borderline obsessive-compulsive list-keeping and—surprise, surprise!—girlfriend-less weirdo, I like to stay occupied with updating a bunch of categories deemed important to myself…by myself,” the bespectacled, stubble-faced, balding AHF said. “I founded the Academy of Self way back in late ’02 while heeding the advice to ‘keep your mind occupied’ as I had my gallbladder removed with only minor anesthesia. Like the Jews say, ‘Pain brings joy!’ And then came these awards, which more or less celebrate my own interests.” He then, for no apparent reason, added the word “cocksucker” to emphasize that despite his being a weak bum he’s got what are now being called cojones, a word panelists are prone to saying when referring to the GOP majority on Meet the Press.

“I would like to thank our biggest east coast non-ESPN-employed supporter, AHF, for this wonderful honor,” said Reggie Bush, the first ever minority Person of the Year (PotY) and sure to be the last for a long time due to a self-imposed one minority per generation rule. The PotY trophy, a silver-hued, emerald-encrusted aluminum pear perched on the back of a live black squirrel named Norman made the gala reception all the more bittersweet for Bush, mainly because he equated his struggle to make it out of the neighborhood, or “hood,” with the relative anonymity of black squirrels and their struggle to be recognized during twilight attacks on unsuspecting homeowners’ bird feeders.

Several people from The Hartford aka Joy, Inc. took the metaphorical cum shot in the retina and came up to the podium to accept the Shitheel of the Year Honour, which is sponsored by the province of Quebec, hence the idiotic spelling. “We take this award with the knowledge that we can and will get better,” Nondescript Blasé Middle Manager Z-743 said. “We pride ourselves on our commitment because you cannot spell commitment without income. And despite having a veritable assload of it to go around, the guys on the front lines, the call-takers, must pay their dues. It’s the unspoken part of keeping up with the Joneses. But hey, it’s not our policy, gosh darn IRS!” Z-743 then threw an impromptu pizza party and told his co-workers to try to pretend it didn’t hurt to never blink and affix beaming smiles for the remainder of the ceremony.

In literature, that time-zapping, Oprah-loved, the-movie-version-was-way-better-but-I-never-did-read-Twelfth Night-‘cause-it’s-“Olde English” (whatever that is) genre, David Rees’s clip art comics have the Refusenik walking on, walking on the moon! With excess use of the verb/adjective/chameleon-like word fucking and an abundance of red ink, Rees has set back panel drawing to the days when G. Gordon Liddy had no criminal record but made us all realize that terror has a price. Somewhere Ted DiBiase fondly recalled his catchphrase, best known as his only claim to fame. 

The ceremony began with the yearly highlight dirt nap reel. “People fucking die, get over it,” lewd, crude, tattooed, full’a ‘tude Master of Ceremonies Henry Rollins cooed. It was his first public appearance since he signed Black Flag CD remasters for fans before a performance of his “cutting-edge” spoken word diatribes at a burial ground-slash-fairgrounds behind the Salina Northeast Cultural & Agricultural College last year. With a Brady Bunch-like eight-screen “wall of images” containing the Dead-But-Not-Dead-in-Heaven former pontiff, Luther Vandross, Nipsey Russell, the soon to be forgotten Rosa Parks, William H. Rehnquist, Hunter S. Thompson, Bob Denver, and Ismail Merchant (who has left Ivory as sad as Siegfried), the celebrities—the only dead people worth remembering—were toasted by an audience full of ginger ale-swiggin’ party people. Rollins then made an off-the-cuff remark about how mothers have long insisted this ale cures all ailments, saying maybe The Administration (in the White House, not the title of a new reality TV show) send ale to Africa rather than spend a cotton-pickin’ cent on AIDS medication when that 44,000th missile still needs purchasing. Hipster fans yelled, “We want a president, not a smelly resident!” The verdict is in—hipsters still too post-ironic-post-modern-post-funny to be given the time of night. Bush jokes still welcome, but only good ones, thanks.

The only other “celebrities” to show up were four porn actresses, or as AHF said, “the true method actors. Dustin Hoffman never sucked Laurence Olivier’s dick in a well-lit, undecorated hotel room in Marathon Man, now did he?” Showing his love of all nationalities, anal queens honored were Caucasian, Nubian, Far Eastern, and Central American (the forgotten peoples). “Porn’s important; all tolled I spent the month of February, or 28.25 days total on it, and I should go to rehab for my addiction after lettin’ loose so much this year,” the award giver quipped. It should be noted, quipping is a far more elegant form of saying, which is why these words were not said but quipped. All four clitoral championesses eyed the phallic pear trophy then did a squirt-off into one lucky audience member’s mouth. “That oriental clearly had a little limo ride pre-crimson carpet semen left in her, plus she smelled like cheese pizza,” said the Dr. Pepper Win a Cumshot In Your Mouth invitee (Charlie Sheen, his celebrity coach, was a no-show for the event, off further tarnishing his already not-given-a-fuck-about image). “I had no idea until now one could discern that ejaculations tasted sexually abused and without self-esteem. Far out!”

The show wrapped up in true NFL fashion—a well-executed two-minute drill—as AHF, sporting green wind pants and a cable wired brown sweater with a yellow, pink, and white ribbon in the lapel (“I support troops, breast cancer awareness, and Teddy Roosevelt & the Rough Riders, one helluva group of old white men,” AHF said explaining the color scheme) thanked everyone for showing up at the old G. Fox Building to be congratulated for all that they have done…in his mind, anyway. P. Diddy’s after party—deejayed by one of Hot 93.7’s finest—was par for the course until the apparitions of old honorees showed up. The loudest applause was for Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s rendition of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” as Dick Schaap, with doo rag, nodded his head to the beat before saying his son was a whiny bitch. Late in the night, bottles of skunk piss, or as it’s better known, Stella Artois, in hand, the audience members ate kosher Twizzlers and shook their groove thangs. It was another divine year in Made Up Award Land.

Favorite Book: David Rees, Get Your War On

Favorite Movie: Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (saw this “concert film” in a Hartford arthouse theater)

Favorite TV Show: Arrested Development, Season 2 & Season 3

Favorite Game: USC 34, Notre Dame 31 and USC 50, Fresno State 42

Favorite Album: The Fall, The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004

Favorite Stand-Up Album: Various Artists, Invite Them Up

Favorite Single: Cam’ron feat. Kanye West & Syleena Johnson, “Down and Out”

Most Played Songs in iTunes:
The Notorious B.I.G., “Juicy”
Pavement, “Zurich is Stained”
The Kinks, “A Well Respected Man”
Leonard Cohen, “I’m Your Man”
Mary Hopkin, “Those Were the Days”

Favorite Live Show: David Sedaris at Mount Holyoke College on April 5th (first time I saw him read). Choice line: “This was described as the most exciting day of the horse’s life yet while two women stroked his penis, he casually chewed grass.” 

Miscellany
Online article: Guy writing “Not authorized” and “my butt” on credit card receipts
Museum: Seeing Dali’s Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach at the Wadsworth
Bar: The 99; Up or On the Rocks in Hartford
Beverage: PBR
Website: Wikipedia; foon.co.uk; Jesus or Homeless?
Online Game: Mini golf on i-am-bored.com
Pornstar: Tia Bella
Magazine: Esquire
Newspaper: Hartford Advocate
Pop Culture Ubiquity: Andrew Lloyd Weber; wearing Livestrong bracelets
Product: Aphrodisiac nasal spray  Somehow (and sadly) never tried it
Underrated: Lyndon B. Johnson; grilling people on the highway (especially after you have pissed them off and they think they’re tough by grilling you—give ‘em the bug eyes and a big ol’ wide, crazy-man smile!)
Idea: Buying a racehorse and naming it In Ten Years I’ll Be Glue!
Joke: Jesus walks into a hotel lobby and sets three nails on the counter. He asks the clerk, “Hey, can you put me up for the night?”
Unique specimen: Friend of a friend named Scotty, who, while high on cocaine, explained that the older dog in All Dogs Go to Heaven (“He was, like, 13!”) was a pimp for fucking a five-year-old bitch!

Observations
As a kid, could anything match the anger you felt when your parents got multiple cups of coffee at the end of dinner, and you just wanted to leave the restaurant?

Why do people reply “That’s funny” instead of simply laughing?

People who recommend a movie to you by saying, “It makes you think.” What is that?

How can one sell glasses at Lens Crafters without wearing them him/herself?

A York peppermint patty is really a super-sized Junior Mint.

What’s up with the phrase “a little-known secret”? Kind of redundant, no? Kind of redundant, no? (Ha!)

People who make a lot of money pride themselves on how they make a living. People who do not make a ton of money pride themselves on their interests, or everything else not pertaining to work.

Should it become a law that at a certain age it’s socially unacceptable to eat PB&J sandwiches?

Why do we get pissed when other countries spy on us (even though we do it to them)? Spy culture: that’s how it works.

Why pay to go tanning and leave tan lines? Get your money’s worth!

Uncouth: Seeing a row of three empty urinals and pissing at the middle one. 

Ever go into someone’s home and find the full Bob’s Discount Furniture display? Neither has anyone else.

U.S. mail database check on LexisNexis: 750 Jesus Christs, 27 Adolf Hitlers, 1 Adam Harrison-Friday.

Over-used montage in films: Aerial shot of city. Day turns to night and back. Sped up film shows endless lights go on, cars and people move through downtown metropolis at an alarmingly rapid pace, sun sets and rises.

Offered my boss $20 to leave a company-wide meeting early. She declined.

Low: piece of plastic as a stand-in for a broken car window.

One thing a person cannot prevent and can be justifiably hated by others for: hiccups.

Rollball: a group of blind people versus a group of blindfolded people. They get on the ground, roll a ball with a bell on it to score goals at opposite ends of a gym/room/whatever. I mean, how does this benefit Special Olympians?

Moore’s idea to get a Driver’s Ed car to fuck with one another on a busy road.

Why are NBA officials’ jerseys so shoddy?

Tim Duncan = Pete Sampras. Think about how similar they look and seem.

Why is intuition feminine?

FOX News interviewed a known terrorist to comment on the London bombings.

Always seeing busted tires on highways but never the loss of them.

Connor, out of work, mows his lawn in the shape of a baseball diamond so we can play wiffleball on it.

People at work always calling me out for being an only child (without knowing it/based solely on my actions).

I want to go to a house where I used to live and yell, “Eminent domain, bitches!” then watch a game in the living room.

Assholes wearing sweatbands on their arms as part of their outfits is an indefensible trend.

Who drinks Chaser Plus before a night of alcohol consumption?

Gross: the smell after vacuuming.

Air drumming, very underrated.

Why is the Little League World Series the only youth sport that gets major television exposure? (Not asking on behalf of pedophiles everywhere.)

If I had my druthers people could cheer at all times during tennis matches.

Why are men smarter than women? Because we read on the toilet despite only sitting down half the time.

Chuck Klosterman on alcohol advertising: “Hey, that guy’s with two beautiful women; I wonder what kind of vodka does he drink?”

Why are gas caps not on the same side of all cars?

What happens if you watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall movie on mute with The Wizard of Oz soundtrack playing?

Have my first session with my therapist; he tells me that his white noise machine is so powerful that he could murder me, and nobody would hear it.

The true test of a man’s courage is what he does when he’s alone and encounters a bear in the forest (but not the woods).

Art: Some guy using glass to explore racial and ethnic marginalization. Fucking art.

There should be a poll conducted of all the people who say “I’m here for you if you need anything” to see how many actually wind up doing anything for others during their time of need.

I wonder what the name of the primates I descended from were. My eldest ancestors could have been named Kiki and Booger (although who would’ve named them?).

What is up with that big sausage pizza porn? Terrible reason to get acne. “You see, I was horny and starving…” Would like a scene where the starlet is lactose intolerant but that could quickly become a scat and/or snuff film.

Juxtaposition: Football linemen vs. fat fans in the stands. Some parents were more involved in their children’s lives.

Is there really that big of a demand for daytime judge shows?

If in between points A and B space is infinite, how can there be a definite line between the two points?

Would the Mafia defend Switzerland if they were ever attacked?

Why, in middle age, do so many people become infatuated with bird feeders?

Quotes
“Do you have friends, or do you just sit around and read?” – Erin, on my factoid dissemination at work

“What do you love most in life?” – Guy at bar
“The sauce. And my daughter.” – The Sauceman (aka my stepbrother)

“The movie 8½ is not about a cat on its deathbed.” – message board post

“I want to go into Town Hall and request to speak with the planner. I’m going to ask him, ‘May I see the plans? What are you planning for my town?’” – Connor

“Have you ever played golf? Man, it’s the worst game ever invented. It’s such an expensive way to get frustrated. All it does is piss you off.” – Connor

“My ankle is throbbing.” – Harry
“My groin is throbbing.” – Fred, her stepfather, during Easter dinner

“I only like to watch good movies. Which reminds me, you need to check out Exorcist 4!” – Kid at UConn

“My student was waving her fist at me, and I didn’t think she knew about it, but I gave her a fist bump, er, a pound. But she really had a handful of candy she wanted to give me.” – Connor’s wife, Melanie, on her six-year-old student’s closed hand

“I know that girl.” – Me
“Dude, you only know her from eating at Friendly’s.” – Connor

“Any movie that ends with a cast montage singing this song [“Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations] is gay.” – Connor
“How many movies do that?” – Me
“Death to Smoochy and, uh, other shit.” – Connor

“Have a good night, Mr. Rogers.” – Heather, my co-worker, telling me this because I change out of my dress shoes into sneakers before driving home

“You look like a beekeeper, park ranger, or varmint hunter.” – Erin, at work commenting on my tan shirt with tan pants get-up

“I used to make my lunch late at night before work. That was when I got high a lot. While I was making my lunch, I was hungry, so I’d eat it. Then I wouldn’t have a lunch the next day.” – Kevin, my co-worker

“Tell those poncy fucktards to eat a bag of dicks, assneck.” – somebody online

“It’s not like I’m that big into wiffleball. I just have everything to play a game in my car.” – Connor 

“I’m Natasha.” – Girl at hookah bar in NYC
“Hi Natasha, I’m Boris.” – Joe

“What’s her problem?” – Connor, on weird bartender
“She’s from Tennessee.” – Joe

“Go tell it to the fucking mountain!” – Me, to a loud and boisterous female Red Sox fan in the bottom of ninth at Yankee Stadium as the Sox are about to win

“She sticks up for him because he’s autistic.” – Joe, about his girlfriend’s defense of his crazy neighbor Vicente, who drunkenly rakes their lawn and puts rocks in it on weekends

“It feels like we’re lost in Zelda.” – Hayes, explaining how wandering around Foxwoods while inebriated looks in his Coors Light-soaked mind 

“Tiffany Amber-Thiessen is hotter than Joe’s woman and she doesn’t even have a kid!” – Jason, using twisted logic to explain attractiveness

“I never forget a pretty face, but in your case, I’ll make an exception.” – My high school history teacher, to me (high as shit) in church following a wedding ceremony

“This place has great-smelling urinal cakes.” – Me, at Up or On the Rocks in Hartford

“My arms are wide enough to take a pass from Wilt Chamberlain then take a hook shot on your life.” – Moore, imitating Tony Robbins

“You may know every word in the dictionary, but you can’t figure out how to operate a printer?” - Erin

“Make a statement then attach a nationality to it. ‘As the Chinese say, Get it?’” – Josh 

“I wear a jersey to a club. I yell at a nigga for a b-ball game. Shit, I keep the ball under my arm.” – Scotty

“Did you just buy that jersey? It’s so white.” – Mets fan, asking me about my Mariano Rivera jersey
“I sure did! I became a Yankees fan last month.” – Me
“After they blew it to the Red Sox?”
“Of course, I felt awful for them.”

“YOU’RE OUT OF MONEY, DICK!” – Anonymous guy yelling from his car to Connor while he withdraws money from the ATM

“Sonic Youth won!” – Connor, after a guy asks him (wearing a Red Sox jersey) and me (wearing a Yankees jersey) who won the game as we walk to our car following a Sonic Youth concert 

“Can I borrow your cellphone?” – Guy at OzzFest
“Ten dollars per minute!” – Me

“I wish I could come to work dressed like you. Mr. Corporate America.” – Ross 

“I don’t need to be high to act stupid.” – Moore
“That’s because you’re an asshole.” – Me

“You’re so fucked up that you’d play clips of Salò at your funeral.” – Moore, to me

“Don’t you get why I love The Golden Girls?” – Me
“Because you have mammaries?” – Connor

“You made the mundane magnanimous.” – Moore, imitating James Lipton

“Kevin, you’re so cute.” – Natalie
“I’m like a living Teddy Ruxpin.” – Kevin 

“I went to bed at nine last night. I thought, ‘Do I have anything to gain by watching this? No.’ Then I woke up, ran four miles, mowed the lawn at my dad’s office, and drove up from Norwich to get to work a half hour early.” – Mike, a co-worker

“I will try to no longer abuse the structural integrity of the ADS mainframe.” – Me, in a reply all to an email from the tech team at The Hartford, after purposely logging out of a system incorrectly many, many times 

“Rape Kelly’s (Vietnamese girl at work) candy stash.” – Mike
“When you said that all I could think of was Casualties of War.” – Me
“That’s so wrong.” – Mike

“Who is the top female movie badass?” – Moore
“Judy Garland in Judgment at Nuremberg.” – Me

“I’m going to assume you know ‘nuttin’’ is not a word, but if you don’t believe me you can check the Oxford English Dictionary I’m sure is sitting on the coffee table in front of you.” – Me, seconds before hanging up on a caller at work who tells me how smart is as we’re yelling back and forth at one another

“AHF, it doesn’t sound like we’re getting any of your opinion on this!” – Mike, on my explanation of the Valerie Plame case to co-workers at Ruby Tuesday’s

“You wear running sneakers? I don’t picture you as much of a runner.” – Mike, to me

“Your moral fiber is what we all aspire to.” – Kevin, to me

“You can take the egg out of the chicken but not the chicken out of the egg.” – Kevin

“Sue, what’s your favorite day of the year?” – Me, to the elderly co-worker who sits beside me
“I bet it’s Paul McCartney’s birthday.” – Kevin

“Why have you been on break for twenty-two minutes?” – Mark
“Fourteen minutes into my break I had to take a shit, so that’s what I went to do and now I’m back.” – Me

“Someday the Bowflex will be an antique.” – Kevin

“You’re cutting something out of the newspaper. You have no right to make fun.” – Kevin, to me

“Don’t knock tag sale-ing till you try it!” – Sam
“You’re using it as a verb.” – Me

“Who will run for the GOP in 2008?” – Me
“The most powerful guy who hasn’t been arrested.” – Moore

“This is a story by a very famous author. It’s called The Shark and the Pirates by Adam Harrison-Friday.” – Harry, reading a story to Tim’s daughter, who loved it and requested she read it to her five times in a row. (It’s a story I wrote in second or third grade.)

“I don’t have anything I can give you, but I have something I can share with you.” – Steve, in Walden Books, explaining how we will smoke weed later

“This is the nicest I’ve seen you dressed and you’re unemployed.” – Steve

HOF Nominees
Reggie Bush (and the entire USC offense)
Ian McShane’s enunciation of “cocksucker” in Deadwood
The two splendid Indian gentlemen who run American Mart
Judy Greer, the finest comedic supporting actress of her generation
Andre Braugher’s performance as Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street
Gregory Crewdson, terrific photographer
Going to bed with just-washed sheets
Rosario Dawson’s hair
Philip Pullman’s theories on literature
Taco Bell’s cheesy bean and rice burritos
Redman
Scrabble
Erin Andrews, the loveliest sideline reporter yet to grace our airwaves 

HOS Nominees
Bax & O’Brien, godawful local radio personalities
Ties in high school soccer state championship games
Ralph Lauren polo shirts: where is the breast pocket?!
The phrase “It hasn’t sunk in yet”
Joe Scarborough (used to write him weekly hateful emails on lunch breaks)
Attending OzzFest during a mud fight, worsened by listening to Mudvayne sober
Jared from Subway (prescience, huh?)
CVS’s customer service
Wetting the car
The 1972 Miami Dolphins
AIM endlessly alerting me that people are no longer idle
Staying over a friend’s apartment after drinking heavily and trying to pretend I’m a gentleman who doesn’t mind ceding the more comfortable couch to a girl also spending the night who happens to be three inches taller than me (but doesn’t know I threw her shoes on the roof hours prior)
Men who wear cellphone holders clipped to their pants

Email to Joe Scarborough: “Joe: Keep up the good work! Soon, through hard work and dedication, you will step out of the shadow of your ‘Hannity-light’ label and reach new heights as you soar to the pinnacle of Mt. Douche as only a conservative hawk can. You are almost there! All you need is another bed-ridden vegetable to wrap your arms around and hump like a monkey, then it’s hello higher ratings. When the Rapture comes you will be rewarded! When you and Tom Delay meet Jesus in all His glory, don’t avert your eyes! You have earned the right to look upon his visage. Terry Schiavo will be waiting to thank you. And you can thank her! For it was her comatose ass that you used to pimp your book Rome Wasn’t Burnt in a Day. Shit, I bought it. But only after you played that four-second tape of her slack jaw and glazed eyes on a constant loop. I think I’ll buy a coffee mug next. With your smiling face on it. God bless.”