Text offenders.

Back in the good old days – when phones plugged into the wall, the internet did not yet exist, and pictures were taken on film which was then developed by awkward Rite Aid employees who you'd never want to see you naked – there was only one way to take X-rated photos of your nubile teenaged body: with a Polaroid camera, a discreet friend, and an awkward smile.

Digital media changed all that! Mostly for the better. BUT, the old way of taking naked pictures still remains highly superior for one reason: you had a chunk of time (i.e. as long as it took for the Polaroid to develop) to decide whether you really, reeeeally wanted to give a picture of your butt to that guy from your English class.

Or at least, whether it might be a good idea to black your face out with a ballpoint pen first.

Now, email-enabled camera phones let you snap a naked photo and send it to anyone, launching your bare ass into digital immortality within a matter of seconds. Which, as with anything that involves teenagers and sex, has resulted in screaming horror from parents, principals and police departments over the….

And their best solution to this rash of cell-phone nudie pics?

Prosecute those involved as child pornographers. Of course.

Yep, that's right, you naked whippersnappers! If you've got a photo of a naked teenager – even if the teenager is you – in the eyes of the law, you are no different from the twitchy mustached perverts featured every week on To Catch a Predator.

Oh, it'll all die down. But until it does, just to be safe, you'd better throw your cellphone in the river, wrap your entire body in duct tape, and lock yourself in the closet until you turn 18.

Domination? Really?

No, no… I am pretty sure that this is, in fact, a still from the as-yet-undiscovered oeuvre of Kung Fu Tennis Films.

In this film, Rafael “Lotus Balls” Nadal is facing off against some villainous other tennis player named Fung Wa Fung Wa who is a bit like Roger Federer, only with angrier eyebrows and none of that self-effacing charm. Also he is, inexplicably, French. And it’s the penultimate final tennis match, and they’re volleying, and Nadal returns a difficult hit but it comes off his racket too slow, and he’s off-balance, and Fung Wa Fung Wa KNOWS that he has WON and time gets all slow and Fung Wa Fung Wa levitates in the air with his racket poised to strike, and as he does, he stares into Nadal’s eyes and growls, “You are pathetic! Your father was pathetic like you… RIGHT BEFORE I KILLED HIM!!!”

So what we’re seeing up there is the reaction shot as Nadal screams, “NOOOOOOOOO!” And maybe there’s, like, a flashback montage of Nadal’s father (played by Michael Caine) looking dad-ish and loving and concerned, and then Nadal whirls to mightily strike the tennis ball, which hits Fung in the solar plexus and causes him to shatter into a billion pieces. (And then, probably because they went way over budget to do that shattering thing, the rest of the movie is just shots of Nadal cut into stock footage of the cheering crowd from “Rudy”, including Charles Dutton doing that emotional one-clap. But it’s awesome anyway.)

The opposite of "chosen"

Confession: I kind of didn’t, like, know about Jewish people until I was nearly thirteen years old. It wasn’t entirely my fault: I grew up in a town that was various shades of White Christian as far as the eye could see, and even though I’d read the diary of Anne Frank and Number the Stars (Holocaust lit-Lite for people under twelve), I was so struck by the horror of it that I didn’t remotely grasp that the people in question were any different in their faith than my nice-but-totally-non-churchgoing family. (We practice a sort of Lazy Unitarianism—celebrating Christmas and Easter, but only as a means to the end of putting sparkly things all over a tree in the living room and consuming mass quantities of alcohol and chocolate.)

In fact, I didn’t really grasp the existence of Jews until 7th grade, when my friend Jana Neudel was suddenly getting mitzvahed, and I realized the full extent of my ignorance.

“There’s just one thing I still don’t really get,” I said to her one day after school. We were taping fuses to model rockets under the supervision of her dad, Mr. Neudel, and I was getting the pre-adolescent version of Judaism 101.
“What?” she said.
“I’m confused about the bats. Are there gonna be, like, bats? At your mitzvah? Don’t you guys worry about rabies and stuff?”
“Um…. no,” Jana said.
“Oy vey,” Mr. Neudel said. Or at least, I think he did.

Obviously, I’m much better-informed now, as a 24 year-old New York City resident, than I was as a 13 year-old in upstate New York. And that was my most recent crash course in making an ignorant ass of myself. At least until last night, when I had a spectacular relapse in front of my Jewish boyfriend.

“So my dad asked if I wanted to invite ‘anyone special’ to Rosh Hashanah this year,” he said to me, as we rode the subway uptown.
“Oh?” I said, kind of perking up. I had been repeatedly freaking out over my fears that Dave’s parents wouldn’t like me because of my non-Jewishness. Being invited to Rosh Hashanah, good sign. “When is it?”
“Oh, well don’t worry,” he said. “I told my dad that it would probably be too weird for you.”
“What?” I said, my voice rising by about three octaves.
“Yeah, so don’t worry, you don’t have to go.” He smiled beatifically at me. I, um, reacted.

“Why would you say that? I want to do family things with you! Do you want your parents to think I hate Jewish people?!” (Realization came here that I was being totally asinine, but I couldn’t stop.) “Oh my God, you’re embarrassed of me, aren’t you! You’re embarrassed of me, and you don’t want me to meet your family, and your parents are going to think I’m an Anti-Semite.”

Dave looked seriously perplexed.
“I just didn’t think you’d want to go,” he said. “Of course you can come, if you want to. Do you want to come?”
“No,” I said, my lower lip pushed out into a three-inch uber-pout, “you don’t want me to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do! Come on, of course I do, you should come,” he said.
“Okay, I’m coming to Rosh Hashanah,” I said.
“Good,” he said.

Thirty seconds passed in silence. And then:

“Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“I just realized something.”
“What?”
“I have no idea what Rosh Hashanah is.”

How does that saying go? Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug… and sometimes, you’re a shiksa asshole.

So you wanna be a preacher?

Grab your dick, ladies, and spread the word of God.

Meet the parents

I spent past two days in my upstate New York hometown, visiting my parents (and my brother, whose sophomore year of college doesn't start for one more week). My immediate family is sort of... filter-less, a close-knit and loving foursome who just happen to all think that "dead baby" jokes are effin' hilarious.

So our kitchen-table conversations, for instance, have a tendency toward graphic inappropriate-ness (witness my mother, last Thanksgiving, come running into the room where my brother and I sat playing "Pong" on the Playstation: she was wielding a pair of baby carrots that had somehow grown intertwined with each other and was shrieking, "Look! They're making out! They're fucking!!!") And I've suffered some pretty awful ambivalence in my dating life over the when-should-he-meet-my-parents question-- should I delay as long as possible and hope that, by the time he finally meets them, his love for me will mean that he won't mind the dick jokes? Or is it like having an STD, where you have to make full disclosure up front, just get it out of the way as soon as possible?

(Note to mom and dad: I in no way am comparing our family to an STD. Really. Or at least, not an incurable STD. Maybe, like, the clap. And that's everyone's favorite!)

Anyway, I wanted to share the following familial exchange, which occurred at the breakfast table yesterday morning as we all smeared jam on our biscuits. My brother was just finishing a lengthy diatribe on sucking dick for cash.


My brother: ... So, yeah! For, like, a million bucks? I'd totally suck some dick.
Me and Mom: Mm-hmm, well, that makes sense.
My brother: Yeah. Ok, let's change the subject. We should talk about something other than penises. In my mouth.
Me: Ok, how about penises. In my mouth.
Mom: No!... In mine!

(stricken pause)

Mom: Well, there. That ought to put an end to this nonsense about penises.
My brother: Actually, I'd love to talk about penises in mom's mouth.
Dad: (looking up from the paper for the first time) You put your penis in your mother's mouth?
My brother: No, I put my penis in your mother's mouth.
Dad: Oh. Ha! Ha!
Mom: Does anyone want more coffee?
-scene-

Forbes fury

I, and (apparently) every other educated and gainfully employed woman I know, have just been forced out of the dating pool by the giant fat-man-cannonball splash that is Forbes writer Michael Noer.

If you have a female friend who reads Gawker, where Noer’s “Don’t Marry Career Women” article surfaced this afternoon, then you’ve probably already read it. Or at least, you tried to read it for several minutes before turning away from your computer monitor and vomming into the nearest trash can. If by some chance you haven’t seen it yet, the whole (pompous, poorly-researched, trash-talkin’) thing is riiiiight here.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon, and considering my options for response:

1. Bemoan the way that Noer twists perfectly legitimate data about both sexes to serve his own nasty little purposes.
2. Sit around with my girlfriends and lambast the article as yet another example of the double standard that women experience as we pursue meaningful jobs in balance with busy social lives.
3. Write an equally petty and unscientific satirical article in retaliation, drawing unsubstantiated conclusions about Noer’s hygiene, penile length, and over all dick-headed-ness.

Um, yeah. Number 3 it is.

Don’t Marry Michael Noer

Ladies. A word of advice. Marry doctors or garbage men. Fat guys or thin ones. But, whatever you do, don’t marry Michael Noer.

Why? Because, if many scientists are to be believed, marrying Michael Noer has been directly linked to depression, uncontrollable diarrhea, and death. And a recent study in Social Farces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is not Michael Noer. (And when we say “feminist”, we mean “we have no idea why this is in quotation marks”.)

Many factors contribute to a happy, stable marriage: Whether you have interests outside the home, for instance, or whether your spouse keeps you locked in the basement, naked, in a pit, while he or she stalks around above you, shrieking, “It puts the lotion on its skin!” But, if a host of very scientific studies by erudite doctors are correct, none of these factors are more important to marital bliss than not being married to Michael Noer.

For instance, a study published in Cosmopolitan found that 85% of women checked “Yes” in response to a question about whether a man’s small penis would deter them from dating him. Of those same women, when presented with the followup question, “Have you ever been married to Michael Noer?”, every single one checked “No”. From this, one can draw the following logical conclusions:

1. Women dislike small penises.
2. Therefore, women would not marry a man with a small penis.
3. The vast majority of women are not, and have never been, married to Michael Noer.
4. Michael Noer has a small penis.

And, while there’s no doubt that one or two openminded women might be able to overcome the stigma of being married to a man with a tiny, tiny dick, there’s no denying that the vast majority of women would be unhappy to find themselves sharing a marital bed with someone who uses a pair of tweezers to pee.

Being married to Michael Noer may also be hazardous to your health-- a study in Scientific American recently found that New Yorkers frequently come into casual contact with the e.coli bacteria, found in human feces, which can cause serious illness including stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. A comprehensive survey indicated that the bacteria’s prolific presence was likely due to inadequate bathroom hygiene in offices and that men, who tend to be less assiduous about hand-washing, are the likely culprits in enabling its spread.

Is it so far-fetched to conclude that Michael Noer, a man who works in an office, is more likely than not contributing to the spread of e.coli amongst innocent New Yorkers? The answer, of course, is no. It’s perfectly logical. The man is a walking shit-bomb. And if you marry him, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself sweating over the toilet as your system tries desperately to cure itself of Michael Noer’s bacteria-laden touch.

Finally, being married to Michael Noer has been positively linked to death. Death, ladies. In a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau of over ten million people living in the United States, less than 20% identified themselves as “smokers”. Additionally, less than .01% identified themselves as “married to Michael Noer”. Once again, we can draw the following logical conclusions:

1. An overwhelming majority of living people are non-smokers.
2. An overwhelming majority of living people are not married to Michael Noer.
3. Smoking is directly linked to increased instances of lung cancer and heart disease.
4. If you marry Michael Noer, you will die.

And there you have it.

As with any article citing scientific study as basis for its conclusion, it is important to remember that I may or may not have made all of this shit up. In other words, Michael Noer might not have a tiny, pea-sized wang, and being married to him may not actually kill you. But, and I believe the vast majority of American women will agree—it simply isn’t worth the risk.

Thank you very much.

Every time a New York 20-something with a media job starts a blog, somewhere, a fairy falls down DEAD.

There's no doubt that I'm very late to the blogging party.

And when I say, "late", I don't mean in that so-very-fashionable, oh-we-were-just-wondering-when-you'd-show sort of way-- You know, the late arrival that invites people to assume the event you're currently attending is just one inconsequential stop on the road to Socialite Heaven. (Even though the truth is that you passed out on the couch in a food coma, woke up at 11pm, and rushed out the door pausing only long enough to pick the hardened residue of Trader Joe's Chili Lime Peanuts from the corners of your mouth.)

No, I'm not talking about fashionable lateness. Rather, this is that very unfashionable lateness that occurs when you walk into a party on the wrong side of its peak: When some jackass has eschewed the iPod party playlist in favor of non-stop 80s ballads, the smell of vomit hangs in the outer stairwell, and two of your girlfriends are slow dancing with each other to "Take My Breath Away" while their mascara makes ever-darkening, baby-raccoon smudges under their eyes. And the air is heavy with regret, and faded glitter, and broken dreams. But I digress.

Anyway, now that I'm here, I solemnly promise to provide the usual pseudo-witty blogger observations on being young and impoverished in the City (including detailed accounts of the soul-crushing embarrassments that I experience on roughly a bi-weekly basis), various media tid-bittery, and-- if I'm really hard up for material-- a play-by-play account of a date that I went on in February 2005, which saw the young man in question lose control at the end of the night and ejaculate on my head. Not once, but twice. No, I don't intend to give details now. But to think, he could have made all that mess in only half the time.

Cheers!