Monday, November 19, 2007

|Ink Storm: Art imitating Life, but only to a point. And then it becomes super unfair.|

We all watch porn. Don't pretend it's not true. Unless you're Amish. Then pretend away.

And whenever we watch porn, we are torn between being eroticized and being like, "Oh, like that really EVER happens?" Sure, of course when the head of the small town bank comes to foreclose on your farm he's going to see giant, erect golden nipples poking out from beneath the straps of your strategically ripped overalls and throw the papers into the air and say, "Screw it. Let's screw!" And naturally the head of the small town bank is super hot and young. And naturally the head of the small town bank makes these kinds of house calls. Naturally.

The other night I was watching, "Ink Storm." It's basically an homage to the hotness of being tattooed. It begins with a hot tattooed guy walking into a tattoo parlor and chatting it up with the even hotter tattoo artist. Another scene has a guy actually getting his penis tattooed (no, not my cup of tea) and then masturbating (I refuse to believe he was actually getting his penis tattooed in the film because I refuse to believe that you can masturbate right after getting your penis tattooed). Another scene is just two guys in a bar and the one being like, "Hot tattoos. Let me fuck you on this bar stool now."

But back to the opening scene... the tattoo artist has an extensive tattoo that starts on his head (you can see it through his buzzcut hair) and goes all the way down his body, or, at least to the top of his pants. It's an intricate tribal-design kind of work that, upon closer inspection, you realize is actually a lot of angels (he pointed this out and it is actually an impressive tattoo). The tattooed customer, naturally, asks if it goes all the way down, and the artist says that it goes to his toes, without interruption.

Naturally, the customer asks for proof of this and naturally the tattoo artist takes off his pants (but not his underwear). And naturally the customer needs further proof of the consistency of the tattoo, and the artist says, "Well, I can't show it to you out here because another customer could come in. But maybe in one of the backrooms." (Right, because a customer walking in and seeing you in your ripped briefs is totally OK.) And, naturally, in the backroom fornication commences. And it's hot, naturally.

With my last tattoo, when I was talking to the hot and hotly tattoed tattoo artist who would do the work, he asked me if I had a tattoo already. I said that I did. He asked where it was. I said on my back but I'd have to take my shirt off to show you. And then I said, "But, actually, I would like to show it to you because I've been thinking about getting it retouched." And he said, "Well, we could go into one of the back rooms." And we did. He saw my tattoo, we talked about retouching, and that was that. Strictly business.

This would be the one and only time I've seen a porn that took a mundane situation and turned into a sexually charged one ever get it close to right.

But that does beg the question: did I miss an opportunity?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 11:15.
2 comments

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

|Worst Week Ever.|

I wish I could say that getting a fingertipful of metal shards and a tetanus shot on the side was the worst thing to happen to me this week.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 10:53.
0 comments

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Saturday, November 10, 2007

|A GChat on Poking|

SWS2.1: hey
AB: hey there what's up
SWS2.1: facebook question. someone poked me
AB: yup? hahahaha nice
SWS2.1: if i click poke back. does that happen automatically or does something come up with options?
AB: you have to say "yes" when it asks if you want to poke that person. in case you accidentally do. would you like to practice on me?
SWS2.1: sure, poke me. also, i'm not sure what the purpose of this is? it's some guy i don't know. at least, i don't think i know him
AB: it is a flirty move. just kinda a, "i see you... i noticed you.... notice me too"
SWS2.1: hmm... whenever i've been poked in the past (only twice before), i just messaged the guy directly and he's never responded back
AB: oh weird
SWS2.1: plus, lately, i've had a few accidental friendings and when i message people asking who they are they are like, "who are you? why are you asking me who i am?" and i say, "you friended me" and they are like, "oh, that must have been an accident."
AB: ohh weirddd
SWS2.1: so i'm never sure whenever someone i don't know contacts me on facebook what i'm supposed to do with it
AB: yeah sometimes people poke from other peoples profiles i guess
SWS2.1: and i'm kinda a jackass so i'm like, "i don't know you = i won't accept your friend request."
AB: haha whoa! yeah you're feisty
SWS2.1: i see. oh, i like your pic!
AB: haha thanks i'm standing on a pool. like they cover it at night when it turns into a bar area
SWS2.1: does it make sense to poke back and send a message? or no message at all
AB: i would just poke back
SWS2.1: i mean, i guess my concern is that i've never poked anyone. like, i've never initiated it and i'd rather not poke someone who's like, "who the hell are you?" but i supposed ultimately it doesn't matter does it?
AB: hahahahahahaha that is so funny. youre analyzing too much
SWS2.1: well there are few things i hate more than looking like a dumbass
AB: ok i gotta run down to dinner. haha you wont look dumb. poking is fun :) haha i got your poke. i didnt realize we got emails for pokes
SWS2.1: that makes it worse. 'cause then if it is by accident someone is going to get an email and have to go look. whatever, i'll just do it. (a large part of the reason why i've never "poked" any gay i found attractive on fbook is that 1) i never browse it for gay single guys and 2) 10 years of pretty much non stop singleness convinces me that few would be into me and 3) gays are bitches and if i poke someone who is like, "ew" i really honestly believe nothing would stop him from pointing me out to his friends when they come over to his apt to hang out or pointing me out if he sees me on the street and recognizes me.) okay, i poked back. now i feel dirty and immature.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:35.
0 comments

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|Bureaucracy for the good of all mankind.|

While I like to think of myself as a rational person, I'm aware that I am also super paranoid and cautious. I step out of elevators quickly because I'm afraid that the cable will snap just as I'm stepping off and I'll get sliced in half (actually, I imagine the resilience of the human spine would prevent slicing and more like a scrunching, but fatal all the same). I always carefully watch elderly women on the street (regardless of race or comportment) because I think, "Who else has a better element of surprise?!" I'm sure that one of them will eventually attempt an attack on my person and I have to be ready.

At the gym, I've given a great deal of thought to the many ways I could hurt myself or someone else or be hurt by someone else. And I consciously do my best to avoid all of them. But there was one thing that never ever occurred to me: that I could scrape my hand across the surface of one of the metal weightlifting bars and in doing so get multiple shards of metal caught in my finger. No ma'am. Not once had that possibility been spied on the horizon.

And today I paid for my inchoate foresight.

I brought my injury to the attention of the Coles administration who admitted to me that they could not help me. Without an athletic trainer around to administer aid, the Coles staff were prohibited by NYU rules from doing anything more than directing me to the medical center. As the guy put it, "I'm not even allowed to give you a bag of ice."

Swell, I thought. The best they could do was call a van to drive me the five blocks to the medical center.

At the center, after waiting far less time than I would have expected, a very friendly doctor froze my finger, used a scalpel to scrape off top layers of the skin of my finger to get to the metallurgical antigens, and then a very well-dressed female Asian nurse entered the room to give me a tetanus shot. She was from the "fast is best" school of shot administration, as the needle was in my left arm before the door had fully closed from her entrance. Then, as she was putting a bandaid on my arm, she said, "I heard there were multiple pieces in there. Thank goodness you decided to come in here rather than having someone at the gym try to get them out with tweezers, huh? Plus, the shot."

I thought, "I didn't decide to come here, I had to come here."

I had to go in there and, yeah, thank goodness.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 13:03.
0 comments

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

|By Jove.|

We read so many cases in any given law school course. And thanks to the institution of stare decisis, most of the cases we read usually refer to lots of other cases. I'm sure the good law student looks up those cases too, but the average law student (read: yours truly) takes note but then moves on.

[Important to the following relation is that I take notes in my book. I find taking notes while I read on the computer to be difficult to juggle with my intention to stay engaged with the text. This completely reduces the resale value of my texts to zilch, but increases their value to me (at least up until the final) by several orders of magnitude. The top, bottom and side margins of any read page in my book is covered in all kinds of scribble and arrows and, on occasion, diagrams. And we're back...]

Tonight I was reading this (presumably) important case on regulatory takings. I get to a point in the opinion that begins about attracting members of the public to a property and letting them have access to the said property. And I remember that in a case we read a few weeks ago, the name of which I cannot recall, there was another case (the name of which I also cannot recall) mentioned. I then scrawl out this long note down the whole side margin of the page with the help of my nifty swifty neon pink uniball about this case within a case and how it relates to the current case that I am reading, but also how it differs and how the implications of the holding of that case should affect what I will eventually discover to be the disposition of this case and so on and so forth.

Much like Mr. Marsh to his crap, I drew back to look at and bask in the glorious girth of the note I'd written. Then I felt a little scribbler's remorse as I realized I'd taken up the whole margin with a note about a case, the name of which I couldn't even remember, that probably wasn't relevant to this case nor all that important to the case that had originally mentioned it.

So I hoped to not want to write any notes based on the rest of the reading on that page, irrationally as that may seem to some (read: me), inhaled and resumed my reading. And the rest of the page starting right where I'd stopped reading, miracle of miracles, was all about that case within a case and even went into the same analysis I had done in my marginal note about how that case was distinguishable and what it meant for this case.

It was just one of those rare moments of clarity when it's like, "What? Am I getting it? Finally? Really?"

And because I am so sure either my children and/or Smithsonian historians will one day pore over my casebooks and I don't want to look like a fool in the future, I added a note to my note indicating that if I'd just continued reading, I would not have needed to write the first note at all.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:35.
0 comments

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|Okay? Awesome.|

Right?

Edit: Less awesome than I originally realized, as it appears the programmers of the clock didn't take into account DST. But still pretty awesome.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:45.
2 comments

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Monday, November 05, 2007

|"In the mood for a quick, hot NSA plowing?"|

While I'm sure the National Security Agency does engage in plenty of "plowing," that's not the NSA I have in mind.

"Hotel Leather Sex... Just hot, no strings man sex."
"Eager mouth looking to provide an incredible bj... no strings, no reciprocation needed or expected."
"Cute nerdy east village boy iso a no-strings one-time thing."


There are many things that I do not get when it comes to gay men and sex, but one that continually baffles me is the "No Strings Attached" Mentality (NSAM)***.

I get that maybe you are just really busy right now and don't have time to date someone, but really want some kind of intimate (or not) physical contact. No one here disputes the therapeutic benefits of sexual touch.

But don't you see the irrationality of the NSAM?^ Why hope to not want something that might be good? I say "that might be good" because I do think there are many things one should hope not to want—sex with babies, Lou Gehrig's disease, total destruction from mountain to shore. But to hope to not like another consenting adult?

It's like walking into a new restaurant and saying, "Man, I really hope I don't enjoy the food here enough to ever want to come back." Does that not seem like an odd thing to wish for? (Along with being just a silly and irresponsible waste of a perfectly good wish.) Yeah, sure, you're busy or maybe you're not even single, but it's not as though wanting to see the person again means having to see the person again.

NSAM. I just don't get it.

***I realize that people who aren't gay men are also interested in NSA sexual contact, but this is where my experience and empirical data lie.
^Of course, it's not necessarily irrational if your particular sexual interest is in having intercourse (perhaps anonymously, even) with a stranger and then their just leaving you.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:15.
0 comments

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Friday, November 02, 2007

|"You've been lawyered, Delta (or American Express)."|

On the (surprisingly) brilliant CBS sitcom of "How I Met Your Mother" (hereafter HIMYM), one of the characters, Marshall, a law student at Columbia, is a fan of pointing out the logical flaws in the statements or claims of his friends and then, when he bests them (with what I think are often weak arguments, but whatever), he says, "Lawyered," or "You've been lawyered." Now, despite the other law school-related fallacies on HIMYM (you can't [AND WOULDN'T] walk out of a law school exam to take a phone call [from a girl you've gone on two dates with who might be crazy], there is no way you'd be given a pop quiz in Con Law AND then have it graded and returned to you the very same day, and everyone knows how much first-year associates at top law firms in NYC make—it's no secret and there's no negotiating it), this is something that they got right. Since starting law school, I've become much more particular about ways things are expressed, words that are used and rules that are laid out.

Even going so far as to read the "Additional terms and conditions" on the back of offers and promotions that I get in the mail.

Yesterday I received an offer from Delta for a Gold (ooh la la indeed!) Skymiles credit card with Amex. "By applying... you can receive an E-Coupon for 15% off one round-trip domestic ticket and can add as many as 17,500 more miles to your account." I had JUST realized earlier yesterday afternoon that I'm going to be doing A LOT of traveling in 2008 (Austin, TX; Costa Rica; Paris [or London or Hong Kong]; possibly Montana; Utah; and San Francisco at least), so the eerily prescient timing of the offer had me intrigued.

I turned the paper over to read the additional terms:

2. ... When used according to its terms, this eCoupon entitles the user to a one time 15% dicousnt from the otherwise applicable published fare for tickets purchased between January 15, 2008 and April 15, 2008. All travel must be completed by April 15, 2008...

5. Tickets must be purchsed using this eCoupon and must be purchased at delta.com on a round-trip basis no later than 11:59p.m. eastern time, April 15, 2008...

Surely I can't, in the sixty seconds between 11.59pm April 15, 2008 and 12.00am April 16, 2008, purchase a round trip ticket, get on the plane to a destination, and make my connecting return flight back to where I started, can I?

So I called American Express. Actually, I called the number that was supplied for Q&A and signing up, and it just happened to be to Amex instead of Delta. I was transferred from person to person before being told that this was a Delta question and I should really call them. I called Delta, and after being transferred a few times, I was transferred to a Delta Promotions Agent who said, before I'd even explained the issue, "That sounds like an American Express question. I do not have the information to explain this to you."

Me: But they already told me to call you and I haven't told you why I'm calling yet.
DPA: Oh.
Me: Would you like me to tell you why I'm calling before you tell me you can't help me?
DPA: Uhm, sure.
Me: Okay, I received this offer. [Explained the offer.] And it says that I have to complete travel between January 15 and April 15.
DPA: Yes, well the expiration is the expirat—
Me: (cut him off because he clearly wasn't listening) BUT later on it says that I have until 11.59pm on April 15 to purchase the ticket.
DPA: Yes, well the expiration is the expiration.
Me: No, I understand that. The problem here is that you have two effectually conflicting expiration dates. I just want to know which one is controlling.

(To be sure, I acknowledge that it's probably the "All travel must be completed by..." term that is controlling and someone may have just been too lazy to figure out an appropriate cut-off deadline for purchasing tickets [even noon on April 15 would allow time to take the flight and return, though the choice of flights might be limited], but I was bored, had nothing better to do [Outlining? Naah!] and kinda wanted to see what I could get to happen.)

DPA: Well, you see sir, when you have a companion certificate...
Me: What are you talking about? I never said "companion" anything. I'm afraid I don't understand.
DPA: A companion certificate is another promotion that we offer that allows you to get an additional ticket at a discount when you purchase a round-trip ticket. Now, if you'd like to hear more about that—
Me: That's great, but has nothing to do with me right now.
DPA: (sounding frustrated) Yes, but when there's an expiration date, that's the expiration.
Me: No, you aren't listening. How can it be that I can purchase a ticket that I don't have the ability to use? Or, how does Delta expect me to take a round trip by April 15 if I have until nearly midnight on April 15 to purchase the ticket? Do you see what I'm saying?
DPA: Uhm—
Me: Surely, if I can buy the ticket, I must be able to use the ticket.
DPA: I need to look at something in order to help you with this. May I place you on hold?
Me: Certainly!
DPA: Thank you, sir.

Ten minutes later the line was disconnected.

Lawyered.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:15.
0 comments

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|Septimus Warren Smith 2.1|

I went to an Ivy League undergrad.
I go to a top NYC law school.
I date men (well...).
I live in Bed-Stuy.
I don't need more to say,
just more room to say it.
Etc.

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