grievance: the city

The Hills' spin-off The City is just a complete and utter waste of time.
The Hills and its spin-off The City are just complete and utter wastes of time.

With that said, The Hills at least had some entertainment value and actually kept me tuning in each week.
With that said, The Hills placed a spell on me and I kept watching it despite the fact that every single episode made me dumber and dumber.

The main distinction between the two shows, besides the obvious locale change, is that the primary show wasn't OFFENSIVE. The City's Olivia Palermo actually makes me want to move away from New York City and pretend I never went to private school on the Upper West Side. And it's actually making Whitney (formerly the most likeable and normal, unjaded character of The Hills) look like a fucktard for listening to her spout her elitist garbage.

Paraphrased Transcript of a Scene From Last Week's Episode:
Whitney: I think we should really go now (to The Cutting Room) to see Jay's (her boyfriend) show.
Olivia: No. I need to try on the same exact Diane Von Furstenberg blazer as I have on in ALL black, because I'm such an spoiled brat I think that the only way I can go to a "rock show" is by wearing all black.
Whitney's Nondescript, Inconsequential Friend Whose Name I Don't Remember... Probably Because She's Brunette: Umm... you don't have to wear all black to go to a rock show.
Olivia: Whatever. I love my life. Let's drink champagne and make fun of other people. So does this exact same blazer in black look exactly the same as the white one but more rock? I wouldn't want to offend all of your stupid, low-life hipster friends and boyfriend, Whitney.
Whitney: Yeah... it's classic. But can we go now? Seriously. The show is already starting and we're nowhere near it.
Olivia: Oh PLEASE. Can't we take like 45 more minutes to look through my glorious closet? It's not like they're going to start the show without us. They'll stall 'til we get there.
Whitney: Umm... is this your disgusting cousin's sock lying around?

All I'm saying is that this show sucks. Whitney... girl... why'd you turn into a crapbag?

-moon

grievance: gravity (part 2)

This is actually remarkable. Not THREE days after I fell down the stairs (and only ONE day after I wrote about it in "grievance: gravity") did my stupid ass fall AGAIN. And just to prove that my outline of reasons for falling was, in fact valid, I took the time to, after I'd picked my sorry ass up off the ground, take a picture.

Exhibit A: Converse sneakers.

Exhibit B: ICE! Look at the friggin' sidewalk. Okay. If I'd fallen on the icy snow on the right edge of the photo, fine. But the sidewalk just looks WET. How is this fair?! I thought we had salt for this purpose.

This one was bad too. I managed to somehow knee myself in the chest/stomach so I knocked the wind out of myself with my OWN body. And was light-headed for about an hour afterwards. But I was also so irate due to this being the second time in ONE solid week that I'd fallen that I started yelling and cursing as I got myself up "MOTHERFUCKER, COCKSUCKER! YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!"

And yes. Of course. I was alone.

I need to start wearing a bubble.

-injured, angry, klutzy moon

grievance: gravity

I'm pretty cool with gravity generally speaking, you know with its magical capacity to hold things down to the earth and not go flying through the air. And I'm pretty thankful for that. Especially because that means that I don't randomly go flying through the air.

Except that I apparently do.

Falling fucking BLOWS. And the only thing that could possibly make falling any worse is falling ALONE.

I have to admit that this really isn't much of gravity's fault but really more of my own assisted by one of the following:
1. Walking while typing on my Blackberry;
2. Stilettos (usually coupled with a flight of stairs);
3. Converse sneakers (NB: if you wear the same pair of sneakers since you were 16, you're likely to have no traction);
4. Wearing ill-suited foot attire for ill-fated weather (namely 2-inch platform Rocket Dog flipflops, with toe-socks);
5. Being an idiot;
6. Drinking three quarters of a bottle of Jameson.

I think number six will probably take the cake for likelihood of occurrence. However, the thing that really set me off happened Thursday morning. Running for the 4/5 downtown subway, I tumbled ("tumble" is a cute enough euphemism) down about 6 or 7 stairs, thanks to a pair of 23-inch stilettos. This particular incidence was markedly significant for two reasons: I managed to hurt so many different places that I have a new awareness of bones in my body existing; I was alone.

As if falling doesn't BLOW enough. You fall- OW- you have to pick yourself up- MORE OW- and then you have to look around at random pedestrians who saw this who are "concerned" and play it like you're as cool as Danny Zucco in Grease. I mean... at least if you are with someone, you can laugh it off and people don't rush in to be "concerned" because you have someone to "take care" of you should you so need care to be taken.

I was going to write this blog about a year ago when, wearing stupid Converse (#3) in wet weather (#4), I slipped and "tumbled" down an entire flight of stairs while my roommate watched and giggled. I didn't think it was enough fodder at the time for a rageout. But FUCK, did it hurt.

So with time, so other occurrences have... well... occurred (that's what occurrences do, no?). This spring, I was rushing to get to Penn Station wearing.... you betcha... stiletto boots. I jumped out of a cab at the intersection of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, which is a mangled mess of TWO four-laned streets, with 34th going both east and west. My cabby was stopped in the inside lane of 34th street. I was rushing for a train, so I jumped out, took two RUNNING steps toward the south side of 34th, i.e. into ONCOMING traffic and BOOM. Face-goddamned first. A lotta people rushing to my aid. And man, did it hurt. And no one to giggle with. But hey, I got the train.

About three months ago, I got drunk (#6). Very drunk. And was wandering from one Lower East Side shit hole to another. So, PERFECT time to start lookin' through my BlackBerry (#1) and start messaging people. And I was wearing REAL sneakers! Stepped of a curb. Fell. No explanation. No one with me. No skin on my left elbow. Pretty terrific, I'd say.

All I'm saying is that Isaac Newton can suck it.

And that I am an IDIOT (#5).

-moon

P.S. Please buy me some shoes that don't want to kill me.

grievance: ass-biting

I feel like this is probably something that would happen to Stars... or maybe even that Stars would do... but for what it's worth, when this happened, Stars was present. I'm assuming that her being there is the reason that this happened. It must be.

After a lovely dinner and a few pitchers of margaritas, Stars and I ventured to a bar on the Lower East Side, for the purposes of getting (more) hammered and playing Skee-Ball, because really, who doesn't love a good game of drunk Skee-Ball?

After securing BOTH of the two lanes and getting some cocktails, our drunk asses (I'd like to shout out the bartender at MaryAnn's for making the bad judgment call to think Stars and I to be good candidates for free shots) decided to have a Skee-Ball competition:

Moon: What's your best Skee-Ball score of all time?
Stars: I don't know... Probably perfect, I would imagine.

Okay, so that quotation has little-to-no significance for this story. Nothing to do with the story actually. Nothing at all. It was just funny. But what does have to do with the story which I've failed to mention is that I'd decided to wear some pretty ridiculous "pants" that evening (the word pants being in quotations because they look like they're painted on):


Thanks, Stars, by the way, for being too lazy to upload photos from a couple of months ago, so I have to pull a picture of some random bitch off of American Apparel's website. You're lucky you had a funny moment that night so I'm not so mad at you.

In any event, back to Stars and my Olivia-Newton-John-At-The-End-Of-Grease-looking self at this bar, "tell me about it, stud." I'm very intensely competing with Stars in Skee-Ball, when my ass gets slapped. I turn around and see a gentleman (a.k.a. douchebag) and ask him if he had, in fact, slapped my ass. He said "your friend made me do it," which is, let's call a spade a spade, something which I (or any reasonable person) would believe could be true of Stars. So I snarled and continued my game.

A few moments later, all of a sudden, I feel teeth on my ass.

TEETH ON MY ASS.

"I'm sorry... what did you just say?"

TEETH ON MY FUCKING ASS.

So I turn around and ask this fine, young chap if he had, in fact, BITTEN MY ASS. His response? "It had to be done." Okay... what? WHAT! I don't even know what kind of a defense that is supposed to be. I looked at him, looked at his friend, looked at Stars and then said "ummm, no it really didn't."

So, for the first time in my entire life, I went to the bouncer and actually had someone ejected from a bar. The only problem was that by the time I had explained (several times, because the concept of a stranger biting me on the ass was so outlandish that it didn't really get through to the bouncer) what had happened and brought the bouncer back to the Skee-Ball area to get him, I'd entirely forgotten what the douchebag looked like. Thank goodness for Stars who pointed him out. As a result of the whole ordeal, we got more free shots. Never a good idea.

When I asked Stars later if she had in fact told the young man to slap me on the ass, like he'd said she'd done, she said "fuck no! I told him to give you money for Skee-Ball."

I think it's pretty safe to say the message of this post is "if you're NOT already biting people on the ass in bars, keep doin' what you're doing. If you are... ummmmmmm... uhhhhhhh... you should probably be locked in a room forever."

-moon

grievance: young, drunk girls in murray hill

Premise A: "I am a girl."
Premise B: "I live in Murray Hill."

Conclusion A: "I am an annoying slutface hobag who gets hammered and screams nonsense on the streets."

Introducing... Premise C: "I have a brain."

Conclusion B: (The obvious is "I am not marked by attributes described in Conclusion A due to the having-a-brain-ness," but instead, I will use this time to aver an emphatic: "GO FUCK YOURSELVES MURRAY HILL SLUTS."

For those of you who don't know, Murray Hill is a section of Manhattan, the exact boundaries of which I do not even know but will approximate to be around 25th to 40th streets on the East Side. It's probably the most reasonably priced area of Manhattan below 120th street, so it'd be expected that a lot of young people would live in that area, but when I moved there from a really, REALLY quiet area of Manhattan, I had no idea what I'd find.

Young, annoying girls. Trendy restaurants. Young, annoying girls. Men in business suits. Young, annoying girls. Bars. Young, annoying girls. Young, annoying girls. Young, annoying girls. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Every single night (not just weekends) hoards of women in their 20s prance around in their best people-tell-me-I'm-like-Carrie-Bradshaw outfits in packs of 3s, 4s, whatever, on the prowl for... Love.

Scratch that.

... On the prowl for... SEX.

And a free meal.

By all means, people are allowed to do whatever they'd like with themselves (despite the fact that I'll STILL definitely be judging them [ya can't win 'em all]) but these women are offensive to the quality of life of those around whom they prey on men.

This is how: they get fucking hammered sloppyfaced drunk and then spill out of the bars looking like a blonde celebrity (they all do it at this point; take your pick) emerging from a vehicle, i.e. clothes falling off, hair tattered, make-up smudged.

So now they're on the street, sloshed, at 4, 5, 6 A.M.; I am in no way exaggerating either. And they look like SHIT, and the 30 Cosmopolitans they've had have apparently rendered them incapable of assessing the brilliant volume at which they are speaking... And saying the most dumbing shit I've ever heard in my life...

"Oh my GAD! Do you think he'll call?! I gave him my number!"... Said she as she fell into the tree potter/walked into oncoming traffic/walked down the sidewalk barefoot with her stilettos in her hands/dropped her Louis Vuitton bag/walked into a wall/puked on her friend/self/phone/hair/fill in any inane drunk-girl activity here. (Note, "she" is of course the universal "she." I did not in fact see one idiot perform all of these behaviors simultaneously. If I saw THAT, I'd actually be kind of impressed.)

But seriously: (directed to the lovely ladies) WHY ARE YOU YELLING? ALL THE TIME? Don't you have a home?

I just don't want these shitbags doing this anymore because
A. It's really putrid noise pollution to me personally; and
B. It's embarrassing to women in general.

Somebody put a fuckin' leash on these predators.

And an alcohol-moderating ankle-bracelet.

And for fuck's sake, a chastity belt.

-moon

grievance: "you'll see me again!"

My response: "what if I don't want to see you again? What if I never wanted to see you in the first place? What if you're not talented enough to be 'seen again'? What if you're as ugly as the lead singer of New Found Glory and the idea of seeing your face again makes me nauseated?"

Rewind. To what is this my hypothetical response? Mother effin' people on reality TV shows who get voted off and say "You'll see me again!"/"This isn't the last you'll be seein' of me, America!"/"This is only the beginning for me; I'll be seein' you, America!" Enough. When has anyone EVER been voted off of a reality TV contest and been seen again EVER? For that matter, when has anyone who's ever WON a reality TV contest ever been seen again? Rephrase: ...ever gone on to do respectable things in their career? Join in with me, everyone, "NEVER!"

I was originally put off by this whole practice (it's become the reality TV show version of "I'd like to thank Jesus") when I saw David Hernandez get kicked off of American Idol last week. (Go to 2:45 to see this hubris-filled declaration.)



Okay. Great. You're consoling yourself on national television by giving false hope to yourself that this ain't the end of the journey (despite the atrocious The-End-Has-Cometh music Ruben Studdard has recorded for this season [note: Ruben Studdard: perfect example of NEVER SEEING SOMEONE AGAIN]). We will NEVER see you again. I will not even know your name in a week. Sorry.

Another wondrous consolation to the American people that we shall not be forgetting the visage of yet another "loser": go to 4:45 to watch Rami lose on Project Runway.


Apparently this has truly become protocol for "how to lose a worthless television show": promise to come back! Dude, you were nothing before this show. You will be nothing after. It's almost like a line from the Great Gatsby. Except the dude from Survivor is NOT Gatsby. And America is NOT Daisy. And it doesn't even matter, 'cause Daisy ends up killing someone and being a miserable fuck. And Gatsby dies. Actually... you know what, reality loser? Be Gatsby. Die. Or no. Don't die. Just shut the fuck up and lose gracefully.

The most astounding thing, however, is that now reality WINNERS are actually promising to show their faces again. Go to 6:20 to see Christian win Project Runway. WHY are you promising to be around again? You WON. Isn't that enough?

FIERCE!

-moon

grievance: fucking shoegasm

Okay. Enough is enough. I saw ANOTHER Shoegasm in downtown Manhattan (see "grievance: attempts at clever plays on words"). And apparently there is a third. Stop this folderol. Fuck you, Shoegasm. I've HAD it with your douchebaggery.

(Crowd "boo"-gasms.)

-moon

grievance: attempts at clever plays on words

There is a store on 14th and 8th. A shoe store. It is called "Shoegasm."

Shoe doesn't sound like "or."

If it did, "Shoegasm" would be clever.

Dane Cook called his comedy tour "Tourgasm." Not "Showgasm." Because that's not funny. Nor is it clever.

Apparently the genius minds behind this shoe store are hanging out with Geoffrey Chaucer in 14th Century London...

"Rede in his almageste, and take it there.
Dame, I wolde praye yow, if youre wyl it were,"(The Wife of Bath's Prologue [the meaning of which I have NO idea])

... because while they seem to think "shoe" rhymes with "or," Mr. Chaucer has rhymed "there" and "were." Thank you Great Vowel Shift. (1200 to 1600 A.D. must have been a WILD time for miscommunication.)

The "ooh" (like "moon") sound in Modern English sounds very much like how it would have in Middle English. The "oh" sound in "orgasm," however, is traced back to having sounded like "ehw" (as in "new"). I find it senseless to use IPA here; this blog is already technical and gratuitously erudite enough. Thus "shoe" and "or" would have rhymed as well as "there" and "were" did.

That said, Shoegasm owners: if you were alluding (VERY backhandedly) to pre-Great Vowel Shift pronunciations of English, I laud you. I will begin buying "shores" at "Shore"-gasm immediately.

What's my point? If you're trying to be clever, appropriating 14th Century pronunciation for the name of your West Village shoe store ain't gonna fly.

Sub-point: I'm going to name my shoe store (that I now have to open solely for the purpose of PROPERLY effectuating cleverness) "Chaucer." His last name comes from the French word "chaussier." What does it mean?

Shoemaker.

-moon

grievance: converse without laces

A couple years ago Converse started making All Stars that look exactly like their originals, but without laces. From what I understand (which is only a conjecture, as I have never owned such atrocities) the tongues of the sneakers are in some way adhered to the rest of the shoe, creating a faux-slipper situation.

I'm cool with it if you want to go out of your way to wear shoes that slip on. I really am. You're a lazy fuck. But I am.

But then wear shoes that actually are intended to slip on. Don't wear shoes that USED to need to be tied that have been SEWN or GLUED (again, just a conjecture) together. These shoes still retain the SAME EXACT structure of their lace-conscious counterparts. I remember learning in AP Biology about homologous structures: some structure in a living thing that came from the same ancestor as another; one uses the structure for something (a tail, or some shit) and the other doesn't use it for shit but still has the stupid thing. What if we started sewing fake tails onto animals that never had them? That's the closest comparison I can think of that best exemplifies this insanity. (Great analogy, right? Except... what the fuck was a tail used for in the first place? Viz. "The author's reasoning is flawed in that she... A. fails to acknowledge that a tail may have been useless in the first place. [Whoops. I already wrote a blog about the LSATs. Shucks.])

Okay. So we've (and by "we" I, of course, mean "I") come to the conclusion that the lace-holes are not necessary. Now to address my other issue: Converse are already slip-ons. I've had the same pair of Cons since I was 14 and haven't untied them once. Thus, the laces are not necessarily an OBSTACLE to slipping the shoes on and off.

Conclusions:
1. If you are going to remove laces from a shoe's design, remove the lace-holes as well. Velcro anybody?
2. If you are going to design a shoe that is more conducive to ease of removal than the original shoe, make sure the original shoe's design isn't INHERENTLY slip-off-able.
3. Don't sew and/or glue tails to animals.
4. Don't reference AP Biology in a blog about sneakers.
5. This shoe is so fucking ugly I could cry.



-moon

raging out at... abraham lincoln

I don't care. I hate Abraham Lincoln. I hate him with every fiber of my being.

Now, maybe my sheer disdain for Old Abe isn't necessarily his fault. It might be more fair to say I hate the pedestal people have put him on with total disregard for the fact that he was an opportunistic bastard with a stupid beard. To prove my point, I would like to provide you with some basic Facts de Lincoln which I will then irrationally rebut.

Fact 1: Abraham Lincoln had a massive ridiculous beard. Beards were a sign of status and are regarded even today as a symbol of stature. (Is this true? I made it up.) So Abe gallantly wandered around stroking his beard to show people that he, in fact, was a public figure to be respected.
Rebuttal 1: Abe had Marfan syndrome.
Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that manifests itself in a typically tall stature and disproportionate limbs and other really creepy abnormalities. Abe had crooked creepy Shannen Doherty face and grew a massive beard to hide it. He could have truly been a man of the people, let his real face show, and given hope to others who were affected. But did Abe do that? Nope. There's a role model.

Fact 2: Abraham Lincoln was largely self-educated and spent most of his time reading to better himself.
Rebuttal 2: Neighbors of Abraham's reported the belief that Lazy Abe spent most of his time reading to avoid doing any manual labor whatsoever. He was 700 feet tall and strong but was such a slothful bitch that he wanted no part of helping around whatever farm or plantation or wherever the hell he lived.

Fact 3: Abraham Lincoln cheated at a duel. There's no need to even rebut this one. The man CHEATED at a duel. Aren't duels supposed to be for defending honor and all that? You kind of lose the point of the combat when you fricking cheat. Abe was challenged to a duel by James Shields pretty much for anonymously talking shit. Abe was such a man that he felt the need to throw around his smacktalk secretly. Yeah, that's who I want running my country. You want to talk shit, do it up. Don't be a little ass-bearded bitch and do it anonymously. So because Abe was challenged by Shields, Abe was permitted to select the weapon of choice. Abe, being a sneaky little hoe's beast, decided they should both wield the largest swords imaginable. He was a giant ogre with disproportionately long limbs!! That sort of weapon could only create a fair fight between Abe and Andre the Giant. Uncool, Abe.

Fact 4: Abraham Lincoln was notoriously anti-war because of "unnecessary bloodshed."
Rebuttal 3 (yes, I screwed up my numbering): Abe had zero combat experience. ZERO. The commander in chief's only experience with battle was when they let him help bury bodies from battles already fought. Great, the head of all military probably couldn't shoot a gun or strategize or even wrap a wound like Florence Nightingale. But if you wanted a creepy middle of the night body bury, you could totally hit Abe up.

Fact 5: Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves because of his great love for justice for all humankind.
Rebuttal 4: If you don't know that entire platform and declaration was done for financial reasons and not reasons of actually giving a shit about people as a whole, I don't care to explain it. Look it up.

Fact 6: According to recent theories by historians, Abraham Lincoln may have been a homosexual.
Rebuttal 5: Go back to rebuttal 1. Be proud of who you are and don't hide behind the beard like Tom Cruise. Hmm, now I am wondering if that is actually wear the term beard comes from. I may have just solved a great mystery.

Fact 7: Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. See this quote from John Diggins. "Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself."
Rebuttal 6: Thanks for that.

So in summation...
I hate Abe. I hate his laziness and inqualification to run the military. I hate his false politics and the facade behind which he lived. But mostly, I really hate his beard.

-stars

grievance: shorts in the rain

What is people's problem with other people wearing shorts in rain? And flip-flips for that matter. If anyone can provide me with a counterargument to this of any value, I will stop wearing aforementioned articles of clothing in hostile weather.

Today was a horrendous rainstorm. While choosing proper accoutrements for my valiant journey to school, I opted for a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.

On the street and on the bus, I was assaulted with inquisitive and perplexed looks.

It was 85 degrees today.

There is just NO way that I am the only person on the planet that is intensely bothered by the bottoms of my pants and/or shoes and socks getting soaked, and then sitting in an air conditioned room. There's JUST no way.

Did my sandals get soaked? Yes. Did my legs get soaked? Yes.
But my sandals are SANDALS and don't contain my feet in any way, thus I was not subject to the hostility of cold wetness. And my legs dried instantaneously.

My point: what the hell is wrong with all of you people? And stop looking at me because I'm smarter than you.

-moon