Monday, January 10, 2011

You Have Three Kids. You Should...

Lowbrow Answer: ...Give them all names that start with the same letter.
The parents who typically pull this kind of shit are either super-wealthy white people or super-poor minorities. Either way, go fuck yourself. You have three beautiful daughters. You can't come up with more interesting names than Kelly, Kimberly, and Kelsey? Are you literally trying to make me hate you? If you are, it's working. Even if you aren't; it's still working.

I'm waiting for the day when people just quit trying and name all their kids "Dana." Male, female. It won't matter. We already spend all our time shopping at Wal-Mart and eating at McDonald's and watching "Transformers." We may as well go full-bore and just all have the same identities. At least you'd never forget somebody's name again.


Middlebrow Answer: ...Love them all equally and raise them well.
I hate kids in the first place, but if you're going to ruin my day by having one, at least be a good parent. Teach the thing to read and write and worship Adorno. Teach it to enjoy foreign arthouse poetry and listen to Chopin and sneer at Steven Spielberg movies. Teach it to be nice to everyone, except racists, homophobes, bigots, and lacrosse players. Fuck those people. They can swallow a rattlesnake.

On the other hand, there are few things worse than happy families. With their golden retrievers and white picket fences and Ford minivans and Saturdays at the park and Sundays at Episcopal church and smiling Christmas card photos from top of Mount Belmont. What is this, The Family Circus? Life is shit. Your son will get AIDS and your daughter will get hit by a comet. And The Family Circus blows. Worst comic ever.


Highbrow Answer: ...Kill two of them.
The world is overpopulated. There are like 147 billion people living in China. We're running out of space. We're running out of food and water. The last thing we need is idiots like you pumping out kid after kid after kid like your vagina is some kind of Pez dispenser. I don't care if you're Catholic. Or Evangelical. Or any other dumb religion that demands you have kids so that they can join the Pope's army or whatever. Use a condom. They're cheap, they're accessible, and the ones we have today are much better than the sheep's bladder you would have had to use back in the day.

I don't understand why some people are so intent on having 25 children. Doesn't it get old? Aren't you totally bored after the first two? Aren't you sick of potty training and diapers and whining and soccer practices and singing lessons and birthday parties and visits to the hospital and crying? No? You aren't? Man, your life is pathetic. Like, Eddie Murphy's post-1995 acting career pathetic.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Best Outfit for a Flight?

Lowbrow Answer: A Sweatsuit and a Neck Pillow
Maybe traveling from Boston to Albuquerque was a perilous adventure during the Civil War, but it's the 21st century for Christ's sake. The planes have heat. They serve you Pepsi in mid-air. It's pretty cushy. We're not sitting on wooden benches, helping to peddle the 747. Come on, the whole flight is only going to take like five hours. You're not crossing the country on a 9-month expedition with Lewis and Clark.

And don't get me started on this neck pillow shit. What the hell has happened to us? We used to kill bears with our hands and build houses with rocks and slaughter thousands of Native Americans for fun. Has it really come to this? We need a semi-circle cushion to help us sleep sitting up? If this continues, one day we'll be relying on some kind of Hello Kitty-themed robot from Japan to chew all our food for us and kiss us goodnight.


Middlebrow Answer: High Heels and a Tight Skirt
Hey sweetheart. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this isn't a frat house. There aren't any drunk football players to feel you up by the pool table or hump you arrhythmically on a makeshift basement dance floor. This is an airplane. Nobody wants to chat with you about how great it is to be an English major. All the flight attendants are gay. Take off your Manolo Blahnik's and wipe all that makeup off your face. Trollop.

The guy version of this is even worse. Nothing like a douchebag in an Armani suit and CK One sitting next to you all the way to New York. Yes, I see you're on your way to a business meeting. Good for you. Let me guess. You work in consulting. You attended some yuppie white kid college like Williams or Princeton and now you spend your time moving other people's money around until you save enough of your own to buy a big house and a golden retriever and a wife whose first name is "Grier." I hope your plane crashes. Into Princeton.


Highbrow Answer: Jeans and a T-Shirt
Yes, flying somewhere was a huge deal in 1984. It's not anymore. Get over it. At this point, an airplane is just a big Toyota Camry with wings. Are you really going to get dressed up for a Toyota Camry with wings? Is that how pathetic your life has become? Have you no better occasion to make a big deal out of than a flight to Cleveland? That's sad. Like, Elmo dying of Syphilis sad.

The joy of wearing jeans and a T-shirt on an airplane is that nobody knows anything about you. If you're wearing a suit, we know you're some Wall Street asshole. If you're wearing sandals with socks, we know you're some yocal from Indiana who hasn't been in one of them there flying machines since 1991. Jeans and a T-shirt is understated. You could be anyone. You could be flying to a meeting with the president or a play rehearsal with Johnny Depp or a T-Shirt and Jeans convention. The possibilities are endless.