Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

I was talking to my roommate’s boyfriend a few weeks ago and he mentioned that he had just seen a band from Jersey. Turns out, it was Thursday. I had seen them for the first time last summer, touring with Taking Back Sunday, and it was an awesome show, and my roommate’s boyfriend agreed. “It’s a shame that was their second to last show.”

Huh?

Turns out, it’s true! The band is on what they’re calling an “indefinite hiatus,” which might not mean they’re broken up, but we might as well lead our lives that way. It really is a shame. People got all wee-weed up recently when At the Drive-In reunited, but as far as “post hardcore” bands go, I was always a Thursday man. So much so, their second album War All the Time made it to my Favorite Albums of the Decade list.

Jersey will rock just a bit less for their passing, but Thursday left us with some awesome tunes, including this one about their home state, off their last album. Listen to a little “Turnpike Divides.”

Winter is an unforgiving season, and New England is an unforgiving region. The only thing lower than temperature outside is our own spirits. The shortness of the days is a constant reminder of how precious little time we have here on this earth, and the nearly enveloping darkness that consumes the majority of the hours calls to mind the inevitable embrace of oblivion. A profound existential dread is not only understandable, but required to maintain even the most cursory semblance of sanity.

Ordinarily, to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel would be the nonsensical ravings of either a dewy-eyed naif, or a lunatic mind. And yet here we are, in the depths of the most frigid of winters, somehow finding the strength to struggle on. From whence does this light shine? What is the source of our hope, however ethereal? It has emerged tonight. Gossip Girl is back.

:00 Is this for real? They had Blair miscarry over the winter break? That seems like a kind of cheap way to weasel out of Blair having a kid.

:04 Or maybe this is all a dream or a hallucination or something?

:05 The “Louis has a new reason to mistrust Blair” plot device is getting as tired as the “everyone jumps through flaming hoops to find a reason to trust Charlie” plot device.

:07 I know this will make me sound like a monster, but I’m feeling a bit of an Emma Stone backlash. What’s the big deal with her?

:12 “Jenny sends her love from London.” Ha! Hopefully that’s the last we hear from her for another season. Also, I completely forgot that Eric van der Woodsen hasn’t been on the show because he’s been tearing it up as Declan Porter on Revenge.

:14 Is that the real Vera Wang? Is there such a person? Am I supposed to know this?

:16 This hat Blair is wearing looks like an embroidered cookie.

We’re meant to believe that this secret Blair and Dan are keeping is that they’re doing it, but that’s clearly not the case. So what is it? Shmashmortion?

:22 Readers outside of the New England region might not know what I’m talking about, but everyone else, have you seen this Jordan’s commercial? Where the Jordan’s dude vacuums the old mattress, and all that dust and junk gets sucked up? Is it true that a mattress almost doubles in weight after eight years?

:24 Rule #1 of Gossip Girl: things are always exactly as they seem. Way to go, Chuck and Louis.

:28 One thing that always takes me out of a narrative is when two characters have a secret, but they never manage to explicitly say what that secret is in the course of their interactions. These are cheap, dirty tricks, GG writers.

:32 Hey look, it’s a party in the second half of the episode that brings all of the characters together.

:33 What a guy Louis is. How many times can two people endeavor to publicly humiliate one another before they realize that perhaps their union is less than sound.

:37 Dan and Blair have been going to a secret church? I’m sorry, but that secret is lamer than the crippled dude that Jesus cured at the pool of Bethesda.

:38 I dunno about you, Serena, but everything I know about Catholicism tells me that God wants people who don’t love each other to be together all the time.

:45 If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Dan and Serena need to get back together! It’s the only relationship on this show that makes any damn sense!

:47 Louis is the prince of Monaco, not the prince of the ladies’ room. What gives him the right to shoo people out!

:48 Interesting. I was just watching the episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Homer almost convert to Catholicism. Those wacky Catholics!

:54 Serena assuming the mantle of the new Gossip Girl is a lot like X-51 assuming the mantle of the Watcher. Let me know in comments if you get that reference!

-10 for the writers not actually showing Lily and Rufus singing “Endless Love.” Can’t get enough of that tune!

:58 Hmmmmm . . . the real Charlie Rhodes goes to Julliard. Intriguing.

:59 If Nate thinks he stands a chance matching wits with Gossip Girl, well, I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t.

I used to play Scrabulous on Facebook, and then the other version after the Scrabble folks sued, so although I never got into Words with Friends—Zynga’s ultra-popular social Scrabble analogue—I knew exactly what my friend Reeves was talking about when he wrote this piece for The Awl. I’ll let him elucidate the issue:

In short, the problem we face is an epidemic of guessing. Unlike traditional Scrabble, where you can demand, on the spot, that your opponent find “zax” in the dictionary, “Words with Friends” opponents can be separated by zip codes, boroughs, even time zones. The game offers no penalty against guessing—it simply declines your attempt, politely encouraging you to try another improbable-but-high-scoring combination of letters.

The same complaints that commentators have about social networking degrading our interpersonal relationships and the anonymity of the Internet allowing us to adopt bolder and brasher personas apply to Words with Friends: words that you would never have the audacity, much less the knowledge, to place on a board laid out on a table between yourself and your friend become the cudgel you use to bludgeon your buddy via your smartphone and wireless network.

xxqjixghz (noun): the sound of your favorite blogger going off the effing deep end

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and immediately downloaded the Words with Friends app. Since then, I’ve been treated to words like talas, gorals, squeg, and lins. To say nothing of those lame two- and three-letter words that are coincidentally formed when someone lays a real word down next to a group of letters already on the board.

It’s infuriating. Reeves and I have a similar mentality, a belief in playing the game the right way. You don’t throw tiles haphazardly on the board. You don’t play a word you wouldn’t be confident playing on a real board. You don’t immediately look up the definition of the bullshit word you just played so that you can immediately cite it when you get called out. But you can only lose so many games before you wonder what the point of playing the game the right way is, if everyone else is going to play the wrong way.

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun understand that I’m nothing if not dedicated to self-discovery and improvement. As I continued to think about Words with Friends, I came to realize the hubris behind my attitude. I was concerned with playing the game the right way, but what game? In Words with Friends, the game will reject any combination of letters it doesn’t consider to be a word. In Words with Friends, there’s no requirement that you know a word, or are least confident that a word exists, before you play it. I was holding myself to, and more importantly judging my friends based on, a code of conduct that existed in my own head. Because the fundamental fact of Words with Friends is this: is isn’t Scrabble.

It looks like Scrabble. It smells like Scrabble. But it isn’t. Softball looks kind of like baseball; gin looks kind of like 500 rummy. But none of these games are the same! If they were, their names wouldn’t be spelled and pronounced differently. There’s no sense in playing if you’re going to try to impose the rules of one on the other.

It may sound stupid, but it’s been liberating, playing the actual game that you’re playing. However, comma, don’t expect me to be able to use “doit” in a sentence.

This is rich.

Apparently, a goodly number of former Penn State football players are pissed about their old school hiring Bill O’Brien, the New England Patriots offensive coordinator. O’Brien, apparently, doesn’t have sufficient, or any, ties to the Penn State program. In the real world outside of Happy Valley, having no ties to the Penn State football program is considered one of the more attractive items on O’Brien’s resume. Not so among several vocal members of the Penn State community, apparently.

I’ll be straight here. I know people that went to Penn State, and I’m sympathetic to their resentment at getting lumped in with the reprehensible monsters they once admired. However, comma, when the rest of us think of “the culture and tradition of Penn State,” we’re thinking “a culture of child rape, and of covering up and enabling child rape.” When we hear about the unique and special way of doing things at Penn State, we think about authority figures raping children and having their sins covered up. This doesn’t mean that everyone left at Penn State is evil, but it does mean that the “culture” and “tradition” of the place are rotten. If there were ever a time to run full-speed away from culture and tradition, or at the very least just keep your head down and shut up, now is it.

Contrary to my first observation down there, I’m starting to turn on Blair. I know they’ve made it so Louis is sort of a plotter and is distrustful of Blair, but I’m apt to believe that was more to elevate Chuck than anything else. Just leave Chuck alone, Blair! Cmon! Anyway, on with the diary.

:01 I can’t lie. I dig Blair’s bangs in this dream sequence.

:02 Dorota, on Chuck: “Apology doesn’t seem so fake to me.”
Blair: “That’s because English is your second language.”

:04 Possibly not unintentional comedy of the episode: Rufus to Dan: “People who still go to bookstores are real readers.”

Diana’s plot to unseat Gossip Girl raises some questions. Is Gossip Girl (the blog) monetized? Who’s advertising on this site? Much of the labor is crowdsourced, but does GG have any paid “reporters”? Has this been explored?

:08 Chuck, on his change of heart: “I like duck l’orange as much as the next person, but I didn’t think it was right to see the poor thing suffer.”

:09 Ha! Yes! Serena is going to get mixed up with Ivy’s ex-boyfriend. I’m getting the faintest whiff of comeuppance here!

:13 Of course Blair makes Chuck-related Venn diagrams with a protractor. Actually, scratch that. Of course Blair would have a protractor around in the first place.

:16 I love how Lily tries to compare Dan on a book tour to Rufus on a rock tour. Maybe they were going from town to town at the same pace, but I’m pretty sure Dan isn’t blasted out of his mind on Kappy’s brand whiskey and blow.

:24 Chuck: Maybe we’re maturing too fast.
Nate: Is that why you’re going back to Phantom of the Opera sex games?

:25 Serena, to Blair: “I think you’re too good scheme.” No, Serena, she is not.

:27 Oh hey, a party that brings all of Gossip Girl’s characters together at the end of the episode.

:31 This poor Max. He doesn’t strike me as terribly savvy. Does he have any idea what he’s in store for?

Dorota, on Blair sneaking out: “You think hiding pillows under covers fools me? You’re lumpier now!” Some welcome revenge for that English crack earlier!

:35 If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you can always trust the gossip monger who would go as far as to steal the cell phones of a party-ful of Manhattan society types and who has no qualms about, quite frankly, ruining people’s lives. Good move, Nate.

:37 Oh, Blair. : (

For a performance where the rules are to remain masked at all times, there’s been a LOT of unmasking going on. And I know that all dopey boys look alike, but are Max and Nate wearing the exact same outfits? How could that slip past Ivy’s notice?

:45 Does Diana think Serena would be bothered by GG sending out a “womp womp, Serena is a loser” blast? All Serena has ever wanted was to be a loser!

:46 Fact checking Dan Humphrey: “My book Every book is a failure.”

:48 Max, instilling some rare backbone into this show.

So Ivy is being smited (smote?) by Diana, who is the season’s clear villain. But does that mean we’re supposed to feel sympathetic? Does it mean that my soul is a shriveled-up husk because I’m rooting for Ivy’s downfall?

:54 Hey, Dorota is getting in on the scheme game! Glad to see that Blair is just bad here, and is completely wrong about Chuck.

:56 Serena, to Ivy: “I’m not alone. I have you.” She’s a fake, Serena! A fake! Don’t get caught in her comeuppance!

:58 Eew. Dan texts “Call u later”? Gross.

:59 Hey, Massachusetts’s own Dom was one of the featured artists tonight. Good band!

When last we met, Dan’s book was causing problems for everybody, Blair and Louis were struggling to get on the same page, and Diana Payne was making ludicrous claims about her new website. In the interest of efficiency, I’m gonna go ahead and copy and paste this intro onto next week’s diary. Let’s do it!

7:58 I’m boycotting any brand that airs a Christmas commercial during a single digit date in November. That means you, Brigham’s ice cream.

8:02 I have some comments to make about Nate and Elizabeth Hurley doing it in the office all the time, but I’m withholding them in case my family or employers read this.

8:04 Hasn’t dream interpretation been discredited in terms of therapy? I need some of Dangerous Dirty & Unfun’s many psychology correspondents to check in here.

8:05 Dorota: “Queen Bee need last hurrah.”

And then

Blair, to Louis: “That’s why we’re a perfect match. You don’t have the scheme gene like I do.” Ha!

8:07 Giving Serena a blog! Do they give blogs to just ANYONE these days?

8:08 Blair, on her potential bridesmaids: “Even Pippa knew when to pipe down.”

Ooooooh. I LIKE this plot by Louis, paying off the psychiatrist. We need Chuck to be unleashed! But he should keep the dog. I like that lil guy.

8:10 Come on, Marshalls and TJ Maxx! Not you too, with a Christmas commercial!

8:12 Eliza Barnes: “Expressing your rage and anger are part of your healing process.” This woman is clearly speaking for the entire Gossip Girl audience.

8:15 Glee this up! Great idea! Of course Dan walks out of a meeting where someone seeks to inject the slightest bit of whimsy into his undoubtedly dour prose.

8:24 I’m disappointed they aren’t going to Glee up Dan’s book. I’m equally disappointed that they’re gonna Zuckerberg the eff out of it.

8:26 Hey, there’s a party that brings all of the cast together at the end of the episode. Wrap yourself in Gossip Girl’s tropes like a warm blanket.

8:29 Let’s just take for granted that Charlie can keep up her own fake identity while also engaging in all manner of subterfuge and secret plots. Meanwhile, I have a hard time remembering to pay my bills. Mmm, that’s some good suspension of disbelief.

What a loyal sidekick that dog is. He’s helping Chuck expose schemes!

8:38 Diana: “The Spectator is only going to print facts.” lol

GG: “Don’t worry B. You’re still marrying a prince . . . of fools.” Gossip Girl went on to add “Also, your face!”

8:45 I don’t think Louis trusts Blair.

Is it just me, or would I not mind a “hatchet job” if it meant that my bestselling novel got turned into a movie written by Aaron Sorkin.

8:47 There’s too many schemers and grifters this season. Serena and Diana and Charlie and Nate and Chuck and Blair. How are we supposed to keep up?

8:53 Serena to Diana: I know I owe you a favor for ruining my friend’s movie deal and getting me fired from my job.

The fundamental flaw behind Diana’s plan to bring down Gossip Girl is that Serena blogging about herself wouldn’t make GG irrelevant: she would just start printing gossip about high school socialites like she did in the first couple seasons. Is the NYSpectator going to employ every student at Constance Ballard as a blogger?

8:56 Sorry, Lana del Rey was distracting me from that emotional Blair and Chuck scene. “Video Games” would be a much better song if it were peppier and its vocals weren’t sung through a bowl of cool grits. I’m waiting for the upbeat punk rock cover. Still, <3 you bb!

Sometimes, you run across a piece of prose that touches your heart with the poignancy of its undiluted, universal truth in such a way that, had it not been written more than a hundred years ago, you feel it could have issued forth from your own pen. In all my years, of all the brilliant writers I’ve read, of all the insightful arguments I’ve consumed, none have ever found themselves in such lockstep agreement with my own sentiments and perspective as this piece from the May 3, 1902 edition of the New York Times, simply and appropriately titled “Pie.” Precious readers, I can assure you that you’ll never find a clearer, more illuminating window into how I look at the world (well, maybe not the “woman’s baneful influence over man” part). Please read it. Hat tip to Lawyers, Guns, and Money for this wonderful treasure.

Sorry for missing last week’s Gossip Girl diary, guys! I was actually off reporting on an assignment for my real job as a professional writer. I ended up watching it online, and I have to say, it’s for the best that you weren’t able to see my real-time thoughts, because they would have consisted mostly of “SWEET FANCY MOSES, HE’S A FICTION WRITER!” and “YOU PEOPLE ARE MORONS, DON’T YOU REMEMBER HOW CRAPPILY YOU’VE TREATED DAN, HE CAN’T HAVE WRITTEN ANYTHING THAT WASN’T ALREADY ON A GOSSIP GIRL BLAST!” and “CHRIST ON A BIKE, RUFUS, YOU ARE THE PLATONIC IDEAL OF AN IDIOT!” I mean, that felt good to type out, but it might not be the most entertaining blog post ever. Anyway, on with this week’s diary!

:00 I just want to say here, w.r.t. last week, that I don’t think Daniel Day Lewis, or his agents, or anyone, gives a flying fuck about the fictional portrayal of the behavior of a film producer’s assistant. Just a hunch based on nothing!

:02 Didn’t Elizabeth Hurley fire all her employees? When’d they come back?

My life, like Eleanor’s and Blair’s, is better when Cyrus is around.

:04 Rufus shuns his own son, but he’s living in the same house as this snake Ivy. I demand comeuppance!

:05 Dan, to Nate: “I’m sorry I made you half a person in my novel, but you’ve forgiven people for much worse.” Dan isn’t wrong here, but he’s taking the wrong strategy by ceding the rhetorical high ground to Nate. His answer should have been “IT’S FICTION, YOU ASSHOLE, THERE ARE CHARACTERS WHO ARE CONFLATED, IT’S HOW ART WORKS!”

:08 Again, when Serena says “how you portrayed me in your book,” Dan needs to say “You mean the fake character that was partially based on you?”

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun are familiar with the fact that I believe Dan and Serena’s love transcends reality, but I guess when the rubber hits the road, my loyalty lies with Lonely Boy. I can’t wait for this duplicitous contrition scheme to blow up in S’s face!

:14 Serena won’t be happy when Dan’s book gets optioned! Because she’s not really Dan’s friend!

So at what point does someone call in like, Poppy Lifton to help wreak revenge on Prince Louis’s trifling sister.

:19 This Daniel Day Lewis thing is really aggravating me! Serena’s boss if treating her like straight up trash, but if her past is so important that it could potentially sink lucrative movie deals, shouldn’t a prospective employer have done some perfunctory research? It’s all there on Gossip Girl! Point being, just fire the girl already so she can pal around with Blair.

:20 So Blair gets brushed off a couple times by Serena, and all of a sudden “everyone is moving on with their lives”? When did the people on this show become such babies? (Don’t answer that.)

:26 Nate: “You just have to show you’re more interested in what matters to the woman than you are in the woman’s . . .”
Chuck: “. . . matters.” Oh, you boys.

So, is Chuck going to convince this psychiatrist lady to skip her own Yom Kippur celebration to go to the Waldorf’s, hence getting everyone in the same room in traditional Gossip Girl fashion.

:29 F. Scott Fitzjackass! I dig it!

:38 All this royal family stuff is well and good, but am I the only one who thinks it would be more compelling if GG took place in a time where these things were decided by armies of guys with broadswords?

:44 Sophia is awful, but she’s not wrong about Blair. She can’t be trusted!

:45 Ugh, Nate. You’re gonna turn your back, and Ivy isn’t going to return those documents. Watch.

:46 We’re meant to believe that based on her quick (and accurate) diagnosis that this psychiatrist is supposed to be really good. But then we remember that Chuck Bass wears his psychological issues like a bright paisley ascot. Even a monkey could diagnose him!

:47 Dan: “It’s a novel. It’s inspired by a lot of things.” Finally! Also, this “love of my life” bullshit that Serena is bullshitting Dan with is like, totally nonsense.

GG: “That’s the thing about writing what you know. Pretty soon everyone else knows it too.” That’s cold, Gossip Girl. Cold, but fair!

:53 A constant stream of content, 24 hours a day? Good luck, Elizabeth Hurley!

:57 Can we please get Dan and Serena back together? I know I’ve been hard on the both of them, but if you give them another chance, I swear I’ll be better.

:58 How come, on TV, when someone burns something in their office wastebasket, the wastebasket is empty?

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun understand that I love the Yankees. They're playing the Tigers tonight in the deciding game of the American League Division Series.

Even though the Yanks had the best record in the league this season, and the most championships of any team ever, I'm always pessimistic about their playoff chances. This understandably infuriates fans of other teams.

The Yankees are playing the Tigers. Here's their coach, Jim Leyland.

Yankees starter just gave up back to back home runs in the first inning. Here's a picture of what almost happened here at DD&U HQ.

The Official Philadelphia Correspondent of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun just asked if A-Rod has been playing this series. It's a credible question! Dude's been absent.

Number 11 is a Gardener. He grows hits. Good thing he bats ninth.

Here is Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun’s official position on Joe Girardi removing Phil Hughes after an inning and a third:

I was saying Boone Logan.

Brett Gardner's foulout with the bases loaded gave me time to draw this pond full of ducks. It's still 2-0 Tigers in the top of the fifth.

CC Sabathia just intentionally walked Miguel Cabrera to put men on first and second with two outs. John Smoltz said that the next batter, Victor Martinez, bats .343 when Cabrera is IBBed, and hence 'comes through more often than not.' Regular doers of math understand that this just isn't true. Of course, Martinez smacked an RBI single, so I guess for baseball purposes, it is.

It's easier to draw pictures of boats than ballplayers. Robbie Canoe just put the Yanks on the board with a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth. 3-1 Tigers.

Raphael Soriano coming into an elimination game in an important spot? I'd better change into my v-neck. #pullscollar

In completely non-baseball-related news, does anyone know what happened to the giant bottle of wine I was drinking?

Tigers reliever Joaquin Benoit: 'What's the problem?'

Usually, just by aiming my laptop screen at a plate or a pot. To wit, this chicken soup I made the other day.

Those shadows are purely for effect.

It doesn’t make a difference to me! The food usually turns out pretty good. Eating that soup, for instance, was like getting smashed in the taste bone with a flavor mallet.

However, comma, not everyone has such a poor attitude toward food photography! My dear friend Meg has a food blog (appropriately titled Meg in the Kitchen) that not only looks excellent, but features great recipes. Meg is a fantastic cook, and she’s also studying to be a nutritionist, so you can count on her to not lead you the wrong way when it comes to wholesome ingredients. So bookmark it!