Michael watches this show Jon & Kate Plus 8 on The Learning Channel (check your local listings). For those of you who have not heard of it, it is a reality show about two thirty-somethings raising eight children, one set of twins and one set of sextuplets.

Michael: It’s a good show you watch it.

Me: Like you, I can’t stand children.

Michael: Well I don’t like serial killers but I watch movies about them and the critically-acclaimed television show Dexter.

Me: Huh.

Michael: I wouldn’t want to parent or kill…

Me: I have feeling you’re bound to do one of those things in your life.

Michael: …However, I appreciate the drama, pathos, and character development in art involving parenting and killing. When I watch Jon & Kate Plus 8, its like watching a horror movie especially from the standpoint of the husband…It’s something I would never want to experience.

Me: Use of “however” is one of the signs of an inferior writer.

Michael: We’re having a conversation.

Me: Who said we weren’t? I mean if we weren’t I would have to go back and take out all these contractions.

Michael: You’ve lost me. But anyway, I don’t like sports and I find sitting through a sporting event incredibly boring but I watch the critically-acclaimed NBC show Friday Night Lights. And I read Charles Dickens which is full of insufferable children…It’s about drama and pathos.

Me: There are a lot of contractions in this!

“If the better is the less vulgar and the less vulgar is always that which appeals to the better audience, then obviously the art which makes its appeal to everybody is eminently vulgar.”
-Aristotle, Poetics

Once in high school, in one of Michael’s classes, the teacher mentioned the BTK killer whom had been recently captured. She pondered aloud what BTK was acronymous for. Michael quickly replied, “Bind, torture, kill.” One of Michael’s classmates later informed him that his knowledge of the BTK killer and the manner in which he said it was “creepy.” Michael had learned the meaning from CNN.

Once in high school, Michael was sitting at a table with two girls. One of these girls he was very familiar with, the other not-so much. The girl he was not-so familiar with was eating an apple. Michael looked at her and said, “Eating an apple is a very visceral thing.” This time Michael immediately recognized that the manner in which he said this and this view was “creepy.” However, it was unintentionally amusing, and the girl he was more familiar with was especially amused and it increased Michael’s bond with her.

Once while campaigning for a New York state congressional candidate, Michael after looking at all the people in the campaign office, and considering how cold upstate New York was in the winter, said to his illustrious compatriots of the Cornell Democrats, “It would probably be easier if we all just illegally voted than campaigned.” Michael’s compatriots were confused by Michael’s level of cynicism. An upper-level campaign worker also heard Michael and she was only semi-amused and shhd him in an awkward manner.

Michael often wonders, “Who are those other guys in Coldplay.” He then uses Wikipedia to find out; he then promptly forgets.

Conversation Michael once had:

Girl: You know Lauryn Hill is racist.

Michael: How can she be racist she’s friends with Zach Braff…Who’s whiter than Zach Braff?

Girl: I read she was racist.

Michael: That’s like saying I hate Catholics but I’m best friends with the Pope.

Girl: I think you can have friends with differing beliefs and still hate those beliefs.

Michael was and is ambivalent about this particular interlocution. While he was funny–people laughed. He mentioned race which he is loathed to do. And the Girl figuratively walked away thinking she was smarter than Michael. And she thought Michael was a very trivial, irreverent person. Irreverent is good on occasion but not trivial.

Michael hates Carlos Mencia. Saying Beaner does not make you edgy. Isn’t that relevant to the aforementioned incident?

“Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.”
-Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Interestingly enough, this blog is a continuation of the xanga entitled “Where are the Snowdens of Yesteryear”, authored by Mackay_Marvolo.

For my first post I have delved into my archives. This post is from March 17, 2007:

Michael: So the other day, I was seized by a great ennui. I decided to watch the entire season of the CBS show Jericho (well at least the season so far).

Me: You said that last part parenthetically?

Michael: Um…sure why not? So anyway, I’m watching it, it’s ok, but obviously it’s a part of this phenomenon of shows with a singular plots that rely on ensemble casts, character development and suspense, i.e. Lost, Prison Break. However, as I am watching this show. I realize that CBS has CBS-ized this genre to fit their network.

Me: CBS-ized?

Michael: Yeah, the show is populated by old, unattractive people, undersexed teenagers, middle-age red-staters, and if there is an anti-hero, he has been severely attenuated and overshadowed by a more traditional hero type. And when I say the teenagers are undersexed, I mean they are like Leave it to Beaver undersexed not 7th Heaven undersexed, along with the twenty and thirty-somethings. Where is the provocative, glossy sexuality of ABC? Where are the prurient teenagers of Fox and the CW? Where is the trenchant, concisive writing of NBC? The evocative, suspenseful writing of ABC? I mean really, I can’t live vicariously through these people!

Me: I see.

Michael: Anyway, the show is about a post-nuclear US, and it takes place in a small town in Kansas. It’s good in some areas, in other areas it’s like some weird amalgam of Touched by An Angel and Men in Trees.

Me: [shudder] Men in Trees.

Michael: I’m sorry, I know how much Men in Trees perturbs you.

Me: I just don’t understand? How can that man be attracted to Ellen’s girlfriend? [shakes head]

Michael: Well as arcane as that comment was…I guess I would say Jericho is for the most satisfactory-for CBS. Really, CBS is just CSI (which I hate and that was parenthetical)…

Me: Oh thanks, that makes things so much easier.

Michael: …with filler. Meanwhile Jericho has Skeet Ulrich in it.

Me: [shudder] The guy whose career is based off his passing resemblance to Johnny Depp.

Michael: Yeah that’s him. Meanwhile…

Me: Really that’s a horrible transition. I can just put in transitions later.

Michael: Oh, like the five minutes later crap.

Me: Fuck you too.

Michael: I don’t like saying “meanwhile,” just like I don’t saying “prick,” but just like “prick” emphasizes how disgusted I am with a person “meanwhile” emphasizes my desperation for a transition. And Fran Drescher on The Nanny said it a lot.

Me: Let’s go over my dislikes again because obviously you have forgotten: Men in Trees, Fran Drescher, Skeet Ulrich, Anne Heche, Raoul Castro, Trey Parker, Delta Burke, Adam West after the 1970s, Casey Affleck and that Vietnamese kid Angelina Jolie just adopted.

Michael: My God, I don’t know where to start. How can you hate Raoul Castro and not Fidel? How can you hate Delta Burke and not the whole cast of Designing Women? How can you hate Casey Affleck and not his brother? How can you hate the Vietnamese kid and not the Cambodian one? How can you hate Fran… well Adam West…never mind.

Me: Well Michael, it’s about nuances and layers of meaning. It’s why I like John Locke on Lost more than Jack Shepherd.

Michael: This is getting to abstruse.

Me: How did you develop this criticism of CBS?

Michael: I guess I had a conversation with myself.

Me: Like right now?

Michael: No I mean earlier yesterday.

Me: …but…

Michael: ?