This Fire Is Outta Control

Georgia is on FIRE! Atlanta is covered in smoke! You know what that means...

The Yankees are coming!!!!!

(Er, wait a minute... I'm a Yankee...)



But the smoke is terrible. It's like having your face really close to a BBQ grill when someone is cooking crappy cuts of meat. I can't imagine how bad it is down south, where the fires originated. The poor residents down there...

Vacation Deals - Urgent Memo

We get a lot of SPAM faxes here, so Jared and I would like to try our hand at creating one. We will SPAM the world on our own. How's this for a deal!? [Addendum: In case my humor is not obvious, no, we are not really SPAMMING the world. This is meant as social commentary]

URGENT MEMO

To: All Corporate Employees
From: Human Resources Department
Re: Employee Vacation Time
Reply to: 1-800-FAX-SPAM

FINAL NOTICE:

Dear Staff,

This is the last chance that all employees have access to our company vacation packages at the wholesale rate (you save nearly $3000 per couple). These vacation slots are almost full and will be filled on a first come first serve basis.

Please review the vacation detail:

Duration: 6 week, $23 pppn
Destination: Cancun, Mexico
Dates: Open dated valid for 1 YEAR

Included in Package:

FREE ocean view
Corporate meal plan (we recommend the best dining establishes)
Children play in the sand for free
Unlimited non-motor water sports (FREE swimming)
No-wait taxi line
Authentic Mexican workers speak to you in Spanish - no extra cost
Salt-included on all margaritas (do not burn the hotel down)

1-800-FAX-SPAM

-- Notice --
The information contained in this meesage is CONFIDENTIAL which is why we've faxed it to you. To no longer receive these requested promotions in the future, please call your local HR director who probably requested these promotions for you.

Hipster Haikus Return; Shoes Die

On Gianni Bini shoes...

Broke my favorite shoes
While dancing at MJQ
Good-bye, Power Pumps.



On Brit Pop Night...

My black clutch smells like
A room full of cigarettes.
Where is my Febreeze?

Books for Summer?

For the 5th summer in a row I am attempting to get through Catch-22, one of the most critically acclaimed fiction novels of the 20th century. Problem is this: there are a heckuva lot of characters and long, ridiculous sentences, so when I put it down for awhile I forget what I've read. But I finally got through the chapter about Major Major Major Major and couldn't stop laughing.

I used to read a lot. In 4th grade our teacher, Mrs. Austin, held a reading competition for us. For every five books you read, you got a star, cut out of construction paper and marked with your name. The stars hung from the ceiling of our portable classroom. Each time you earned a star, it was stapled to your previously-earned stars until a little chain formed. Well, I didn't have a lot of friends in 4th grade, but I had a lot of time. Therefore it follows:

(Free Time)^2 - Friends + Competitive Spirit = Lots of Reading Stars

I earned so many stars, in fact, that my teacher stopped giving me stars. I should also credit my reading spree to being a member of the Babysitters Club Book Club. Each month I received three new Babysitters Club books, which I read immediately (Claudia Kishi was my favorite character because we shared the same initials).

These days, though, I hardly read (though I did recently complete Audacity of Hope for our defunct Tuesday Night Pub Club Book Club). Please suggest some good books here. I'll begin the list.

Books I've Been Meaning to Read Because They Were Recommended
- The World is Flat, Tom Firedman (suggested by BFF Andy)
- The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown (suggested by almost everyone I know)
- Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics Earl Black and Merle Black (suggested by Merle Black, my former professor)
... others??

On the phone with Paul McCartney

Here are my career goals thus far:

5. Get my work in AdAge, Mediaweek & Brandweek
4. Plan a festival
3. Book Beck for a concert
2. Grow Paste to readership of 1,000,000 (currently halfway there!)
And the #1 goal of my career...
1. Interview Paul McCartney

Today I got very close to that #1 goal.

Paste writer and friend, Brent Dey, interviewed Sir Paul for our upcoming "Can Rock Save the World?" issue and he let me sit in on the phone interview and help prep him. Unfortunatly, I didn't get to talk to Sir Paul, but I listened to the interview in live-time.

Paul talked about being a "veggie," why carnivores are hurting the earth, and which song his three-year-old likes to dance to. He also sang to us as Johnny Cash -- "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine...."

One day I will write a nice piece on Paul McCartney and The Beatles and why their legacy lasts. I'm best suited to write this because by the time I was born The Beatles were no more. John was dead, Ringo was The Conductor on Thomas the Tank Engine, and Michael Jackson had collaborated with Paul. Yet I grew up with the Beatles much like my parents did. At 12-years-old, I dove into their discography and history, and in doing so learned about Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, the concept album, the 60s, LSD, psychodelic rock, protests (by John Lennon, against John Lennon), and love. "Love is all you need." "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." "PS - I Love You."

It's probably for the best that I haven't accomplished my #1 career goal by the age of 23. Then I'd have to retire, and I don't have a retirement plan in place yet. Also, according to my "People I'd Like to Meet" on MySpace, I want to meet Paul the Beatle and Paul the Apostle. If I'd met the first Paul, I'd have to depart this life to meet the later Paul, and I'm not ready for that yet... I'm a very "To-Do List" oriented person.

I might also have interviewed Paul much like this:

Chris Farley and Sir Paul McCartney

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