Poor Newsday. Everyone who’s anyone in the New York metropolitan area thinks of the Long Island newspaper as unnecessary and irrelevant. Until very recently I would have argued the point that, although it’s a cultural wasteland largely made up of privileged assholes who can’t speak even remotely proper English, drive in a responsible manner, or drink a nice relaxing beverage, there’s enough going on on Long Island to justify it’s own reasonably well written newspaper. I would even go so far as to say the sports writing is pretty serviceable and even funny in an “I can’t believe these guys get paid to write blogs” kind of way.

“That guy’s a turd.” – My dad in reference to Neil Best. Well said, pops.

I would have said all that until about three days ago. That’s when Neil Best decided to sit down and write “The Top 10 Best New York Sports Moments of 2010.” They changed the name online to omit the “New York” part, but you’ll notice every moment includes a New York team. Again, this would have amused me any other day. I love lists. I watched a ton of sports in 2010. I definitely would have liked to combine the two. But Neil Fucking Best had to go and take a big dump on what would be great dump-taking reading material.

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In my previous post I discussed four criteria which make up the ideal romantic partner. Of course, because I was describing an ideal, I was also describing an impossibility. In my eyes a dream girl/guy would be very funny, extremely attractive, have genius-level intelligence and be as loyal as a lark. In reality, candidates are bound to fall short in at least one of those categories, usually at least two. I fall short in all four.

But hold the phone! My goal is not to discourage people! As Built to Spill’s first album’s title told us: There Is Nothing Wrong With Love! What is wrong is having ridiculous expectations. In this second part, I am going to reveal my second system of romantic qualification: S.A.F.E. (again, this took about 4 minutes of development and is undoubtedly flawed). The S.A.F.E system outlines my qualifications for what constitutes an appropriate partner to pursue romantically. While the F.A.I.L standards will only end in disaster, the S.A.F.E criteria should lead you to a happy and healthy relationship. Let’s begin:

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I’ve found that making up systems is pretty easy. It must be one of those human impulses, to find a sense of logic in everything. Of course none of it is true. I don’t really buy into many systems of thought used to explain human emotions. For example, maybe you’ve heard of psychological term “displacement,” which is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects affects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable. So, when your Mom loses her job she comes home and beats your Dad. OK, I guess we can use a term to describe that emotional reaction- but I’m always a little wary of these things. The same goes for dream interpretation. Yes, I think dreams can tell you things, but sometimes people can be too quick to apply a simple system of logic to the infinitely more complicated processes of the psyche.

Having said that, here’s a system I’ve developed (in about 4 minutes) to describe the intricacies of love (feel free to comment on the variety of flaws and over all under-development in the comments). I’m calling it the F.A.I.L-S.A.F.E system of romantic development. Let me explain:

The system is divided into two parts. The first, F.A.I.L., outlines what I imagine to be the ideal person to start a relationship with and then explains why this person cannot exist. The second, S.A.F.E, offers a more realistic set of qualities to pursue in the opposite (or same) sex.

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We proudly present to you the second in our “Collective Criticism” series. This week we have three reviews of the recent collaboration between alt-rock guitar heroes Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and John Frusciante. It doesn’t seem to have a title. Also, it was picked by Felix.

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What do you do on a Friday night when all the money in your bank account is in default because your stupid cell phone company decides to debit your account twice for no reason, and all you have is two dollars and a poodle full pennies?

Let me tell you- You get drunk! You grab everything in sight and you get your ass to the corner store immediately. When I got to the Saba Grocery Store on Castle Hill Ave I had two objectives.

1. Find the cheapest beer in the refrigerator.
2. Haggle the guy at the counter for a cheaper price because all I had was 2 dollars and a thousand cents.

Objective one was a slice A pie. I found this piece of shit…

… and since it had something growing on the top of the can, was half crushed, ready to explode at any given second and without an expiration date I decided- “hey, this can’t be too bad.” So I grabbed two of them shits!

Ah, but what about all those pennies!?

Fuck yeah. How responsible and Badass can a person look?

Luckily, the guy at the counter was great. He pretty much let me name the price for all the garbage I was buying.

Ghetto Greatness Achieved.

Hey everyone, I got reminded tonight that I don’t agree with opinions you find on the website pitchfork media, which I will not link to. What happened was I had just finished reading DJ’s most recent post, which I have no problem linking to, and I clicked the link at the bottom. It brought me here. From there I went here. Both those links provide the general sentiment of our staff toward those…those…I don’t even have a word for what they are. I will settle for dickforks.

Anyway, tomorrow (today for you) is pretty much Pitchfork’s Christmas: the one day they can express their criticisms on the entire year. Yep, it’s Pitchfork’s release of their 20 Top Albums of 2010. Notice the difference in rhetoric employed in my title versus theirs. Top of what? You own list? Let me check the definition of “top” as an adjective. OK, they probably mean this one: foremost, chief, or principal. Those guys are so obsessed with their own opinions of themselves. Whatever, this isn’t about them; this is about me.

I plan on drinking tonight by the way. It’s a Thursday night- the only reason I’m doing this is that Pitchfork’s silly numbering shit comes out tomorrow and I want my opinion out first. Also I want to predict what Pitchfork’s list will be and see if I’m close. I think it will probably look like this:

10) No Age, 9) Ariel Pink, 8 ) Robyn, 7) Deerhunter, 6) Big Boi, 5) Joanna Newsom, 4) Arcade Fire, 3) LCD Soundsystem, 2) Beach House,1) Kanye West

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Frequently, I find myself envying the relatively talentless people talking to me on TV. Instead of coming to grips with the fact that the bullshit I mindlessly peruse during timeouts passes as legitimate entertainment, I usually just assume the clown spewing pure garbage and nonentertainment into my brain lucked into the gig, held the producer’s family hostage in exchange for the gig, or must have been a bona fide celebrity in a no longer relevant distant past. One person who actually doesn’t bother me so much is Guy Fieri. His show is pretty decent and he seems like a good enough dude. All in all, Guy Fieri probably doesn’t deserve the mockery I’m about to make of his appearance and personality.

Maybe he does.

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