Manhattan Offender

Dick Cheney is staring at me

Beau-Tea

Obama Edwards Clinton is not a sentence. It's a question.

CNN has called South Carolina for Obama.  According to CNN, the majority of black voters voted for him and the majority of white women voted for Clinton.  Oh, and the majority of white men voted for Edwards.  So congratulations to CNN for breaking us down to mindless drones that like to vote for things that look like what we see in the mirror.

Meanwhile, we are ten days away from a primary where real people live.  As in the types of people that live in real places.  How to not put it rudely?  There isn't one really.  But the results in California and New York are much more interesting to me than the states that have voted to date.

I'm undecided and will be exploring all of the candidates in the next few days leading up to the primary.  Republicans and Democrats.  (Until 2000, I was a registered Republican.  Ick, right?)  At this point, my heart is for Obama, and my head is for Clinton.  (My cock never commits.)

So to the candidates websites I'll go, parsing through to try to find someone worthy of my vote.  It won't be easy.

Can you please tell me again why Al Gore isn't running for President?

Although I don't agree with everything he's saying here, it is the most advanced and human thing I've heard from a politician in, oh, forever? Big version post-jump.  Via About a Boy.

Add Vice: Contract and Release

Disclaimer: I am no more qualified to give advice than Doctor Phil is to give weight-loss tips, Kimora Lee is to doling out fashion direction, or anyone at Cosmo is to providing tips to pleasing a man.  But they do it.  Granted, they have lawyers and shit-piles of money.  But I don't.  So remember, that anything you read here might be horribly, horribly wrong.  Or it may be horribly, horribly right. 

My guess is as good as yours, just better.

Ask me:  rod [at] manhattanoffender [dot] com

Dear Add Vice -

I have an addendum to the quandry that you advised so hilariously and eloquently earlier this year and update - the offending intern was Not Asked Back, the darling one remained, they made me the editor of the Food section, and all was jolly -- for a time). In place of the offending intern, The Powers That Be have now placed a production contractor who:

1. Spends seemingly unhealthy amounts of time in the bathroom, and is a known over-the-stall peeper.
2. Repeatedly attempts to foist large bags of Jet-Puf marshmallows upon me.
3. Eats things that smell like cat food, lentils and sadness.
4. Wants to be my friend and has stated as such - though I can't see why, what with my stinking to the high heavens of ambient lentils now.

Advice to keep me from ending up at Bellvue/Rikers?

(And yes - I DO love you. In a totally literary-crushy kind of way, what with the non-penis-having on my part, but I'm sure if I did, I'd totes wanna hit that.)

xoxo,
Kitty

Separated at birth: Perez Hilton and Karl Rove

Maybe it's just that they both sport "gay face", but it seems that Perez Hilton is slowly morphing into Karl Rove. 

Before listing me in the Perez haters column, don't.  Although it's lowest common denominator, his "body of work" has been consistent over the years.  He's exhibited sheer tenacity in becoming a media voice, and his ability to rise above constant derision is of note.  So, yes, I sort of like Perez.  Even if he is going Rove.

(Full disclosure department:  One of my house-mates this coming summer was Perez' college roommate, but that really has no influence on this at all.)

Image via Gawker.

In the waning hours of Martin Luther King Day, a story of rascism

Grandma Lucile was important to my upbringing.  She was my Dad's step-mom, and she inspected every report card, analyzed and corrected my grammar, and pushed me to do my best.  She and Grandpa Buck lived in Kentucky, and, after Grandpa passed, Dad, Mom and I would make a trip every week or so to help care for her multi-acre lawn.  In turn she would treat us to a home-cooked meal.

As time went on, she wasn't always able to cook.  (We were clued in to this when she confused some ingredients on dessert, creating, instead of a chocolate cream pie, an inedible cinnamon cream pie which I still ate, just to be polite.)  Her vision wasn't the worst though.  Her hearing had deteriorated, and she compensated by bellowing so that she could hear herself.  This was harmless for the most part unless you had the misfortune of watching television with her.  She had developed a habit of arguing the television.  Particularly with newscasters.

After finishing the lawn one hot August day, we had all showered and loaded into her navy blue Oldsmobile Omega to go to Sizzler.  This was back when Sizzler was a relatively new chain of decent quality.  For a single price, one could get all "all you can eat".

We had all just sat down with salads, assorted meats, and vegetables and were ready to eat.  Before we could start though, Grandma had to call attention to something for the rest of us.  In what she regarded as a whisper but would be clearly audible to any tables around us, she pointed at another diner.  I remember her words to this day.

"Well, would you just look at that nigger.  She's got enough food there for three people.   She's gonna be one fat nigger if she keeps being so greedy."

The black woman kept Grandma's attention throughout the meal.  Luckily she was out of earshot, and we were in a corner not near other diners.  Dad, Mom and I ate quickly that day.  Grandma was surprised by our decision to skip out on dessert.  It was our last dinner out with her.  Mom would instead cook, despite Grandma Lucile's harsh criticism of her culinary ability. 

Grandma Lucile was a product of segregationist times.  She new no black people and didn't want to know any.  If one were on the television, she wouldn't argue with them; she'd change the channel.  To her "nigger" was as common a word as "man" or "woman".  Although my parents had no black friends, they did have coworkers and other regular reactions with people of other pigmentations and eye colors other than our shared blue.

Two generations later, I don't really think about race that much.  "Some of my closest friends are black" is more than just a statement; it's the truth.  (This being a statement I can't make without thinking of Devin.) 

So progress has been made.  Race isn't a dead issue, and it probably never will be.  Whenever I do think about it though, I'll always think about Grandma and the world in which she lived.  It was a world far different than mine.  I thank Dr. King for that.  I thank him immensely.

Future, Tense: Shopping the Bleecker Street Mall

Every so often a mysterious entity calls me.  The entity calls itself "The Future" and  knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared. 

Episode Four of Twenty.  (Originally posted December 12, 2007 at Gawker.)

"Hello?"

"Jiào nǐ shēng háizi méi pìgu yǎn! Oh, hi, it's The Future. So sorry you had to hear that, but this place stresses me out sometimes."

"It's been a few weeks since I heard from you. Given the conditions of your last call, I was a little worried."

"Sorry, cybersphincter. I was at Beth-Israel-Rey getting my iPortal upgraded. Bùyàoliǎn de dōngxī! Ugh. Shopping really brings out the worst in me and it's packed here today."

"Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm just trying to get my gift shopping done here at the Bleecker Street Mall.

 

Get rid of ten Facebook applications

How did I get sucked into this?  Who invited me?  It's been to long and memory fails.  All I ever do now is reply to requests.  How can I not respond to someone turning me into a vampire?  How can I not want to know with whom I'm most compatible to see a movie?

Today is the day to rid myself of ten Facebook applications.  Question is, which?

Neighborhoods
Compare People
Vampires
Top Friends
Just Three Words
What is your Deadly Sin?
Are YOU safe to sleep with?
You're a FB Addict!
You are Gay!
Social Profile
My Heroes Ability
You're a Hottie
Optical Illusions Challenge
Circle of Trust
Trend Setter
Hotness
Meet New People
Friends For Sale!
Cupid on Crack
Your Sex IQ
Last.fm Music
Six Degrees
Which Vegetable Are You?
Reveal
Mobile
Video
Instant Messaging
Superlatives
Astrology
Will you KISS me?
Growing Gifts
FunWall
Tarot
Astrology - Birth Chart
Causes
Developer
Send HOTNESS
My Questions
IQ Test
What Kind of Lover Are You?
What is Your Ideal Lover?
My Music
Honesty Box
Likeness UNRATED
SuperPoke!
Movies
Are YOU Interested?
Scrabulous
Happy Hour!
Posted Items
Notes

Please do not eat the food