Pinkerton's Weblog

A Tale of Two Biceps

Walking into my apartment later at night, I'm met by two really drunk guys in the elevator. I'm reading, so I don't much think of them beyond the fact that they seem pretty potted and surly. The one guy, in a grungy old ball cap and cheap clothes, is chewing out his skinnier drug-addict counterpart.

"I'm tellin' you, man," he slurs, leaning an arm against the wall for balance. "Next time you got trouble, you let me know. I'll straighten 'em out for you. Tha's what I'm here for, man. I live for that kind of thing. I am THERE for you with that, man. Seriously. TELL me."

His frankly non-impressive size doesn't seem to in any way back up his "I kick ass" claim, but I've by now gotten so used to late-night Toronto drunk-talk that I don't even pay attention. Nose deep in a book, I block them out and wait for the elevator. Whatever their deal is, I couldn't care less about it.

The elevator dings. I let them step in first, following them in. Press the button for my floor. go back to the book. Out of the corner of my attention, I hear "Feel my arm, dude," but don't register it. Whatever shenanigans they're up to, they're more than welcome to engage in them. I'm off in a few floors anyway.

Suddenly a bicep is thrust under my nose. I look up, confused, and backpeddle the memory a little. I vaguely recall a request for someone to feel someone else's bicep. Ah. Apparently that was all me. I'M supposed to feel this drunk, machismo-and-Pabst-fueled idiot's bicep.

I feel the bicep obligingly. It feels like a bicep. It's not large, or in any way worthy, in my opinion, of showing off to complete strangers. Still, it IS a bicep. Fits right on his arm and everything.

"Very nice," I say with a nod. Taking this for the admittal of his Herculean powers that it most assuredly was, he commences to flex his meager business all over the elevator. "You see, man?! you SEE?" he says, as if my bicep-squeeze was the final piece of evidence to tip the scales. "I can look out for you, man. I will fuck... shit... UP!" Again, he flexes all over the place. I'm not exactly SCARED. He's not that big. However, I am apprehensive, since he IS, big or not, clearly all about fighting.

The skinny drug addict friend, noticing my confused stare, pokes HIS bicep in my face.

"Here, here! Feel MINE now!" he says, all nervous laughter. He's hoping to diffuse what has apparently now becoming a situation, God bless him. The elevator's on the third floor and climbing.

"Well, that one's nice too," I say, feeling like their mother. ("You're BOTH my little heroes!") I am bewildered and just want to get back to my book. Mainly I'm unclear what it is they want from me. A fight? Friendship? More bicep-touching? Trophies for "Best Fighting-Type Drunk-N'-Stuff Guys"? I'm baffled. They REALLY didn't have the enormous size to back up what they're bullshitting here.

"Brother -- I want you to do me a favour," says the "big" one. He's still, against all reason, flexing all over the place.

"You got it," I say, trying not to smile.

"I want you to spell 'okay' backwards."

Sixth floor and climbing.

"Alright," I say, thinking. "Y... A... K... O. There."

"THAT'S RIGHT!" he says, punching the side of the elevator. "K.O.! K.O., baby! I am a fucking DEATH warrant, brother! I am a --"

It is precisely now that he figures out I haven't actually spelled K.O., and have thus, accidentally, made him look like a complete and total idiot. His eyes cloud. Close into slits. Whoops.

"You some kind of smart guy?" he says. Drug addict looks at the floor.

"I guess," I say. "That's how it's spelled and everything."

Ninth floor. My floor. The elevator stops with a jolt and the doors open.

"I think it's time for you to go now," he says, pointing ominously at the door. "I'm tired of you." It's obvious he's trying to salvage a little tough-guy dignity in front of his friend, making it out like he's ORDERING me off the elevator. It's kind of sad, really. It was the floor I'd WANTED to get off on. I'd pushed the button for it. But no. We had to play it like I was slinking out of the elevator early to avoid the big bad man and his big bad not-terribly-impressive biceps.

"Sure," I say, exiting.

He nods. All is right with the world.

"I'm sure you two want to be alone with your biceps, anyway," I can't resist adding, and am pleased to see him lunge at the door just as it closes.

Morons. I am many things when I'm drunk, this I admit. But if I ever start going up to people asking them to feel my arms, I want you to hit me in the head as hard as you can. Promise me this. Promise me I will never be on my drunkest day as punishingly stupid as that guy.

Stuck In The Middle With (All 5,000 Of) You

Fire drill in my 50-storey building at 11:00 today.

I'd seen the postings on the wall for weeks but not really registered it -- otherwise I would have made sure to have already been out of the building when the alarm started going off.

What a waste of time. I can empathize with the building administrators, who are obligated to do this kind of thing every so often to avoid lawsuits; test the sirens, ensure the right doors lock and unlock when they're supposed to. But really, couldn't they just hire a few guys to go through the paces and leave everyone else out of it? There's no benefit to a fire drill for the people working in it: 1.) You go to the stairs. 2.) You walk down the stairs. When you reach the bottom, 3.) you walk outside. It's not terribly complicated. Why we need to "drill" this every six months like we’re being asked to navigate through some Elizabethan hedge maze is beyond me.

The siren wails at full volume as everyone on my floor grabs their coats and heads for the stairs. I enter into the vast line of people descending the emergency staircase and, single file, we trudge downwards.

For an entire floor. Then, the line stops dead. Vague mumblings and laughter. This stretches to two minutes.

To ten minutes.

To fifteen minutes.

Eventually someone pipes up, "Wouldn't we all be dead by now?"

"Yeah," I respond. "The How Fast Can We Kill Everybody drill was a huge success!"

Some laughter, more looking at watches. I cock my head upwards at the staircase spiraling up thirty floors -- hundreds and hundreds of hands on the railings. I look downwards at hundreds and hundreds of hands on the railings. The temperature begins to rise from all the body heat. It's a large tumult of conversations, laughter, anger, yelling, and stomping.

I begin, despite myself, to wonder about the strength of the staircase -- visualize without wanting to me in trapped like a sardine, hearing the enormous sound like a banshee wail of heavy steel bending and snapping, the moorings giving way under the weight, the sudden lurch as the ground gave way. I see the railing I would grab onto. How long would that hold? How long could I hang on with bodies and cement chunks and steel flying past me?

I should mention that I'm mildly agoraphobic. It's also called demophobia, enochlophobia and ochlophobia (I wonder if there's a fear of redundant naming?). Whatever you call it, it means I hate crowds.

Not ALL crowds. I can go to a ballgame or a concert or a fair or even a crowded bar and not even notice it. It's hard to explain what specifically sets it off -- all I can give in the way of explanation is that every one of the venues I just named involve tickets, head-counting, seats if you need them, and at least some semblance of order. There might be 30,000 heads at a Stones concert; but there are also 30,000 tickets and 30,000 seats, so as long as I've got some assurance that someone thought about this before I did, I don't care.

What sets me off is a tightly-packed crowd, an agitated crowd -- chaotic, riled – in an unexpected or uncontrolled situation. Shopping at Christmas fills me with dread for this reason. Ditto walking down Yonge Street at certain times of the day, when it's too busy to accommodate the sheer numbers, and so everybody simultaneously decides THEY deserve preferential treatment.

I suspect at the root of this fear is an intense cynicism towards my fellow man's nobility. I tend to see people in situations like this -- in an overcrowded street; packed in a mall running after rapidly depleting items; getting antsy in a crowded, packed-to-capacity-and-still-filling staircase -- as dumb, unthinking, self-centred little trolls. I know people aren't like this - I'm merely referring to the well-known "mob mentality" phenomenon that takes hold of a crowd given any sort of stress or adversity, however small.

As individuals, I don't doubt there are some sterling examples of patience and virtue. As a collective, though, we are shameful. Kids run around screaming; people elbow each other out of the way; toss garbage unthinkingly in the paths of others; pick fights with other people; scream; yell; say horrible things; shriek with laughter; act like animals. Add some chaos to that mix, like putting too many people in an enclosed space.... well, all I see when I look around is a group of savages. And I panic. I want out.

This lack of trust also extends to my irrational panic attack about the staircase crumbling under the weight. Whenever I'm in a situation like this where I even have the inkling of an idea that this hasn't been prepared for in advance, I suspect the worst. Was this staircase built with the thought in mind that every one of the building's tenants would stand on it all at once, all the way up fifty floors, for ten minutes? Twenty? Half an hour?

Not helping me calm down at all is the air raid siren still whooping, bouncing off the closed-in staircase, amplifying itself to irritatingly loud decibel levels. I'm not freaking out yet. I'm holding it together. But I'm definitely NOT having a good time. Occasional loud thumps five stories up, most likely someone dropping a briefcase, make me jump half a foot. I'm scrunched in tight as a sardine, and I note that, of course, other people are still trying to crowd into the already full stairwell.

Finally, after what seems like twenty minutes of not moving, I do start to freak out. No gnashing of teeth, or froth at the mouth, or whatever. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. I slowly work my way backwards to the door out to the 18th floor, and wait for the attack to pass. I head for the nearest room and sit down for a minute. As it turns out, it’s a boardroom.

As I’m sitting there, someone walks by, looks in, and says “We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes, finish off the meeting.” His head disappears. Re-appears a second later. “Who are you?” he asks.

“I just wanted a breather,” I say.

“Oh,” he says.

“Can I still come to the meeting?”

Goddamnit! Who Put Luncheon Meat In My Inbox?

spam n.

Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

Hypothetically, the "junk mail" feature of a Hotmail account is useful for getting rid of spam. Realistically though, I still have to go through the junk mail folder daily, looking for the odd email from a real person that gets lumped in there by accident. It's only ever happened a few times, admittedly; but every time that email has been at least somewhat important. Because of this, I now have to check two inboxes every time I log into Hotmail: my "junk mail" folder, which will contain up to thirty pieces of spam mail at any given time; and my "inbox", which contains over forty pieces of spam mail that managed to make it past the filter.

Admittedly, I've had my Hotmail account for something like eight years now, so it's had a chance to get lodged in the databases of every single spammer on the planet. I've used the account countless times while gaining access to download shareware and other tools; I've used it to set up online accounts for various new online thingies that've come up over the years, your ICQs and Napsters and so on; I've even used it to gain access to some fairly questionable websites; and I've done this for years. So at this point, my spam-to-email ratio is something like 80 to 1 and climbing. And maybe it is finally time to retire the poor account and get a new one. But for one, I've already given everybody I've ever known for eight years this email, so it'd be an enormous hassle switching now. And secondly, I managed to procure james_pinkerton@hotmail.com. Not james_pinkerton445, not jpinkerton_34, but James underscore goddamn Pinkerton, baby. Given the sheer number of people who use Hotmail, many of whom I don't doubt share my name, I consider this a bit of a coup. To abandon the email now would be like giving away a prime plot of land. Countless James Pinkertons out there have to make do with unweildy, cumbersome email addresses with more numbers and ampersands than proper letters -- letting my email address rot away unused would, in some way, betray them. I can't give up the good fight. And so I must shovel out boatloads of spam from the damn thing on a twice-daily basis.

I'm sure you've noticed this yourself, but the spammers are getting wilier. It used to be you'd get a few emails with subject headers like "MAKE THEM GO WILD WITH YOU'RE HUG 12 INCH MEMBER!!!" or "Work Form Home And Be A Milionare!" It was easy to spot them, with their unnecessary exclamation and unfortune all-caps spelling.

(As an aside to the mass-emailing pornographers out there: if you're sending a spam-ad to 100,000 people, have the decency to run a quick spell-check, okay? Honestly, is your time so precious? Are there truly so many vile porn-based activities on your itinerary that you can't take the time to spell "XXX Colege Slutes" properly? Just because you're a reprehensible near-felon, that doesn't mean you shouldn't take some measure of pride in your job. Get Hooked on Phonics, greasy porno-guys of America. You won't regret it.)

Nowadays, though, the spammers have gotten collectively crazy like foxes. The subject headers now read "Important: About Your Loan!" or "Hey, haven't seen you in a while." Like the velociraptor smacking its small bullet head systematically along the electrified fence, they've LEARNED. Now they come in camouflage, in the innocence guises of local bank representatives, people you conceivably met at parties, and other people with important news.

It still doesn't work, of course, because we're not actually THAT stupid. If there was seriously a problem with my loan, I'd like to think the multi-billion dollar corporation that governs my account wouldn't let me know through a strange loner named Jack from @freediplomas.org. They'd call me, like the sensible human beings they are. Ditto for everyone else with "important news" -- honestly, if something had really happened to my grandmother, I'm fairly certain my father would simply call me, and not email me disguised as 89909knfishgrrab@sex-addicts.porn.bigtits.com. My father, while gifted in many other areas, is about as capable of sending email as he would be leaping across the province to tell me the news in person.

So I make it a game now -- which spam mail's gonna fool me this month? Or better, have such a surreally interesting subject header that, even though I know full well it's only an ad for teen web cams, I'll still open it? Like "Lose 20 Pounds in Fifteen Seconds!" I'm sorry, but anyone who makes a claim that blatantly stupid has my full attention. (As it turns out, the program in question involves taking a "miracle pill" three times a day with water for a week while eating no food. They mention the "eat no food for a week" thing as an aside, focusing their attention on the miracle pill; but somehow, I sense the not-eating step of this plan might have something to do with the miracle weight loss.)

Or "GET THE BIG BRESTS YOU DESERVE, JAY_PINKERTON!!" Not only has this stranger taken the time to address me by name, but they've also decided I'm entitled to big breasts. Whether or not I want them is beside the point -- what's important is they've determined I'm owed them, and I'm touched by their concern.

The best of all of them, however, is the latest breed -- the ICQ spammer. Earlier today I got an unprompted message from a girl named Debbie who, as luck would have it, was 23 and lived in Toronto. "How are you doing?" asked Debbie. "Good, I hope! ;)"

I decided it best not to answer, instead opening up Debbie's personal information file. Ah. Apparently, Debbie's homepage is "www.sex-sluts.com." She must share the webpage with other sex-sluts she knows, I surmised. Her URL was followed by the information that Debbie was single, and looking for a boyfriend. Well, good for her. It's hard for a young sex-slut in the big city to find that special someone. Though I instinctively knew I wasn't her Mr. Right, I nonetheless wished her the best on her search. Then I blocked her ICQ number and went about my business.

All of this leading to a thought some minutes later: somewhere out there, that gambit plausibly worked. Is there someone out there, even as I write this, talking to "Debbie" on ICQ? Purposefully ignoring her URL, or maybe contriving some wholly fictional excuse in his mind for why she might have chosen "sex-sluts" as her homepage? I don't doubt it. And not even because he's stupid -- he's just THAT lonely.

I don't know -- is this some online form of natural selection at work? Should we allow the e-predators out there to take the hard-earned dollars of the lonely men out there, the high school drop-outs eager for a diploma, the small-chested girls sick of being ignored and eager to shell out cash for cans? Or should we maybe be worried that the spammers out there are getting a little too good? What if they got better? What other ways will they discover to prey on our various insecurities and spiritual vacancies?

Who knows? But with your help, I can find out. Send your credit card number to james_pinkerton@hotmail.com now, and HELP ME GET RID OF SPAM AND GET TIPS FOR BEING IRESTABLE TO THE OPOSITE SEX!!!!!

Top Five Female Celebrity Fantasy Make-outs

1) Shirley Manson

First Garbage album era only. I feel the need to clarify that I find her new "Bridgette-Neilson-albino-crewcut" thing not at all sexy and actually kind of disturbing.

2.) Alyson Hannigan

American Pie 2 era (though I fully realize clarifying this leaves me open to attacks that I've seen American Pie 2).

3.) Heather Graham

Austin Powers 2 era, not Boogie Nights era, surprisingly. My rationale here is that, while in Boogie Nights Heather Graham got nasty with the granite-muscled Mark Wahlberg, in the Powers sequel she found the pudgy, snaggle-toothed Mike Myers inexplicably irresistable. I'm just properly guaging my chances here.

4.)Rachel Leigh Cook

All over me like a feral animal era.

5.) Thora Birch / Christina Ricci / Rose McGowan

Three-way tie for my affection from the hottest full-bodied dark-haired starlets in Hollywood. Oh, the times we'd have -- them stripping provocatively down to nothing; me prematurely ejaculating just watching them; the three of them leaving my place in an angry, dissatisfied huff; me capping off the night by watching SportsCentre in my underwear, happy just to have been involved.

Please Give Generously, So That I Can Kill Karyn

Talking to Neil on ICQ moments ago, when the following horrifying message "UH-OH!"ed its way to my attention:

Neil (07:06 PM) :
I see Beltzner is asking for money on his blog!

Egads, I thought. Mike? Begging for change on his blog like some moth-eaten hobo? "Have things gotten that bad for him?" I thought, my heart bursting with sympathy. "Holy Hell, does Mike really have that little dignity?" I thought soon after, replacing my sympathy with the much more familiar black bilious clouds of rage and moral indignance. Mike would have to be dealt with, that much was clear.

Perhaps I should preface my seemingly off-the-cuff decision to punish someone I know and like quite well. I'd recently read an article at Salon that talked about a new trend called "cyber-begging." And much like doing Macarenas, wearing ill-fitting pants, or watching streaming .avi's of "All Your Base Are Belong To Us", the cyber-begging trend is, I assure you, thoroughly reprehensible -- and worthy of all the disdain you, my fellow man or woman, can muster.

How the craze caught on is like this: a rich television producer named Karyn Bosnak was pulling down just under $4,000 a month and living the good life in a hopelessly rich and trendy apartment in downtown Brooklyn, apparently unconcerned with the troubling spelling of her first name. She shopped at Gucci, ate in nice restaurants, and lived a kind of endless Mentos commercial of a life. Since Karyn at age 29 was probably already more successful than both of your parents combined, and certainly more hip than anybody you know, you may feel free to loathe her.

At any rate, in between having money fights with her show business friends and defecating purest rose-scented candles, Karyn managed to rack up a twenty grand bill on her credit card. She would have been able to pay at least some of this off with her savings account, except that she didn't have one, because in addition to being extremely lucky and wealthy, Karyn was kind of an idiot.

Now, we all get in tight times now and then. But where someone like you or I might get saddled with a twenty grand debt for a student loan, or a mortgage, or a child's dental work, Karyn went with the more original route of pissing away $20,000 she didn't have on useless trendy garbage. Again, feel totally free to loathe her, I'm not stopping you.

Faced with harsh reality for the first time in her life, Karyn was inequipped to deal with a crisis that you or I, with our regular crappy jobs and bills and responsibilities, would immediately begin saving up to pay off. Karyn, not knowing any better, started up a website begging complete strangers for money. Not seting up an appointment with her bank to work out a payment plan with her sizable monthly income. Not attempting to sell back some of the useless garbage she'd wasted all the money on. Not in any way taking responsibility for her actions in any way. Just asking people she didn't know to get her out of it.

And, of course, it worked, because why shouldn't more things happen to give me ulcers? Karyn has managed to pay off the entirety of her loan. Not only that, but she's gotten famous off of it, appaearing in magazines and daytime television shows. And all thanks to the kindness of people she didn't even know, who took the time to send her money (in one case, $1000.) This is the kind of thing that makes me want to carve Karyn's credit card into a Japanese throwing star and mount her to the wall with it. Good God, The David Suzuki Foundation works tirelessly to fight for the health of our ecosystem and many endangered creatures. Hope For African Children is a non-profit organization devoted to helping starving children dying of AIDS. There are literally thousands of charities you could donate a dollar or two, in seconds, online, if you were so inclined. But people don't think like that, do they? They think "Oh, this is new," and give Karyn $40 so they'll have a story to tell their friends, and television producer Karyn gets to roll around with her goateed, lattee-sipping boyfriend on a pile of Gucci totebags while an African kid dies of AIDS.

I would hope your first reaction, like mine, would be "How could this spoiled idiot have gotten away with this?" I also hope your second reaction, like mine, would be "How do I get in on this?" Unfortunately, you're too late for that. Karyn started a a tidalwave of a trend, and now everyone with half a brain and a cable modem is trying it, to increasingly diminished returns. Naturally, this isn't stopping people in the least. Just keep stabbing at that bright red button, huh?

And then Mike. Oh, no. Not Mike too? I quickly trucked over to his blog to see for myself. I might never stop slapping him.

And...

Mike, it turns out, is looking for sponsors for a charity drive for The Hospital For Sick Children, the big dumb lovable galoot. He's not a trend-hopping moron! He's a caring, nurturing moron!

So that susses up that. Except that now I have to endlessly slap Neil instead of Mike, for blatantly misrepresenting Mike in ICQ conversations. Please, give generously to the Jay Stomping a Bootprint Into Neil Foundation... won't you?

I Will Master The Sousaphone With My 'Just Watch Me' Attitude

Sometime last year, enough evidence had been brought to my attention to allow me to safely conclude that Fred Durst, Limp Bizkit lead singer and human "fuck"-yelling machine, was an idiot. It wasn't any one piece of news that tipped the scales, so much as an overall tapestry woven from various newsbites that proved, conclusively, that Fred Durst was not an intelligent man by any means.

And so I respectfully salute him -- because, after all the votes have been tabulated and his profound and total idiocy assured, the pudgy red-hatted lump still takes the time to offer up fresh exhibits for consideration. He certainly doesn't have to. Is anyone still in doubt? Is there a single soul out there who could safely say, "I can give Fred Durst a pair of scissors and leave the room for ten minutes without a tragic accident to follow"? Of course not. Yet there he is, topping up the pile of evidence against him on a daily basis, the helpful little mouth-breather.

I read this article today over at MTV.com. I've excerpted the bit I found the most amusing:

"A year ago, Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland left, and after a nationwide search for a replacement proved fruitless, the multifaceted frontman did what would be expected of someone with Durst's 'just watch me' attitude: he learned to play the instrument himself."

The headline for this article, by the way: "Durst Takes 'Less is More' Approach". Well, I should certainly think so. I wouldn't call rap-metal versions of "Bah Bah Black Sheep" and "Froggie Came A' Courtin'" examples of a 'More is More' approach. Honestly, does this man's ego have any bounds at all? He's barely a competent singer, and he's been hacking away at that for ten years now -- what on Earth makes him think he can master a musical instrument in a year's time?

Pick up a flute, right now. Blow on it and work your fingers over the holes. What does it sound like? Garbage? Most likely. To properly learn how to play an instrument, you need to invest years of practice. I'm not suggesting that ex-Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland was some kind of virtuoso genius. But certainly he was a competent guitar player with fifteen years of experience with his instrument. Playing guitar, despite what some might think, is actually something of a skill. Your fingers have to go on the right frets and everything. It takes more than a 'just watch me' attitude to play guitar -- it also, oddly enough, takes years of practice at learning how to play the guitar.

What bothers me most about this article is the suggestion that a one-year's-worth-of-experience Fred Durst is somehow the superior option here. As the article states: "A nationwide search for a replacement proved fruitless." Limp Bizkit auditioned the finest guitar players in North America and turned them all down, for what rationale I can't even begin to imagine. Then having done that, Fred Durst enlists himself, with no guitar experience, at the helm instead. Who the hell were they auditioning? Were there people trying out with negative years experience on the guitar? How bad does a guitarist have to be that you choose a guitar player with zero years experience at playing the guitar? "Well, he was certainly better than all those guys with -19 years experience."

Bah. The only bright side to all of this is, of course, the inevitable fruit of this new musical direction. I, for one, wait avidly for what promises to be a veritable train wreck of an album. Stay tuned!