baby daddy

With a recent crash of my internal harddrive, I now realize, on a plan to New York, that my computer currently lacks all of the original components it came with, among these, Iphoto, Microsoft Office, all of my music. This means, my computer is virtually useless. I am also pissed at the Apple Store for not refurbishing my computer with all of its original assets and commodities. 

Now, with my technologically disadvantaged computer and on a plane- picture this, crying baby to my left and dad picking his nose; to my right, a man with a large cross on his arm who can probably see my computer and is probably offended right now- I have spent the last hour or so noshing on Vanity Fair, mainly zeroing in on the sensationalist articles and skipping the ones that have the words "bail out" or "economy" in them. I guess that is just the sort of person that I am. I am far more likely to be drawn LeBron's memoir of a champion, the blow by blow of sex crazed Phillip Markoff's bouts as a real life American Psycho, and most definitely a personal memoir written by the one and only 18 year old heartthrob/ teen father, Levi Johnston. I absolutely love real life accounts, especially when they center around interesting content, such as Sarah Palin's personal life. And what is my final impression after reading Levi's bouts in Palin-land? I should dare say, he has an outstanding publicist. 

Everything about the essay/account screams Carhart wearin'- bison huntin'-ford truck drivin-hockey puck slingin' - back country boy. It is everything the public would expect and more. He gets down and dirty, has no filter for Palin and family's privacy or personal lives. With everything from his accounts of Palin slinking out of work early to watch those 'wedding shows" and sit around in her 'wall mart pajamas' that she has in every color. He, very painfully, details life on the campaign trail, where it basically boils down to the fact that is was a) boring and b) he had to just hang out with Bristol. Poor ol' boy just wanted to get back to snow mobile. He exposes Palin as a self centered person and a terrible parent very matter of factly. He lights on how she has absolutely no relationship with her children and even goes so far to refer to the most recent addition to her brood, Trig, as "that retard baby". 

Levi, though, can pull off this expose without sounding even a little bit malicious. He sounds more, well, simple. While reading this article, my mind returned to other books written in the first person that detailed mentally simple characters. On that came to mind was Flowers for Algernon. Or other books, like the way Scout looks at life in To Kill a Mockingbird. Now, Levi is neither a mentally disabled middle aged man nor an eight year old girl. He does, however, really embrace that innocent charm while writing. 

Toneless and completely written from the angle of a third person omniscient character, Levi's account never lets on to any emotion regarding the entire situation. When he speaks of Bristol, there is no element of charm or charisma that he uses while describing the relationship. "I met her at the hockey rink. I thought she was cute." We do have to keep in mind, too, that he is a teenage boy. When he  describes finding out that Sarah Palin did not actually like  him, he merely says, "it came as a surprise." Something tells me, though, that it was not a surprise as feeling surprised would be a personal reaction to another force of opinion and I really don't think Levi is capable of this. 

Despite lack of tone, Levi is not wanton for details. He spends a great deal of time describing what it was like to get clothes and then give them back, Sarah Palin's luxury suites during the campaigns, Sarah's lounge wear, and Todd, Palin's husband, who basically lives in the garage. The entire article was basically a clusterfuck of tangents and superfluous details boiling down to a whole lot of nothing. Just like a third grader might ramble through a story, Levi rambles like crazy about life as a Palin. But I do believe that this is the entire point of his entry and his writing career. To give the world another taste of innocence lost and the remnants of one who has suffered through a whirlwind of fame. 

Toward the end of the article, he casually notes  that he had to go to a trial for his mom who had been caught selling prescription drugs. He seems un-phased by the trial and, at this point in the article, the reader might notice that this is the first time this boy has talked about his own family and life outside of the Palins. At this time, I began to feel sorry for the boy, who, as this voiceless writer, does not even have his own life to write. He is moreso a marketing tool to 'innocently' provide an account for America of the 'truth'. And because he is essentially a victim of temporary fame, we do feel for this little sport and we tend to believe him. We've got no reason not to believe him, if anything else. 

Levi's bland story ties up nicely as he, casually again, drops that with the engagement a no go he is suddenly in the spot light still and being petitioned to go into modeling. Luckily he's got a right hand man, Rex, a lawyer left over from mom's trial, to serve basically as his agent (it's hard to find one in Alaska, apparently). Levi provides us with an outstanding visual of Rex as a tall, large African American man who has cufflinks personalized with his name. I am guessing that Rex also doubles as his body guard and eventually trainer and nutritionist. Rex assures him that he will take care of him and that it is best to just see where things go as everyone will ont make it as a celebrity. Rex doesn't say it outloud but he is so excited about making some phat cash. 

This simple man/boy's story wraps up with him casually shrugging that he might be a celebrity someday soon and that he does not think Rex is capitalizing on him. He emphasizes that he loves his son and will take care of him and could care less about any "big old mansion and bently." Levi claims he would be just as happy to be an electrician like everyone else in his family 'cuz "that's fun, too." 

I can't help but think about the number of editors and publicists grazed this articles contents for this sappy-sweet-simple ending to give our boy Levi some major points as a nice country boy. On that note, I am also a bit concerned that for the last 30 minutes I have been analyzing the prose of a high school student and all of the strings behind it. I am also concerned that, out of all of fine word-smithery available in any given article of Vanity Fair, that i am the most fascinated by an entry by a small town boy from Alaska. It would not surprise me, either, though, if this were the same case for at least half of the population reading this magazine: We are nosy. We want some dirt. We don't really care about the presentation. 

A rabbi, a judge, and a hot balloonist walk into the bar

Last Thursday, we had a big decision to make : Would we attend the Jewish networking event at Angels and Outlaws or the less culturally specific networking event at Un Baccio? Both had the potential to be mildly amusing so it was a toughie. In the end, J and I decided to go to both. Who says you can't have your jews and your gentiles, too?

Strategy-wise, it made the most sense to go to the Jewish event first, as J claimed it would most likely be dead and ended earlier. At the door, we signed in. Now, if you saw me, you would know that I show no physical semblance of typical Jewish build or features in general. i actually look extremely swedish. This isn't to say that i don't identify with them on a socio-cultural level. Nevertheless, I wrote down M. Goldblum as my name, as Jeff Goldblum is one of my favorite jews, mainly because of his dabblings in Jurassic Park. Nothing is sexier than a man who doesn't bat an eye at a velozorapter that is trying to bite his face off. and, furthermore, I have been told on many occasions that I look like Laura Dern. 

We stayed no more than five minutes,as  J saw someone who had been bothering her on a Jewish networking website as of recently. We downed our drinks and headed to what we thought would be more predominantly Goy. My name tag was about to change from Goldblum to Cunningham. 

One would think that I would use these events to my advantage, to meet people who might help me with career advancement or could at least connect me to those that might. Unfortunately, I am far to immature to network with useful people. I much prefer to go to these events and seek out the biggest weirdos I can find. Their stories are much more lucrative, in my opinion. 

If there is anything I have learned from these networking events it is that people love to tell you about themselves and will basically tell you anything, so long as you go about questioning in the right manner. This can be tricky as occasionally your new conversant might catch onto the facetious nature of the questioning and become offended by your insincere petitions for information. I have also learned to be wary that, perhaps more importantly, stranger men often mistaken an inquisitive demeanor for flirtation. When they cross into this mindset, they are no longer useful for informative fodder and you must dispose of them as quickly as possible before it gets ugly.

At this particular event I met several strong characters. The first was a man who had some boring job I cannot remember as his main job. However, he gave me a card for his side job which happened to be selling suckers that help you lose weight. The card read "Eat candy! Lose weight!" On the back the card listed all of the chemicals in the sucker (we will probably find out that all of these ingredients are carcinogenic in about 5 years). It also had a label that indicated that you should not exceed daily consumption of 3 suckers per day. 

"So, what happens if I eat more than 3 suckers in one day," I asked while pointing to the label, "like what if i go on a sucker binge because the are so delicious? Or if i have an oral fixation and always need to have one in my mouth?"

The man laughed, "Oh nothing too serious to worry about, you just need to watch your guarine intake, that's all." Yikes, guarine. I badgered him for a few more minutes about his favorite flavors and personal results from the sucker. He was informative but a bit boring so I let him go. This was kind of like speed dating with people you don't want to date.  

Meanwhile, J had met a large white haired man named Michael who looked a whole lot like Michael McDonald or Santa Clause, depending on which popular personality you were raised to identify with. Michael was a hot balloonist. He was celebrating the 30th birthday of his balloon and the 30th anniversary of his life as a balloonist. At first I was confused and thought the anniversary had something to do with a marital anniversary but then I realized it was much more intimate than the union of a man and a woman: It was about a man and his balloon. 

Michael did not stay too long and was soon replaced by a new Michael, a leathery, glazey- eyed man grappling a glass of water . I immediately engaged Michael #2 in conversation to get his details. He used the table were were perched at to balance himself. 

"What do you do, Michael?"

"Oh, I'm a judge."

"That's interesting, do you enjoy making important choices?"

"Sometimes. What I really like to do is play tennis."

Then Michael went on to tell me about how he was going to Marbella for a full Spanish immersion course. As I have been to Marbella several times, I gushed about how lovely the beaches are and about all of the celebrities he was going to get to meet. Michael said he was interested in learning spanish but more interested in all of the tennis he was going to get to play. I told him he had to play a match or two with P Diddy if P Diddy was there. Michael liked that. He also thought i was flirting with him. 

It got a little too weird when he started talking about his seventeen year old daughter. This was when I knew I had to end this little ditty. Luckily, a personal trainer walked up behind my table and Michael pounced on her before the little mouse knew what had hit her. I slipped out to the restroom and, on the way, met a very old man in a tropical shirt. He was eating free Bruschetta appetizers and I made him show me where they were at. After shoving a few in my mouth, i figured it was safe to go back. 

With Michael gone, a rabbi had siddled up to our table and began chatting us up about the approaching high holidays. Luckily J and her sister B, who had joined our party, were legitimately Jewish and could talk the talk. The rabbi handed them flyers, completely ignoring me, until i tapped him on the shoulders and made a sad face, "i have no where to celebrate the high holidays." He looked at me, a little shocked and amazing, but fully will to accept this little goy into his big jewish heart. 

Like most of the strangers that night, rabbi sort of overstayed his welcome. about an hour after arriving, we bid the rabbi farewell and went to get pizza. Within two hours of leaving I was back at my apartment with a stack of useless business cards in my purse and a few new stories to share.