mcgees.org

The ACLU are trying to run a full-page ad in USA Today, congratulating Congress and urging them not to back down in the fight against Bush’s warantless wiretaps.

They need $28,000.  If you can’t afford $28,000, give $10.  If you can’t afford $10, give $5.  If you can’t afford $5, email me and I’ll send you a check (you’re worse off than I am!)

Note: Not tax-deductible.

I’m beginning to get a sense of what it’s like to be lost around computers.  I have a Canon AP 350 electric typewriter, no manual, and no idea what most of the settings do.  The logos aren’t clear, the operation is not intuitive to me, and when I want to do something that I assume should be trivial, like move the paper a tiny bit up or down electronically, I haven’t the foggiest how to accomplish it.

Not poorly.  It was delicious.  But poor.

I have very little income right now, being disabled, out of work, with no disability checks coming in.  I invited my mom over for dinner tonight.  The menu: Sloppy Joes and wine. 

Not an American?  Sloppy Joes are comfort food, frequently (at least when I was growing up) served as school lunch.  Wikipedia: “There is probably no Joe after whom it is named — but … “Joe” is a name that suggests, to an American, a person of proletarian character and unassailable genuineness.”  Can’t beat that with a stick.  Er, switch.  Er, Louisville Slugger.

Ingredients sourced at the 99¢ Only store and low-cost Valu Mart grocery store.  So I worked it out: she had half a hamburger bun, lean beef, sloppy joe sauce, Tabasco Chipotle sauce (yum!), and half a glass of wine (she’s watching her diet.)  $0.72.  Very low in fat, high in protein, and not too bad in the way of sodium.

I feel like Thoreau, detailing cent-by-cent analyses of what it’s like to live simply.  I’m not about to start leaving my front door open or anything, but it’s awfully rewarding to do something like that.

Not actually any clearer than the source documents.  The IRS speaks a completely different dialect of English than I do.  Could someone try to parse the following “explanation”?

NOTE: Thank you for your inquiry.  Our response to your tax law question appears below. I hope this information has been helpful.  If you have a follow-up question or another general tax law question, please return to our web site at: (http://www.irs.gov) to submit it.  Please do not use your “reply” button to respond to this message.  More helpful information is provided at the end of this message.

Your Question Was:
I purchased a jacket for $40 in the year 2000.  I wore it but kept it in good condition.  In 2007, I sold it through my eBay business, as a used item, for $20.  How do I calculate basis and profit/loss on the jacket?

The Answer To Your Question Is:
Thank you for your inquiry. I apologize for any delay in this response. I understand you purchased a jacket for $40 in the year 2000.  You explained that you wore it but kept it in good condition.  In 2007, you sold it through your online auction business, as a used item, for $20.  I understand you want to know how to calculate your profit or loss and basis and on the jacket.

I assume you were a United States citizen as of the last day of 2007. I assume your business is a Sole Proprietorship. I assume you are not a minister. I assume you do not belong to a religion that is opposed to Insurance or Social Security. I assume you did not earn any Form W-2 wages in tax year 2007. I assume you would have a net profit of at least $400 from your online business. I assume this jacket is not a collectible. I assume your business regularly purchases items for resale and you want to include your sale of personal items in that business. I assume you do not take an expense for inventory. I assume you did not make Estimated Tax payments.

The basis of property you buy is usually its cost. The cost is the amount you pay for it in cash, debt obligations, other property or services. Cost includes sales tax and other expenses connected with the purchase.

Before calculating gain or loss on a sale, you must usually determine the adjusted basis of that property. Certain events that occur during your period of ownership may increase or decrease your basis, resulting in an “adjusted basis”. Increase your basis by items such as the cost of improvements that add to the value of the property, and decrease it by items such as insurance reimbursements for casualty and theft losses. When personal property is converted to business property, the basis for depreciation is the lesser of the following amounts; the FMV of the property on the date of the change or your adjusted basis on the date of the change. For more information on basis and adjusted basis, refer to Publication 551, Basis of Assets.

When reporting this income you may download the Form 1040 Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), Form 1040, Schedule SE, Self-Employment Tax and the Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business.

The net Form 1040 Schedule C profit is reported for income and self-employment social security tax purposes regardless of any draw. A sole proprietor files Form 1040, Schedule C and possibly Form Schedule SE. Include the $40 sale price of this jacket with your gross income and your basis as an “Other Expense” with a written explanation on the dotted lines of the Schedule C. The Schedule C is a profit and loss statement. If the net profit from self-employment is $400 or more, then you need to calculate Social Security/Medicare self-employment tax on Schedule SE. Use the Schedule C net profit and complete Schedule SE. Basically, sole proprietors file Schedule C only for years they have income and expenses from a business. In the future you may be able to participate in the optional method. This method allows you to claim more earnings as they are reported to the Social Security Administration. To participate in the optional method you must have net earnings of at least $400 in at least two out of the last three years. If you will meet these conditions and you are interested in the optional method, you will have to fill out the back of the Schedule SE. You may have to pay your tax liability through the payment of estimated taxes. If the increase in your income and increase in your tax causes you to owe more than $1,000 with your tax return, you could be liable for an estimated tax penalty, unless your withholdings and payment amounts are within certain percentages. If you do owe more than $1,000, check Form 1040ES, Estimated Tax For Individuals and Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax, to determine if Estimated Taxes would apply to you. You may also need to file Form 2210, Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals, Estates & Trusts, if you do not make estimated tax payments. Please contact your state for sales tax information and state filing requirements. I hope this information assists you. References; *Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business (For Individuals Who Use Schedule C or C-EZ) *Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax
*Publication 551, Basis of Assets

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Expect delivery within 10 business days.

Other useful toll-free numbers include:
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This answer is based on our understanding of the facts you presented in your question.  Omission of facts may affect the answer given.

Here’s a tip for navigating the IRS web site. Use the “search” button at the right side of the web page.  Enter key words or phrases for your topic in the entry box.  It could help you find your answer immediately.

EMPLOYEE ID: 25-04346      Mrs. Rockwell    Tel.:(800)829-1040    msg#: 1771100

Specifically:

1. Is it in fact a typo when she writes “Include the $40 sale price of this jacket with your gross income…”?  Did she mean $20?
2. Didn’t I determine the Fair Market Value (FMV) by posting the item for auction?  Isn’t the FMV then exactly the sale price plus the shipping charge?  Since postage is an expense for me, am I actually marking a loss on this sale?
3. Everything non-perishable is collectible (The Onion had a funny bit on this, but it’s true.)  How does/would being “collectible” change the answer?  Who makes this decision?

Here’s your Google-foo assignment: I’m looking for a serious, fancy leather wallet, one of the “lay flat” inner-coat-pocket types, not one of the bifold or trifold varieties trouser-pocket types.

It has to be long enough to hold currency notes, checks, tickets, passport, etc. flat, and should ideally have a metric assload of little sewn pockets for credit and ID cards, all arranged neatly in n columns, where n could be as low as one.  This panel can fold out/fold open/whatever.

For bonus points, photo display and a zipper pouch for a guitar pick (which I always carry with me).

Hand-tooled?  Moroccan leather?  Italian workmanship?  Requires oiling?  Sky’s the limit.  Actually, about $200 is the limit.  Low-hanging-clouds-in-the-sky is the limit.  I could probably go to $300.  I want this shit to look good, something that says “Holy shit, that guy’s got a wallet wallet!”

12 months’ free advertising on this post (first placement, editor’s discretion still applies) to the person who finds exactly what I desire.

… and bingo!

I’ve started selling CDs online seriously.  I needed storage.  You really can find anything online these days, can’t you?  Look at those prices!  I’m getting two: one shelf for each letter of the alphabet, with X⁄Y⁄Z taking up one, combined.

Sorry for the late notice.  Go outside right now and look at the moon.  If you’re not in one of the “bad” areas, that is:

eBay’s justification for segregating “Mature Audiences” materials:

A number of cities segregate stores selling some types of sexually-oriented materials to certain areas of the community.  The eBay community segregates certain sexually oriented materials on the Mature Audiences site for the same reasons.

That’s nice.  Now, what’s the real reason you segregate it?

Note that pre-1980 Penthouse is allowed on the main site, and post-1980 Playboy is not.

So, weird?  Not as weird as the Offensive Items list:

Examples of items that will generally be removed:
* Items that bear symbols of the Nazis, the SS, or the KKK, including authentic German WWII memorabilia such as Olympic medals that bear such marks

Examples of items that may generally be listed:
* German coins and postage stamps (canceled or otherwise) from the WWII era regardless of markings

Any philatelist will tell you about the gratuitous Third Reich images on WWII stamps, including close-up depictions of Hitler and images of children juxtaposed with swastikas:

I expect you to flinch at those.  Those stamps are OK, but not Olympic medals?  Is this an accumulation of unrelated precedents, or is there something I don’t understand going on here?

Has anyone else found his or herself in the position of needing a retail source for newspaper-grade paper, and realizing the cheapest way to obtain it is to subscribe to a newspaper?  A newspaper, the labor of love and the collected creativity and training of hundreds of people working under draconian deadlines, plus all the machinery to print, cut, fold, and deliver, not to mention the ink — and it’s still cheaper to buy than blank newspaper stock!

Advertising dollars are pretty damn amazing.

Newspaper stock is sold at art stores now, and is priced like a “boutique” item, not like the high-acid, low-contrast, large-fiber shite that it is.

To be really green, I need a neighbor who will save me some of his used newspapers — one every couple of weeks would be enough.  I don’t care about the copy — I’m never going to actually read The Los Angeles Times — I just need the stock.  I’ll ask the guy across the street tomorrow.

Or maybe, now that I make so little, I could get Sunday’s copy alone delivered — the coupons might well pay for the subscription, and I’d be reusing all the paper.

I’m going batty.  I submitted three questions to the IRS via email today, and I have one more, and now I can’t find the blasted page!  What’s wrong with me?

Anybody with good Google-foo?

Getting by on eBay and Half.com is frequently a question of a few cents here and there, and volume.  Here are some tips.  Subscribe to this post’s comments as I come up with more, or post your own (non-commercial, please, although paid advertisements are accepted.)

1.  If you can find a mailer that weighs less than 3⁄4 oz., normal CDs in jewel cases can ship for the 4-oz. First Class Parcel rate ($1.64 at the time of this writing) rather than the 5- or 6-oz. rate ($1.81 or $1.99).  Uline Bubble Mailers, model S-5897, are 9 lbs. per 200 units.  Dividing that gives you a weight of 0.72 oz. each, and that 9 lbs. is probably rounded up, and includes the weight of the box.  Envelopes are self-sealing, so you save on tape weight.  One case of 200 is $51 ($0.255 apiece) plus shipping.  This can make a huge difference on $0.75 CDs with small shipping allowances.

2.  Large shipping labels are expensive; at their cheapest, one- or two-per-page labels are about $0.28 a sheet.  Try printing on normal printer paper, and spraying the back with Elmer’s Craft Bond (~$7 per 11 oz. can, lighter and cheaper than tape, and lasts seemingly forever.)  Apply paper to mailer within 15 seconds of spraying for permanent adhesion.

3.  Addressing small envelopes?  Use cheap labels, and don’t worry about your printer gobbling up your expensive envelopes.  Buy Avery 5160-compatible labels in quantity, then use OpenOffice.org’s templates (software and templates free) to print a couple at a time (templates here.)  Buy them 3,000 at a time from Uline and pay 6⁄10^ths of a penny apiece (don’t worry, it’s exactly the same price as 300 will cost you at Office Depot.  Hard to believe…)  Keep running the same sheet through your printer as you need new labels, just change the positioning on the page.  Want POSTNET barcodes on the labels to speed them through the mailstream?  Give me a couple weeks.  I’m writing software to do that, and I’ll make it available for free on this site (haven’t decided whether it should be a web app or a downloadable executable).

4.  For items 13 oz. or lighter, use PayPal to print out a First Class Parcel label at the 1 oz. rate, regardless of what the item weighs, and pay the $0.18 for Delivery Confirmation (always splurge on this, it’s the best investment out there.)  Use the printer-paper-and-spray-glue trick above.  Make up the remaining weight ($0.17 per ounce, as of this writing) with discount postage (valid, legal U.S. postage from stamp dealers in non-current denominations, available from Henry Gitner for 93% face postpaid, or at your local free-admission stamp show for 88% - 90% face.)  On an 11-oz item, you save $0.17, which just about pays for the Delivery Confirmation!  Print up little decorative labels (less than a penny apiece, remember) that say something like “Collect Stamps: It’s Fun!” or “Philately: The Quiet Excitement!” and people will actually thank you for saving yourself money.  Everyone likes pretty stamps on their mail.  If you have time, to speed it through the mailstream, ask the clerk to count the postage and put a $0.00 label on the package for you.  They will happily do this if you’re humble.  Try something like “I’m not sure my postal scale is accurate at home, would you mind weighing this for me and seeing if I have enough postage?”  And while you’re there, ask nicely for hand-cancellations on the stamps to make the recipient even happier.

5.  Buy a laser printer.  They cost pennies on the dollar to operate, compared to an inkjet.  Even if you have to put it on a high-interest credit card, do it.  It will pay for itself so quickly it takes your breath away.

6.  Go to “Printer Settings” — whatever it’s called on your Operating System —  and set everything to print as “Grayscale”.  Save your expensive color toner for times when you’re printing for yourself, not printing packing slips.

7.  Use Auctiva to list on eBay.  It’s easier to use than eBay itself, offers any number of free pictures, free super-sizing of images, a “store window” applet to increase additional add-on sales, easy re-listing, free scheduling, automatic feedback settings, convenient “Profiles” for commonly-sold items, free professional templates, and tons more.  Don’t waste your money on Blackthorne or pricey eBay “listing upgrades”!  And remember, very soon, eBay Gallery for your item ($0.35 per auction, and essentially required for successful sales) is going to be free.

8.  For stamps, avoid eBay entirely and go to StampWants.  StampWants is so cheap it’s almost free, it’s designed specifically for stamps, and is so inexpensive you can sell items for a dime and make a profit (just try that on eBay.)  Have more than 50 items to sell?  Get a store at StampWants!  It pays for itself with lightning speed.

9.  First illegal one: selling miniature liquor bottles?  Try it, it’s a high-margin item.  You aren’t supposed to send them through the mail, but the clerk can sometimes feel the liquid sloshing and will ask.  Mark them “Fragile: Snow Globes”.  I’ve never met a clerk so mean as to keep little ol’ snow globes from collectors’ hands.  On eBay, to sell the bottles, cut-and-paste exactly the “collectible container” text that you can find under “Prohibited Items”, and (they don’t tell you this) add a line that says “Sorry, I can only ship to the U.S.  eBay’s rules”.  Don’t offer any international shipping rates.  In my experience, overseas bidders will ask you anyway.  Use your discretion on what you want to do, but one possibility is to tell them to inform eBay, if they ask, that they’re using a U.S. address (I’ve never had them ask a bidder.)  Then go ahead and charge them $7.99 (most happily pay this rate) and ship the bottle overseas.  Everyone loves Snow Globes! 

10. Set a reminder for yourself — an alarm in Outlook, a cronjob, a Yahoo! alert, or something — to fire some time during the first week of each month.  Then download the previous month’s PayPal history.  Save a copy, print a copy, and upload a copy to Google Documents.  Come year-end, when the tax man comes knocking, you will be startled that PayPal only offers 90 days’ worth of account activity to download.

11. Keep a mileage log, to and from your post office and PMB.  Don’t have a PMB?  Again, it’s a great investment.  Don’t, under any circumstance, use your home address on eBay or on whois pages.  If you’re doing this daily, you’ll have hundreds of miles to deduct as a business expense at the end of the year.

OK, there’s eleven to start with.  Please contribute.

(Note added 26 February 2008: Instead of selling on eBay or Half.com to make money, of course, you could do what “Max” did, and repost my selling tips and ask for donations!  Oh, right, we’re paying for his research!  Silly me.)

When my alarm went off at 5:45 this morning, it woke both of us.

I went into Niall’s room and told him it was time to go to school.

“I don’t want to go to school!” he cried.  “I want to stay with you!  This is where I live!”

I got him dressed, fed him, and took him to school.  Upon arrival, we went and put his bags in his cubbyhole.  I asked him for a big hug to hold me over until Saturday, as I wouldn’t see him before then.  He gave me a long, strong hug, then stood straight with his hands behind his back, his eyes filled with tears.

“Do you want to go see your teacher?” I asked.

He shook a little.  “No.  I just want to stand here for a little bit.”

I’ll write more, in spurts, as I develop the will — but the worst part about this, so far, is having to pretend, for Jenn’s sake, that her leaving is a joint decision and for the best.  It is not a joint decision.  I did not want my son kidnapped away from me, and my table scraps of visitations to be at the discretion of Jennifer, as if this were her right alone to decree.

I wonder right now if I am making the biggest mistake of my life not fighting harder, and letting this happen.  I wonder what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t want to make this any uglier, but Niall is way too perceptive not to be deeply hurt by everything that’s going on, and he’s my son.  In fifteen years, will he hate me for not taking a stronger stand on this, or will he understand that I did the best I thought I could at the time, trying not to sabotage Jennifer while trying to love my son?  I don’t know.  God.  I don’t know.

The idea of a renewable energy source like wind gets me really excited.  It’s clean, doesn’t pollute and is limitless.  — Kate Smolski, Greenpeace

I’m not the first, and I wont be the last, educated liberal with an axe to grind regarding Greenpeace.  When a group tries to position itself as a rational alternative, they need some basic concepts, such as information on manufacturing, physics, and weather systems.

It’s clean:  To use.  Mostly.  It will still probably need lubricants, paint, and so forth.  And the land for wind farms could be used for other things, such as, oh, growing food.

doesn’t pollute:  After it’s made!  But you don’t plant a seed and grow a wind turbine.  It’s heavy industry to build one, move one, and install one, and smelting, fiberglass construction, metalworking, trucking, and any other conceivable, related technology are all energy-intensive and polluting.

is limitless:  What are we talking about?  Magic?  The energy has to come from somewhere.  Saying “We can take as much energy out of the wind as we like with no side effects” is as daft as saying “We can put any amount of CO₂ into the atmosphere without side effects” or “There are an infinite amount of American Bison, it’s OK to shoot them from trains.”  Every joule taken out of the air changes weather patterns.  It slows down airflow, might easily have dramatic effects on microclimates, and maybe even the macro climate.  I don’t have the figures on this — anyone know of estimates of how many wind turbines it would take to cause significant climate change?

When arguing for new technologies, you are usually arguing that something is better.  Rarely is something perfect.  You could say that reading a book at night to the light of two LEDs is better than powering a whole CRT to watch TV (even if you’re watching Nova) — it has less impact on the planet.  But it’s not perfect.  Arguing that people in warm climates should scatter a few tomato seeds on the ground in the spring and basically ignore them, then harvest the crop, seems perfect, but those seeds take time and energy to process, prepare, package, and something-that-means-transport-that-starts-with-P.  So, again, it’s just better, not perfect.

If Greenpeace do not have the numbers, they need to find them.  Wind is going to be a stopgap at best.  I expect it would be an environmental catastrophe if 100% of the world’s energy were to be derived from wind power.  Wind is better than coal.  No doubt.  But what’s better than wind?  Fusion, for instance.  But that’s “nuclear”, so Greenpeace would probably fight against it, tooth and nail.

My brother has a new essay entitled Deus Ex Leo, about C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in his continuing series of hacking to death, as an adult, fond memories of his childhood.  The series is very good.  Have I mentioned my brother is a better writer than I?

Also, I has a comment there, or might eventually, if it gets approved by a mod.

I’ve had Niall since Saturday afternoon.  I drop him at school tomorrow.  As the seconds go by, I get more and more frantic about squeezing every last moment from the time with him.

We were listening to a random music mix, and G’n'R’s Yesterdays came on the rotation, which has the lyric “Yesterday’s got nothing for me.”

Niall’s eyes brimmed with tears, and he turned to me and said, “There’s nothing for me either, without you.”

However justified Jenn was in leaving to get on with her life — the appropriateness could be as high as 100% — the decision left a body count.

OK, first I’ve heard of it, and it starts in a little over an hour.

Sellers — apparently many sellers (including PowerSellers) — are going to be boycotting eBay due to huge rate hikes and questionable changes to the feedback system.  The rate hikes could be as much as 67%, according to analysis I have read.

Power Sellers Unite is a site with much detail about the eBay boycott.

It looks like the most tenable competitor right now is iOffer.  They seem grassroots, kind of craigslist-meets-eBay, and have nifty tools to transfer your feedback and items.  I haven’t gone through the steps yet.

Anyone else involved?  Anyone boycotting, or not boycotting?  Any other suggestions of sites on which to list?  Any idea of what to do with the listings I currently have running?  Discuss!

OK, let’s run down my week so far:

1. Wife left me and took Niall (my fault)
2. Got dropped from the interview process of the job for which I was applying (my fault, essentially)
3. Worker’s Comp claim was denied, so I will have to sue the WC insurance company (not my fault)
4. Ditzy HMO doctor whom I saw twice while out of work due to work-related injury claims I never told her I was off work, and refuses to sign my disability slip (fuckin’ not my fault)
5. Paid over $100 (that I didn’t have until friends opened their wallets) to file my taxes (my choice)
6. Ran out of meds (that said ditzy doctor forgot to refill) and for which I don’t have insurance anyway (not my fuckin’ fault)

So, today:

7. Computer crashes (shit happens)

You’d think with my whole professional and educational life spent living at the whims of computer hardware, I would have a top-of-the-line backup system in place.  You’d be wrong.

I fixed it.  The computer, and recovered the data.  It took some effort, but I did it.  I’m doing a full backup tonight.

Next step would pretty much have to be “blindness”, right?  I’d say “death”, but that’s not always seeming like such a bad alternative this week.

The ONE campaign has been campaigning against global poverty for years now.  Please add your voice to the thousands and sign the petition urging the next President — whoever he or she may be — to make global poverty and Africa top priorities while in office.  All it takes is one click.

Read the news about the West Memphis Three DNA evidence.  The WM3, in a travesty of justice (summed up succinctly by a scene in court in which black concert t-shirts owned by the defendants were submitted as evidence that the three were “satanists”) were given life sentences almost 15 years ago.

To be sure, even if they had been guilty, there is no way the conviction should have stood, given the absolutely inexcusable conduct by the prosecution and the campaign of lies and innuendo that followed them.  As it happens, they were without a doubt innocent.

This spring, the WM3 will — it is to be hoped — get a chance to present compelling DNA evidence exonerating them.

Follow that link for more news and for a way to make a contribution for Echols’s, Misskelley’s, and Baldwin’s defense fund.

Ed Vedder’s short tour of the West Coast will feature prime-seat packages at auction, with all proceeds going towards the WM3’s defense.

I don’t think it appropriate to write at length, or write details, in this public arena.  But not writing anything about this has made it impossible to write anything else on the site, so I’ll just do a fifteen-second version and leave it be.

My wife Jennifer has left me, taken our son, and asked for a divorce.  She has moved in with her parents.  She left the cat.

I am devastated, and left with no income and no disability checks yet.

Things might be slow in these parts for a while — or, I may go into fits of hypergraphia to keep my mind off things.  One or the other.

There’s a lot I want to write, and maybe I will write it and just not publish it.  As I said, this is really not the most appropriate arena to air it.

Anyone who wants to leave condolences, please do.  I might not be able or willing to give too many other details.  Anyone who wants to lend me $100, so I can pay for medication and maybe rent, I wouldn’t turn that down, either.

All hail the lucky ones!  I refer to those in love.

East Timor president José Ramos-Horta has been the subject of a violent coup attempt.  He has been shot in the stomach.  He has been upgraded from “critical” to “serious but stable” condition.

Why the upgrade?  He was flown to Australia, at presumably some government’s expense, to undergo first-world lifesaving surgery and medical treatment.

Ramos-Horta is 58 years old.  The average male lifespan in East Timor is 64 years.  Why the low mortality age?  I’m not sure what proportion is war and insurrection, what percentage is tropical diseases, and what percentage is lousy medical care, but the latter has to figure in, doesn’t it?

I’m kind of thinking that when a president is shot, he needs to be rushed to the nearest public clinic.  I’d go so far as to say he or she could go to the front of the line, get the best surgeon, and have the government pay the bill.  But to be flown to Australia while your citizens drop like tsetse flies?  Defies belief.

Of course, in this case, that course of action would have been a death sentence.  Which is really the point, when you think about it.

I got my twelve gauge sawed off.
I got my headlights turned off.
I’m ’bout to bust some shots off.
I’m ’bout to dust some cops off.
…
I got my brain on hype.
Tonight’ll be your night.
I got this long-assed knife,
and your neck looks just right.
My adrenaline’s pumpin’.
I got my stereo bumpin’.
I’m ’bout to kill me somethin’
A pig stopped me for nuthin’!

That’s rapper Ice-T, from the original version of album Body Count (1992) before the track was removed, under pressure, by their label, and the artist was likewise dropped.  T, when quoted, said “I’m singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality.  I ain’t never killed no cop.  I felt like it a lot of times.  But I never did it.”

So art, yeah?  It’s really jarring, though, and seems more provocative than when Fred Durst sang Break Shit to a crowd of intoxicated vandals.

OK, same year.  Grunge vocalist Scott Weiland (white) pens and records these lyrics:

I am, I am, I am
I said I wanna get next to you
I said I gonna get close to you
You wouldnt want me have to hurt you too, hurt you too?
…
I am a man, a man
Ill give ya somethin that ya wont forget
I said ya shouldnt have worn that dress
…
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come

As far as I know, Weiland never justified that one.  Sober band-mate Robert DeLeo explained that Weiland was singing in the first person of an “idiot” who would rape a woman, and that it was fictional and not misogynist.  Idiot?  Idiot?  That’s like my moron doctor telling me, when I was educating her about the possibility of modifying her triplicate prescriptions, that someone could do that “If they wanted to be mean.”  Don’t worry, that will get its own post.  But  Idiot?

So me?  I went so far as to skip the Weiland song sometimes on the CD, if I wasn’t too distracted, and it wasn’t the great! acoustic version.  Ice-T?  I loathed and boycotted him, and I still haven’t heard the fucking song.  Years later.  No clue.  Heavy metal beat or what?

I was raised in a very conservative Christian suburb of San Diego with deep racial tensions — honors kids at the high school were being arrested for forming KKK factions, and, as a first-order approximation, all Mexican kids were gang wannabes.  (Seriously, if I were under the kind of social pressure the poor Hispanic kids were under, I’d play the part, too.  I’d like to talk to some of them now, the bullied ones — but, oddly, they don’t show up at reunions.)

Why the double standard?  Because Weiland’s lyrics rhyme slightly better?  No, La Mesa, baby!  Or, more honestly, because I was a poser pastor’s kid in La Mesa who always wanted to be “the good kid”.  That act didn’t stick very far into college, by the way.

OK, Richard Belzer.  Whoa, huge turn, right?  Stay with me please.  My good friend Nathan (hi!) and I watched an anthology of comedy club performances, from comedians and comediennes who later became stars, that somehow some two-bit production company got the repro rights to.  Belzer’s doing his routine — and fucking drunk?  Not sure, but Nathan and I both looked at each other wondering the same thing.  Did he do drunken rants onstage?  Anyone know?

Anyway, Belzer tells a “Pollock” joke, and when the audience boos, he quips, “Yeah, like they’re the smartest people on the planet.  Like there’s no reason for the stereotype.”

OK, the tie-in.  Marcia Gay Harden guest-stars on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a white supremacist.  Really great role and great performance.  She is interviewed one-on-one by Fin and Munch — that is, Ice-T and Belzer.  She’s spewing white supremacist hatred at them that I was flabbergasted got by the censors.  They sit there, stoically taking it.  The twist?  Harden is a federal agent undercover, and later, after killing one of the real supremacists, she apologies to Munch and Fin.  I guess that’s why she was willing to take the role.  Fin nods, shakes her hand, and says, “We’re good.”

So, Law & Order: SVU?  Somehow they never went with the slogan Where the black cops are cop killers, the Jewish cops are racists, and the white supremacists are U.S. Marshals!  Funny, that.

I had to leave my first negative eBay feedback in years.  Seller: theplace3.  This date (10 Feb 2008).  Be sure to search.

Let’s see if I get retaliatory feedback, and see if eBay are good to their word about removing it.

OK, one more, and I’ll stop.  Probably.

I had an intensely terrible nightmare while napping today, one that we could call a WGA Strike Nightmare, a “Shades of Gray” Nightmare, or a Patchwork Nightmare: it contained fragments of pretty much every bad nightmare I’ve had in the last year, even ones I had consciously forgotten, woven together.

But it did have some relatively non-nightmarish weirdness in it.  Philatelic weirdness.  The ninth U.S. president was running around and was assassinated onscreen.  A bystander saw this happen and was able to identify the victim because he was on the nine-cent Prexy that he used on all his outgoing mail!  This bothered me for a couple of reasons in the dream: 9¢ was never the First-Class postage rate in the U.S., all the presidents on the Prexies were already dead when they were put on the stamps, and the Prexies were in use between 1938 and 1952, so the dream shouldn’t have been in color.  But I went with it.

I had to identify to the police who the ninth President was.  This is one of the lists I have memorized for no particular purpose.  So in my dream, I began enumerating them.  Literally, I counted from one to nine, out loud.  I felt foolish.  The next list I tried was books of the Christian Bible, which I also have memorized.  I counted and determined that the president was II Samuel (off by one, not bad while asleep), so I informed the officer that the President’s name was Sam, Jr.

You really didn’t care about any of that, did you?

Do you think we could ask Gmail to put a really unlikely names filter into their program?  I just don’t get legitimate email from anybody named Redler Sanbrough, Pinn Copping, Metter Vittetoe, or Britschgi Buren — not to mention Rainwaters Risby (if you’re writing a TV pilot, feel free to steal that one).  It’s obvious to me that the software is just picking a random first name and a random last name.  Why can’t it be obvious to Gmail?

(Because that essentially racist NLP, one of the relatively few things that you both can’t and shouldn’t do.  Dumbass.)

Reminds me of the hilarious joke (so many levels to the humor): If Muhammad is the most common first name in the world, and Chen is the most common family name, why do you meet so few people named Muhammad Chen?

Fun game: Wandering around the house with your eyes on the carpet, trying to discern where the audible cat barf landed.

Poor Sebastian.  Probably time for the vet again.  But he’s so much better now than “almost dead”, which was his state last year.

Niall:  Do we have a place in the house where we keep empty bottles?

Joshua:  Yes, in the kitchen.

N:  Why haven’t you taken these bottles in?

(Note to reader: I drive a luxury car, but I keep it like I live in it.  No, scratch that.  People who live in their cars have clutter, but it’s probably useful clutter, like clothes.  They’re probably good custodians.  I keep my car’s interior as if I let a schizophrenic homeless woman live in it.  A schizophrenic homeless woman who panhandles for Clamato.)

N:  Your car is very messy, Dad.

J:  Yeah, I know.  I’m not setting a very good example, am I?

N:  When we get to Grandma’s house, let’s take all this trash in.

J:  No, it would be rude to take all this into Grandma’s house.

N:  Why?  (Lightbulb:) Sometimes Grandma gets grumpy when you’re rude.  (I hope and believe he was doing the American thing of using “you” as the third-person indefinite, not the second-person definite.)

J:  Yeah.  I’ll clean it out when I get to our house.

(Upon arriving at my in-laws and opening the trunk:)

N:  Dad, you have cans in your trunk.

(Did I mention the bag lady also joneses for Monster drinks?)

J:  Yes.

N:  Your car is very messy!

J:  Niall, please stop.

Niall:  (From the backseat:) Where is your side flying car person lever switch?

(Pause.  Usually his Foster Wallaceisms are parsable with enough work.  Nope, bailing!)

Joshua:  What?

N:  Do you have a side flying car lever switch?  I like to look at it while I’m riding in the car.

J:  What are you talking about?  What lever?

N:  A sideways flying car lever!  Does your car not go on wheels?

J:  No, it goes on wheels.

N:  Where’s the sideways flying car lever switch?

J:  What does that do when you pull it?

N:  It’s a switch, Daddy.

J:  OK, what happens when you flip it?

N:  The car goes up.

J:  What, like, up in the air?

N:  Yes, up in the air, up behind the sun and behind the sky!  Do you have a straw on the bottom of your car?

J:  No.

N:  The straw helps you go up.

J:  Niall, cars don’t fly.

N:  Not without the switch!

J:  Have you ever been in a car with the switch?

N:  Yes.

J:  Has anyone ever flipped it?

N:  No.

J:  Why not?

N:  (In a tone he may have learned from my dealings with sub-literate customer service operators:) Because then you go up behind the sky!

J:  Oh, sorry.  And that’s not convenient?

N:  No, that’s not convenient.

This is one of three planned Niall posts for today, split apart for your commenting convenience and reading inconvenience.  They are presented in chronological order of how they happened, all on the same drive from home to his maternal grandparents’ in Orange County.

Joshua:  Whoa!  That black car just did something illegal!

Niall:  What did it do?

J:  It crossed a double double-yellow line.  When there are four yellow lines, you can’t cross it.

N:  (Genuinely puzzled:) Why can’t you cross four yellow lines?

(Bravo!  Most kids would have accepted this as some magic of the color and number.  But his razor-sharp reason kicked in again and dispelled the magical thinking.)

J:  Actually, it works the other way: in some places you are not allowed to cross, and in those places they paint two double-yellow lines to let you know.

N:  Why did that car cross them?

(He’s fascinated by motives for disobedience.)

J:  Because that driver thought getting to his destination quickly was more important than being safe.

N:  Is getting there quickly more important than being safe?

J:  (Father-knows-best tone:) No.  Nothing is as important as being safe.

N:  No!

J:  No what?

N:  Being safe is not the most important thing.

(Well, yeah, I don’t believe that either.  And I was just caught trying to brainwash my four-year-old by the subject himself.  Shame on me.)

J:  What’s the most important thing?

N:  CEMENT TRUCKS!

(And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason that, despite powerful reasoning, he’s not allowed to hold the soldering iron yet.)

OK, most monosexual readers would say they have “a type”, however loosely-defined it is.  Here’s a game:

1. Who is the hottest celebrity (film or television) who is entirely not your type?
2. Who is the most repugnant celebrity (film or television) who is completely your type?  Physically.  You can include bearing, but you can’t figure extracurricular stuff into this analysis, such as real-life insanity, hit-and-run accidents, or weird cult memberships.

Think about it for a second.  My answers inside.