Moto Movies

In honor of the new motorcycle, I've bumped Tron (fun!) and Torque (cheese!) to the top of my NetFlix que. I suppose I should add Easy Rider (old school!) to the list also, but somehow that feels like I'd be taking myself too seriously.

Stanford

Got the rejection letter from Stanford today. Kinda pissed, but not surprised. I was hoping to at least be accepted there even if I might not have been able to afford it in the end. This also gives me serious doubts about whether or not I'll get into Harvard. And since I foolishly missed the application deadline for Hawaii, I will most likely wind up at Hofstra. Which isn't bad, though I really really really wanted to get the fuck off Long Island.

Anyway, when I originally applied to Stanford, I felt it was a shot in the dark mostly because I was worried I'd be a crappy teacher. But after working at Huntington Learning Center for a while, and getting great reviews from students and their parents (rumor has it that I'm one of the most-requested tutors), I can honestly say it's Stanford's loss for not taking me. And I'm not one of those people who says stuff like that just as a way of cheering himself up. I'm too pessimistic for that kind of mind trick to work on me.

So now I need to start re-mapping my potential future. Don't know where I'm going or how I'm getting there (other than by motorcycle, motherfucker!), but the future is like a small china doll perched precariously on a high shelf, waiting for a cat to knock it off. What does that simile mean? I don't know.

Motorcycle!

It just arrived and is in my garage and I'm going right now for my first lesson on it! Psyched!

If I can dig up a working digital camera I'll post pics later. In the mean time you can look here, though it looks much nicer in person.

Keep your fingers crossed that I don't die! (Or that I do die if you don't like me. I'm good either way.)

Open Letter to: Red Bull

Dear Red Bull USA,

I am writing to let you know that your commercials are so bad I refuse to buy your product until you change them. I am also starting the TV Watchers Against Suck-Bag Commercials non-profit activism group to organize a nation-wide boycott of your product until our demands for non-sucky commercials are met.

Sincerely,
Mustapha Mond

---

What commercials do you hate?

Operation: Motorcyle, part 8

What began as a crazy dream on January 14, came to an end today when I went to the Suzuki dealer and bought my first motorcycle! I got a deal on an '05 SV650 naked, in blue. It's totally sweet and I am totally psyched. I'm also totally terrified.

The reason I am terrified is, before buying the bike, I went to the DMV to get my permit, and that's where I learned that everybody else on the road is clueless.

The written test takes place in a separate room, and every time the door opened I could see the room was full of sweaty test takers. My impression was that the permit tests must have gotten much harder. The truth, however, is more frightening.

First, someone, somewhere, stole the Spanish copy of the permit test, which meant the test was "compromised," which meant there were all these Spanish speakers struggling through the test in English. They would show up with a family member who could translate all the forms and stuff for them, but they couldn't have a translator for the test itself. So they'd sit down, fill in the blanks, and ten minutes later get up and find out that they had passed. Amazing!

Second, there was this teenage girl who went into the test room before I'd even arrived at the DMV, but who only finished about a minute before me. She "just passed" (which I think is 8 questions wrong on a 20 question test, and most of the questions are crazy easy). The DMV guy said to her, "a pass is a pass, so you get your learners' permit." To which she said, "Yes! Everybody, lookout!" Lookout, indeed.

So, I will now be sharing the road with a bunch of people who, at best, only got their learners' permits because they could correctly identify commonplace road signs (which make up about a quarter of the test).

Granted, the first piece of advice in every motorcycling book I've read is that motorcyclists should assume every other driver on the road is unfit to be behind the wheel. As sage as that is, it'd be nice if it wasn't a literal truth.

I'm proud to say I got one question wrong on the test. It was a question about countersteering, and even though I knew exactly what the question was talking about, the answers were written so crazily that I couldn't decode which one was right. I wish that I'd written them down just so I could share the insanity. When I asked the lady at the desk about it, she read them and said she had no idea what the answers were talking about. So I'm awarding myself an honorary perfect score, because there's nothing I can do if the same crazy ESL motherfucker who stole the Spanish test also rewrote the answers to the English test.

Anyway, the written test is retarded easy, and the DMV really should make it more difficult. As it is, if you're not afraid for your life on the road, you should be (or you're part of the problem!).

The DMV was the most exciting part of today's motorcycle adventure. Finally buying the bike was somewhat anti-climactic. Mostly it was just signing papers and trying on helmets. The bike itself won't be delivered until Thursday. So now I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa to finally get his big booty back up the chimney so I can open my presents. Also, the weather is supposed to be nice on Thursday, so if I can get my dad to go down to the beach parking lot with me, I'll spend the evening trying not to kill myself. I can't wait!

Rollerblades

Am I too old to learn to rollerblade? Is there an age when one stops being able to learn to do stuff? This is something I've been thinking about a lot with my impending motorcycle purchase. What if I can't learn to ride it? What if I'm too old to learn to coordinate the shifting of the gears? What if I don't have the ability to keep my balance while making turns? Probably this won't be the case and I'll be riding smoothly soon enough. Still, as I look for more and more things to learn after what feels like years of stagnation, I have to wonder if there's a limit.

There's a definite limit in the sense of how to fit all these things into my schedule. On top of learning to ride, I still have about a million other projects I'm trying to finish, plus I have to, like, go to work and stuff. And the gym. And the post office. And I'd like to get back into martial arts. So how can I possible fit rollerblading in amongst all that? I dunno. But I want to.

I've actually been wanting to learn to roller blade for a long time, but I was worried about aggravating an old leg injury. However, after trying to ice skate a few months ago, I think my leg will be fine. So I will probably buy some rollerblades, and as soon as the weather is nicer I will practice going to and fro the beach. Also, there is a very cute girl who rollerblades past my house on sunny days -- she rollerblades like a rocket! I will ask her to give me lessons.

Other things I would like to learn: I would like to learn to fish, and I would like to learn how to sail. I would also like to learn how to shoot a gun and how to ride a horse (though I am allergic to horses) and how to survive alone in the woods indefinitely if necessary (I guess part of me is getting ready for the end of the world). And I would like to learn to play the piano.

Goth, what have ye become?

Fifteenish years ago, when I was a wee lad, it was just becoming cool to be goth (or maybe it had been cool for ages and I was at last aware of it, but whatever). I had friends who were goth, and I even owned a few goth-ish clothing accessories, like black tights (which are surprisingly warm and comfy). It was fun, even though I was never really into The Cure or emo or punk rock or whatever it is gothers (gothites? gothophiles? people who are goth?) listen to. I was also much darker than all the goth people, who, in my shadow, were mere emotional posers. I was goth on the inside.

But anyway, goth has been good for some things. It helped push BDSM into the mainstream, and it brought us pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar dressed like a leather-clad vixen. In high school, goth let you know which side of the cafeteria you'd be welcomed on. Yes, goth has had a good run; goth has given us many things to be thankful for.

Now it is time for goth to die.

For serious.

Get the fuck rid of it already.

The Internet has killed goth. Or maybe goth killed itself, as subcultures tend to do once they become unconsciously self-parodying, which is what goth now is. Click over to goth.com and you'll see what I mean.

First, that's a cute goth girl on the main page. You have to compensate for the fact that some photoshop lackey blew-out the contrast, making her features a bit flat, and he then tweaked the color curves a few degrees the wrong way, giving her a yellow-green pallor. But she has the look of someone who, you know, might actually get some exercise. And she's blemish free, which means, if she is vegan (as so many gothfolk seem to be), she at least knows how to get enough protein in her diet. Pretty amazing. Unfortunately, 90-percent of goth girls are nowhere near that cute. They tend to be anti-cute, which isn't the same as ugly, but more like at deliberate odds with being attractive. Which I guess is the whole point of being goth. Or something. My point though, is, when a subculture of people who seemingly cultivate unattractiveness are marketed to with cute models, there's a good chance things have gone astray.

Second, the quote at the top of the page ("Who cares what you think?") is the embodiment of the age-old King Missile lyric, "I want to be different, like everybody else I want to be like." This isn't a new phenomenon -- being different just like all your friends is something that's defined every teen generation since the '60s. But there are now goth kids in cellphone commercials, and on teh Interwebs, "goth" is now code among the non-goth for "I'm so fucking ironically cool because I'm ironically aware of being emotionally impenetrable."

Goth has become a joke, and every time I see a goth teen on the street, in the mall, peering out the window of a passing school bus, I can only feel sorry for him. Not because he is so miserable that he feels compelled to dress up like a black and white Joker, but because he's letting his misery turn him into an absolute dork, and that's just too sad for words.

Brain FM

I often wish that I could broadcast my brain to the world on one of the FM channels so everyone who wanted could tune in and hear what's going on in there. You'd like it. Often there's a pretty bitchin' sound track, plus, a full third of my interior musings happen in Sean Connery's voice, and probably one percent happen in a racially insensitive Indian accent. The Indian accent is actually my favorite, and it's the voice I use when I'm driving alone and monologuing to myself.

That is all.

100 Percent Smile

The last of my dental work was finished today, and for the first time in my life (sorta) I have a smile I like to see in the mirror.

I am now terrified that I'm going to fall down the stairs or something and knock all my teeth out.

Operation: Motorcyle, part 7

Tom Wolf -- or Tobias Wolf, or Virginia Wolf, or one of the other Wolfs, most of whom don't actually spell their name "W-o-l-f" -- once said that you have to suffer for style. He was talking about why he chose to sleep in vinyl pajamas. Or maybe it was velour pajamas. Or whatever. The point is that they were some uncomfortable fucking pajamas that he chose to sleep in because he would look cool doing it. Not that there was anybody watching him sleep. No, this was all for his inner sense of cool, all so that he could feel cool about himself because he knew that if other people could see him, they would think he was cool. He was a genius who saw deeply into his own soul.

Of course, I used to think that anyone who slept in vinyl pajamas was out of his mind. When I first heard the anecdote about Wolf and his pajamas, I even said out loud, "That guy is an idiot." Now, however -- now that I am older, wiser, more jaded, more longing for a do-over of my misspent youth -- I understand the pressure of needing to look cool for nobody but yourself.

Today, I went back to the motorcycle dealer, checked out the SV650 again, and checked out a Suzuki V-Strom DL 650. Both are very nice bikes. The SV is an '05, and I can get it for $4999, which, after taxes and other BS, has me walking out the door for less than $6000, which was my goal. The DL is $6700, and it comes with a lot of extras that the SV doesn't have, and it's slightly more comfortable (with a more upright riding position and a wider seat). There's a lot to like about the DL -- so much so that my dad decided to buy one, and we're now a one-motorcycle family. Very exciting. And, without me even asking, he offered to chip in for one if I decided I wanted a DL instead of an SV. So now I can get the fancier, slightly comfier bike for the same price as the SV.

You'd think this would be a no-brainer. Except the DL is ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Ugly-stepsister ugly. World's-ugliest-dog ugly. Fugly ugly.

Or maybe ugly isn't the best word. To be more precise, the DL looks like an old grandpa bike. It's not a bike that girls are going to want to ride on the back of (though, ironically, it's a bike that girls could actually ride on the back of without being scared to death). It's a bike that's fine for my dad, and I'm glad he's happy with it. But it's hard for me to want one or to really see myself riding one. Not that the SV is über sexy, and once I put a windshield on it it'll take a step towards the dorky side of the street -- but it is cooler looking than the DL regardless.

So... What to do? Go pragmatic and buy the sensible DL? Or buy the vinyl pajamas? My nature is to be conservative, which favors the DL. But I'm also tired of my nature. I want somebody else's nature for a while. But the real trick is going to be finding a nature -- either my own or somebody else's -- that I can hold onto long enough to be happy with whichever bike I choose.

Shove it up your ass.

No, really. Here's "the complete list of Rectal Foreign Bodies" -- an index of every documented case of everything that's needed removing from someone's ass. For Grey's Anatomy fans, there's even an x-ray of a live artillery shell that got stuck in someone's back door. Gives new meaning to the term "code black." Some great stuff there, so go knock yourself out. If you're feeling inspired afterward, stop by Babeland for some tips on keeping your ass out of the emergency room.

Blizzard blogging

With nothing else to do while the white storm rages, I've been adding items to my amazon.com wish list. And for deep-rooted Freudian reasons that I don't understand, I decided to see what happens if one searches for "dildos" at Amazon.com. Lo and behold: amazon sells dildos. When they say "Amazon.com and you're done," they aren't kidding.

Letter to: Jeep

Here's my letter to Dieter Zetsche, chairman (or whatever) of Daimler-Chrysler, the company that owns Jeep. For the record, I'm sending these from my actual email address with my actual name signed to them. I think that little touch gives my letters a feel of legitimacy. Because I am serious that I would like a hybrid Jeep.

Before I get to the letter, which is not funny -- it's pretty straightforward and represents a sincere request for a product I would someday like to purchase -- except for that I couldn't help writing it in a goofy way, I would like to let the blog reading public know that my letter writing time is available to you as a free service. Post the name of a CEO and his/her business and the product or other thing you would like from that business and I will send said CEO a quick letter.

From: me
Subject: hybrid jeep
Date: February 10, 2006 11:06:28 AM EST
To: dieterzetsche@daimlerchrysler.com

Guten Tag!

I would very much like to buy a Jeep, but the cost of gas is out of control. Plus, I am concerned about the environment? Are we really doing enough to take care of it? So it occurred to me that a hybrid Jeep would be a great car for me. Please make one. I will buy it!

Sincerely,
MM

Letter to (first in a series?): Apple

You know what I don't do often enough? Correspond with the CEOs of giant corporations. How are they going to know what I want if I don't make my needs known to them? As such, I've decided to make a project of it. My first letter is below. You'll note it's actually a serious request -- I really really really would like a wireless bluetooth mighty mouse from apple. Better still would be a wireless bluetooth trackball, but that's not likely to happen until I become a major shareholder. Anyway, some of my letters will be serious, others will doubtless devolve into goofiness. Alas, such is my tragic flaw. I can't be serious about anything for too long.

So, here's my first letter:

From: mrmond@mac.com
Subject: bluetooth mighty mouse
Date: February 10, 2006 10:39:21 AM EST
To: stevejobs@apple.com

Hi Steve,

I'm in the market for a bluetooth mouse, and it would be swell if Apple made a bluetooth version of the Mighty Mouse. I would buy it if you did. It would go nicely with my wireless Apple keyboard. Don't wait too long, though -- I need a new mouse soon!

Thanks,
MM


Smashing, isn't it? Next up is Jeep once I find out who there CEO is. Also, I have no idea if that's Steve Jobs' real email address. Probably it's not. Probably some Intern or secretary or assistant's assistant is responsible for reading through all the mail that goes there. That's fine. I'll just have to hope that my genius suggestions are rushed up the food chain.

Operation: Motorcyle, part 6

I found an SV650 naked to actually sit on today. I had to drive down to the dealer's warehouse, and skulk around all the garages and ice cream trucks (there were like all these ice cream trucks there -- no idea why) like someone about to commit a felony. But I found the Suzuki warehouse and was ushered inside and shown a mostly-assembled SV650 naked.

Good golly, it was worth the wait. I only had to sit on it for about a second to tell that it was much more comfortable than any of the sport bikes I've tried. In fact, I felt right away like I was ready to ride.

So I'm psyched. I'll be talking to the sales guy this weekend about what he can do on the price. It's an '05 (blue), and this is off-season, and I know they haven't sold a lot of ATVs or snowmobiles since it's been too warm (though I don't get why warm weather would slow ATV sales, but whatever), so I'm hoping he'll come down at least $500. If not, then I might hold out until I can find a better deal on an '05 or have this place order me an '06 in red (which is soooo sexy I could sing songs about it -- big fat slobbery love songs). My only concern right now is that this is the dealer I've been warned adds all sorts of crazy fees to the out the door price. I'm glad to have been alerted to it in advance, and I'm prepared (reluctantly) to walk out the door if they try to pull that with me. But I'm not gonna get all negative just yet. Instead I'm going to sit here and fantasize about cruising around town on an SV650, winking at the ladies and making the men feel like little boys.

Post Secrets

I clicked back over to postsecret just a moment ago to read the new cards. For some reason, reading those cards feels good. Much as I feel like we're messed up for having anything to bitch about at all, it's also nice to know that I/you/we are not the only one(s) walking around with all sorts of garbage in my head.

In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut talks about his need to empty his head of all the crap the world has put in there over the years. He tosses out Nazi flags and women's underwear and leaves them strewn along the sidewalk. In my memoir, I reference this and make a point of doing the same thing.

And it's made me realize that there's something about us -- something that's either a universal part of the human condition, or something that's uniquely American (I'm not sure which) -- that demands we pour our insides out. We lionize memoirists like Dave Eggars and David Sedaris, we tune in to Oprah and Dr. Phil, we blog, and we send postcards to postsecret. We're desperate to share ourselves.

We're desperate for intimacy. Which I guess means that either as humans or as a culture we're failing the interpersonal-connection test. But no amount of blogging or memoir writing or Dr. Phil watching is going to correct the problem. These things are only a band-aid for a wound that we're actually afraid to heal. After all, if we weren't afraid, we'd use our real names when we did this stuff.

I go to absurd lengths to keep myself anonymous on the Internet. My friends who know me in meat space obviously come here knowing who I am, but for everyone else I wear the Mustapha Mond mask. I have a Mustapha Mond email address, and I sign my emails Mr. Mond and I won't post my picture in my profile, and it's all so, should I meet strangers in meat space, they won't have a head start on knowing just how fucked up I am -- even though I know they're just as fucked up as me.

It's the details of someone's fuckedupedness that gives you power over them. And it's only when you look someone in the eye and make an honest effort to share the details of all the misfired gears, blown gaskets, leaky tubes, and syntax errors, that you can achieve true intimacy with someone. And it's terrifying to try and do that. I don't blame people for wanting to keep it all anonymous.

In fact, it's almost like we have no choice but to keep it anonymous. Does anyone who's read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius actually think they know Dave Eggars? I hope not. As much as Eggars might try to spill his guts onto the page, there is inevitably a filter between the memoirist and his audience that prevents the reader from truly knowing the self of the writer. And the writer knows this barrier exists, and the writer knows that it's the barrier that makes it possible for him to write at all. So, yes, even the memoirist, with his name on the cover and his picture inside the jacket of his book, remains anonymous.

We're all anonymous until we sit across the table from each other and say out loud into each other's ears that our heads are full of Nazi flags and women's underwear, and that's the only time we can achieve true intimacy with each other.

Unfortunately, the world is getting too big for that. And the bigger it gets, the higher we need to crank the volume. Thus we invent media, and the blogosphere, and sky writing, and smoke signals. We must share. We must let the world know that we are in pain, in love, in anything, in the hopes that in some small way our lives will be recognized and shared and made more real through connections with other people. Yet we must do this anonymously because it's too scary to do it any other way.

So, in that tradition, I thought it would be an interesting experiment (and experience) if, in the comments of this post only, people visiting Smooth Verbiage would post anonymously and just say whatever the hell they wanted.

WTF?!ADS?!

Yeah, that's an ad at the top of the blog. I thought long and hard about it and decided I need money and every little extra way I can get some is fine with me. (I'm also available as a cheap prostitute, just FYI.)

Yeah. So.

Expect it to get worse before it gets better, too. I'm planning to put up a paypal button so I can beg more blatantly, as well as a link to my amazon wishlist.

The silver lining to all this sleaze is that every cent raised/donated/solicited is going towards grad school. (I'd love to put it towards the motorcycle, but I haven't sunk that low (yet) -- though, now that I think about it, I'm so putting the motorcycle on my wishlist. Ha!)

If anyone has any other ideas for how I can make some extra bucks (tattoo the golden arches on my forehead?), post 'em in the comments.

Oh, and, I think the ads pay on a per-click basis right now, so, if you love me, how about you visit my advertisers.

Hooray, money!

Finally.

My Harvard application is finished. Howdy-doody. Unfortunately (sort of) it's a lot stronger than my Stanford application; I nailed the essay, and the rest of the format felt like it was really highlight my strengths. The reason I say this is unfortunate is because the weather in Mass. sucks. I mean, would it even make sense to own a motorcycle there? If I'm gonna buy a bike, then I've gotta go to school in Cali. And for a while I felt like Stanford application was as strong as can be. But now... Well, getting accepted to either school would be a thrill, and I certainly wouldn't say no to Harvard (money permitting). In spite of the weather, I'm quite enthused about the possibility of going. The program seems top notch, and I was just reading some stuff by one of their professors and I felt really in sync with her ideas and philosophy. Anyway, there's nothing to do now but wait for the letters.

Fellatio

I would love to be fellated right now. To relieve stress. My Harvard application is almost done! Ayyyeeee!

And I have to confess, I pussied out on the whole Hogwarts thing (see below). The more I got into my essay, the more I realized I'd really really like to be accepted there and that I shouldn't fuck around about it. I'd like to believe that having a little fun with my application would have endeared me to the application committee, but it's all such a finicky businesses that in the end I decided it's best not to give them an excuse to reject me. Alas. I am a wuss and have capitulated to the play-it-safe-ism of the system.

Blogger.com all f-ed up

Sometime around the 3rd, Blogger.com started eating anything I tried to post, including comments responding to comments in older posts, and including a really good post about what books I've been reading, which was fucking genius on the order of sliced bread). So this post is a test to see if Blooger.com is working again.