Don’t worry, it’s not me getting married.  But I heard from two very, very old friends over the past week who’ve either proposed to their girlfriends or are planning to do so this week (and have the plan set up of to do it).  Is there something in the water that’s causing engagement?  I’m not complaining, seriously — I’m very happy for them.  I guess I’m just getting to that age when my friends are all moving into that “next phase,” and I’m (as usual) just catching up to the place where they were a year or two ago.  Which means I’m also kind of moving into a different stage of things in my life, which also takes some getting used to on my part.  I almost feel compelled to fight it a little, to hang on a little harder to the rebellious ne’er-do-well inside… pardon me a moment while I go rock out to the Fugazi track that just came on the radio.

I will say that I think the nesting instinct is hitting hard.  Last night spurred the beginning of a spring cleaning spree the likes of which haven’t been seen in a while.  I guess I’m just trying to make my place habitable and streamline my belongings.  And I must be getting old because when I woke up Saturday morning and saw it was 90 degrees outside, my initial thought was, “If it’s this hot here, it must be roasting out in the desert, and I’m glad I didn’t go to Coachella because it would’ve been unbearable.”

- Why are we so celebrity-obsessed?  Alec Baldwin is still making headlines (and sometimes at the top of them) over a single phone message, and we’re acting like he’s the worst parent ever.  He’s not the only parent who’s yelled at their kid.  What about the ones who regularly haul off and beat their kids?  What about the ones who do worse things to their kids?  Not that I’m condoning what he did, but now he’s been insinuated into everyday behavior so much that yesterday, a co-worker talked about “going all Alec Baldwin” on a younger family member.
- Has anyone else noticed that the weather is actually killing people now?  Strong storms (including a friggin’ snowstorm in Denver in late April!) are touring the nation and dumping immense amounts of rain and snow, tornadoes, hail and all kinds of dangerous stuff on us.  But don’t worry — this whole global climate change thing?  Just a myth.
- I saw part of The Bachelor while I was at the gym the other night… Not that I’m a huge reality TV fan in the first place, but this one really makes me angry.  First of all, the people on the show are never “normal” — they’re always much better-than-average-looking and seem to have these incredible pasts:  “He’s a millionaire cowboy astronaut who invented a jetpack that allows him to personally drop food and supplies on small needy African villages!” And the thought that someone could actually find love from these things… How many first dates have you been on?  How much time did it take you to realize you had found The One?  Something would tell me that you started with a pool larger than 20 people, and it took you more than a few weeks going through the illusions of dating while you take these wild network TV-sponsored trips to Lake Tahoe on private jets, etc.  It’s not real dating with real-life issues, it’s not the real buildup to an actual marriage, and to hear these women talk about how, after only a couple of weeks, they’re making power plays against each other because they truly feel they could spend the rest of their lives with this guy… even if they don’t mean it and they’re just saying it for the camera, it still makes me a little nauseous that they could take it so lightly. 
- I got a new toy that I’ve become mildly obsessed with… love it, though my thumbs are not reacting entirely well to the influx of texting.  I got the black one, not the “champagne” one.  My question is, if you’re out of signal range for some reason, when people call you, do they get your standard voicemail greeting or do they get the system greeting?  I was in a bad cell area and someone tried to call me, but got the standard system greeting, but when I took the phone out of my pocket and found a signal, she got my regular voicemail greeting that I recorded.

So, an update on last week’s missive.

Despite the fact that the nation is still reeling from the Virginia Tech shootings, the right-wing morons on the radio are continuing to use it as a platform to push their own agendas.  In one corner, we have comedian Rush Limbaugh, who asked, “Was everybody so concerned with the trumped-up global warming scare they didn’t notice a real threat, for example?  And how about this?  The guy is Korean.  He’s Asian.  How many people refused to do anything about it or even complain about it because they would be tagged as racists?”

In another corner, we have Michael Savage, who said that — since Cho moved to the U.S. from South Korea when he was 8 — he was “brainwashed over there.” Savage even went so far as to say that Cho was “walking the streets was because liberal scum have for 30 years handcuffed the police and the people of this country and made us hostages in their drama.” What, that’s not crossing the line enough for you?  It’s not divisive enough and blaming the scaaaaary liberals for what happened when it was just the fault of one guy?  What about when Savage said, in his messages to the media, Cho “uses the rhetoric of Al Qaeda when he rails against rich kids, debauchery and alcohol”?  Geez, you know that sounds nothing like the rhetoric our administration has been spewing out, relating everything back to terrorism.

Because two corners isn’t enough, let’s fill up a third, shall we?  Here’s Neal Boortz, who talked about the shooting and then went to commercial by playing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar.

Yeah, and Imus is the only one out of work....

I have to admit that I’ve been mildly obsessed with a website over the past week.  And I’m not the kind of person to really keep hitting up a site to see if there’s been any kind of response, so it kind of disturbs me.

I’ve been trying to score a pair of tickets to see my beloved Boston Red Sox play the San Diego Padres in interleague play in June, and, since the game is sold out, The Girlfriend™ has shown me how to use eBay to attempt to bid on a great pair of seats.  Problem is, now I’m being outbid, and I have to call her in, as well as power eBayer The Best Friend®, in order to explain to me how these stupid online-bidding shenanigans go.  The dumb thing about all of this is that I know it’s going to come down to some quick action on my part in the last 5 minutes of the auction, so all this buildup means nothing to me unless I’m sitting at the machine tomorrow afternoon and can slide in at the last minute, but I’m also slightly tense because I’ve been bidding against some ticket brokers, which means they’re willing to pay a decent amount for the pair so they can spin them to some other fanatical member of Red Sox Nation.

I haven’t seen the Sox in several years.  And on the spectrum of my love-hate relationship with Boston, the Red Sox are definitely on the extreme love side.  To see them play again… well, that’d be just a night I’d remember for a while.  (And before you ask — yes, I know they’re playing the Angels out in Anaheim soon, but it’s a weeknight series, and the chances of me being able to fight L.A. traffic to get out to Anaheim by 7:05 are somewhere in the neighborhood of me also winning a $100 million lottery on the same night I’m struck by lightning at the same time a plane drops out of the sky on my head.) So if anyone has any eBay tips for me, I’d be more than willing to take them, since this the first time I’ve ever done this.

Dear Friend,

Yes, I understand that you’ve been busy with your Life-Changing Event™.  And I realize that I’ve been slightly busy as well, and I know that when I get busy, I tend to retreat a bit into myself — no, I haven’t been blogging as much, and I’ve pretty much stopped commenting on other people’s blogs.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m ditching people as friends.  Those who are important to me stay important to me, and just because I’m not leaving comments on your site, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you anymore.  And if you think that I am ditching you as a friend, a quick e-mail or phone call or IM will remedy the situation, and I’ll respond readily and be properly apologetic and inquire about what’s going on… which someone actually did this morning, and I wrote her back immediately.  The road works both ways.

A few months ago, you’d IM me nightly and we hung out at least once a week.  You confided in me regularly, I returned the favor a few times.  I helped you through a period of boylessness, and you listened when I was bitching because I was bitter over the lack of females in my life.  I thought we had a pretty decent friendship going on.  That’s why I’m a little confused why, over the past 3 months, I seem to have (quite suddenly) disappeared completely off your radar.  You’ve left me one or two comments on my blog; each time, I’ve responded personally with an e-mail asking how you were doing and how preparations were going for your Life-Changing Event™.  My e-mails went unanswered.  I even sent one e-mail just to say hi and see what’s up with you because I hadn’t talked to you in a while.  That, too, went unanswered. 

So when I heard you’d held a Pre-Life-Changing Event™ Party — and I heard about it after the fact, guaranteeing I wasn’t invited, I knew I’ve been officially broken up with as a friend.  What I don’t get is why.  I understand you like being the center of attention; what I don’t get is how you can discard people so easily.  Usually, when I drift apart from people, it’s exactly what it is:  a drift.  It’s not a hard slice, like I cut someone out with a machete as if I were cutting off an arm.  And I don’t usually even drift from someone unless there’s a specific reason, which means if they reach out to me, I’ll respond.  Either way, I’m not going to dwell on it anymore, and I’m not going to wonder anymore if you’re just plain too busy to chat.  I’m just going to say that I thought you were better than just using someone to serve your immediate purposes and then tossing them away, and I guess I was wrong about you.  So, that’s that, and have a nice life, since you don’t seem to want to involve me anymore.

Sincerely,
Keith

So NBC has cancelled The Black Donnellys after, what, like a month?  Maybe?  And this is what they killed off Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip for?  I was honestly pissed when Studio 60 went away.  Despite the fact that I probably watch too much TV, I really enjoyed it every week and thought it was one of the best shows on TV this year.  But nooooo, everyone’s got to be so quick on the trigger.  Am I the only one who remembers that Seinfeld took three seasons to catch on? 

Just after the statement from CBS Radio thudded into my inbox on Thursday that they were firing Don Imus, I was hit by the rush of adrenaline (as this was huge news for my industry), and then I was overcome by a wash of questions and emotions.  Here’s just a sampling.

1. Who the hell appointed Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson the arbiters of morality in this country?  These guys seem to have a permanent Get Out of Jail Free card and get to say just about anything they want without repercussion.  Imus was right — when will Sharpton apologize to the Duke lacrosse players?  He publicly called them out and accused them of rape, yet hasn’t said a word now that a court of law has declared them innocent.

2. If Imus is tossed out, then we need to level the playing field.  The same standards need to be applied across the board.  Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a faggot?  She needs to be banned from TV or radio.  Glenn Beck calls Hillary Clinton “a stereotypical bitch” and Cindy Sheehan “a pretty big prostitute” and says he’s “thinking of killing Michael Moore”?  He needs to publicly apologized and suspended.  Neal Boortz calls Islam a “violent, violent religion” and calls Muhammad “a dirty rag-picker”?  He needs to publicly apologize and be fired.  Bill O’Reilly says Shawn Hornbeck, the kid who was kidnapped and held hostage for years and possibly sexually molested, didn’t want to leave because he was “having more fun” than being at home?  He needs to be banished from radio and TV.  Michael Medved says Islam has “a special violence problem” and says there’s “disgusting behavior throughout the Muslim world”?  He needs to lose his radio show.  (And I find it ironic that Condoleeza Rice went on his show to say Imus’ comments were “disgusting.")

3. Honestly, do you think those Rutgers players were listening to Imus?  CBS Radio, in its statement firing Imus, said, “In our meetings with concerned groups, there has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society.” I want to know — what’s doing more damage to the African-American community, the fact that Don Imus made one remark once, or the language being used in rap these days, which is being blasted all over the airwaves on a constant basis?  Check out some of the lyrics to the song that’s currently No. 1 on the Urban chart, R. Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt” (I’ll refrain from making too much of a point that R. Kelly is a known pedophile):  “I’ma b pimpin/I don’t be slippin’/When it come down to these hoez/I don’t love em/We don’t cuff em/Man, that’s just the way it goes/I pull up in the Phantom/All the ladies think handsome/Jewelry shining, I stay stuntin/That’s why these niggas can’t stand em/I’ma chick mag-a-net/And anything fine, I’m bag-gin it.”

...Yeah, because that definitely doesn’t have an effect on the kids. 

So, Don Imus.

First of all, let me get it out of the way by saying that I don’t like Don Imus, Howard Stern, Opie & Anthony or any of their kind.  I don’t find them amusing.  I don’t find them entertaining.  I think they’re lowest-common-denominator humor, and I think they’re helping contribute to the dumbing-down of America.  That said, I fully support their right to do what they do.  And if other people are entertained by them, then so be it, and they’re welcome to listen. 

Don Imus made a mistake.  He made an off-handed remark in poor taste, and yeah, he probably should be punished for it… but he shouldn’t be banished in shame.  Since this fiasco exploded, Imus has publicly apologized several times and offered to meet with the Rutgers team to apologize to them personally.  We all have made stupid remarks that have insulted people, but we haven’t been made to suffer in the manner that many are calling upon Imus to undergo.  And might I call to attention that famous phrase from the Bible — John 8:7, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” I might remind Al Sharpton that he who currently has a radio show (and is calling for Imus to be fired) helped inflame matters between the black and Jewish communities in New York in 1991, resulting in the Crown Heights Riot.  Jesse Jackson, who has also been calling for Imus’ head, has publicly said that he’s “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust,” and has everyone forgotten that he called Jews the not-so-complimentary term “Hymies” and dubbed New York “Hymietown”? 

We’re none of us perfect.  But that doesn’t mean that we have to institute a one-strike-you’re-out rule.  Like I said, we’ve all done things that would probably be insulting to some, and we have to give people not only the benefit of the doubt, but also the ability to be forgiven.  And — most importantly — we have to start taking personal responsibility, because this Puritannical streak running through our country right now is scaring the crap out of me.  Look, there’s a lot of stuff out there that isn’t exactly PC (or PG, for that matter)… it doesn’t mean it needs to be banished.  If you don’t like what’s on, change the station or the channel, because not everyone has the same tastes as you, and this country was founded on freedoms that allow adults here to like what we want without having opinions or boundaries forced on us.  Parents, if you don’t want your kids watching a TV show, learn to use the parental controls and lockouts on your TV or cable box.  If you don’t want your kids listening to a certain radio show, lay down the law in your own household… but keep it inside your own house.  Just because you think something’s morally bankrupt, it doesn’t give you the right to take it away from me. 

What compels someone to write “WASH ME” on a complete stranger’s car?  Seriously.  It’s not your car.  Is this dirty car offending you, is it such a blight on society overall that you feel compelled to call it to the owner’s attention?  Because the owner has to be incredibly oblivious — or too poor to own a hose or afford a car wash — to the fact that his car is dirty, and he should be thanking you for letting him know that his car needs to be washed.  Honestly, I don’t know why people don’t just leave dollar bills tucked under their windshield wipers so that anyone who feels like they need to tell a driver his car needs to be washed can feel compensated for their efforts.

Someone please explain the phenomenon to me. 

I wish I knew why bad stuff kept happening around me.  Yesterday was insane.  It started as soon as I left my apartment — a huge car accident had just occurred right in front of my building involving three cars, including one that was smoking and on its side, having been bashed in from both front and back by oncoming cars.  People were just gathering and looking, so it had literally just happened.  Later on, I got to the building where my eye doctor is so I could pick up my glasses.  I pushed the button to call the elevator, and the elevator door opened… to the scene of a woman yelling at a guy in the elevator who had gotten in and then collapsed on the floor.  (Yeah, I know — because yelling at him would bring him back to consciousness.) Then finally, I was on my way home and passed a restaurant just as several ambulances and fire trucks pulled up in front, sirens blaring and lights going. 

I’m hoping it was all just a one-day occurrence, and I’m hoping that karma swings back around and maybe good stuff begins happening around me.  Because honestly?  I don’t really have the wherewithal to deal with bad stuff happening around me, I don’t like being the cause of badness.

Someone described Passover to me as “The Jewish Atkins Week.” You’ll be able to pick out who in your community is observing Passover because they’ll be the ones standing in the cookie/cracker aisle looking longingly at a pack of Triscuits, and they’ll also be the ones buying the fiber supplements.