josh is stupid and boring and self-centered and stupid and has crabs

Yeah, I've been bad lately... I know. I'm not sure it's gonna get any better, but I'll try.

Anyway, so much has been going on I can't even think of it all. I'm officially "the most diligent intern [VH1 development] has ever had..." thusly I have conquered and now I'm bored. I really can't bring myself to tell them that the last thing the world needs is more reality TV, but whatever, they let me do whatever I want most of the time.

On a lighter note... I'm officially getting bored with pop culture. Ooo, supermodels do blow. Omg, did you hear Ashton and Demi got married. JK. No one cares about that at all. Even people who spend less time in the blogosphere than me.

Sooo, what else? Tom's junky drummer (get it? like James Brown <-- for my mother) never showed on Sunday. Hey, you know, no big deal... It's not like I hadn't been planning that session out for like a month or anything. We're trying again this Saturday, and I told Tom that if it didn't work out I'm walking out of the project all together. So, you know, I've got that too look forward to.

All in all I'm coming apart at the seams right now, but it'll be fine. I'm cutting back my hours at VH1 a little and I'll probably stop going to Socialism on Mondays since I can do a week's work from just the Wednesday class. Hoping that will help and repeating this week's mantra: "I am not the unmitigated disaster I think I am"

Say it with me now...

Ok, I know I've been bad about posting lately, but all of a sudden I have a 50-60 hr work week... It's cool, I'm catching up tonight.

I think my favorite thing about being really busy is the momentum. You get up (hung over) on five hours sleep, go to work, straight from work to class, home for dinner and the OC, then out to five rock concerts, home at 3am, and you're still like "well, I wonder if there are any good parties going right now?" Not smoking pot probably helps too.

Anyway, guess who had the best work day ever?!?!? Paris Hilton! Um, jk, obviously. Girl's never worked a day in her life. Seriously though, when I finished going through all the scripts and treatments mid-afternoon in development and my boss sent me downstairs to work on Best Week Ever. Totally one of my favorite shows, and I was sitting in the room with like 3 other people while they were shooting it. I even got to help prep the talent with a little pre-taping banter/gossip/making fun of Martha Stewart. Awesome. Also, I met the Village People (in addition to the stars of the show, who aren't really what I'd call famous). Awesome squared. Add those dapper gentleman to my list of random celeb encounters.

Then, at the end of the day, Chris Cofoni calls me from Blue Note and tells me that he can hook me up with daily CMJ badges for the rest of the festival. Um, awesome to the eleventeenth. I caught two random bands at Lit and CB's Gallery tonight before I headed downtown for Dungen (very psychedelic, very cool) and Diamond Nights (I liked, but the crowd didn't seem into it) at Bowery, and then Of Montreal at the Knitting Factory (which rocked. that was the first mosh pit I've been in since 6th grade, even if it was a rather polite, apologetic one.). I liked the new material, especially "Reject the Frequecy." The place was packed, the crowd was into it, and they grooved for until after 230. At which point I was ready to sleep in a doorway just to avoid having to walk home. I didn't (obvs), so now I'm home writing this...

What else is new? Um.... The work mostly. I'm taking six classes this semester, interning 20+ hrs/week, and doing my Kaplan thing. This all adds up to very little time for other pursuits, namely sex and drugs. I guess it's cool though. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been really bubly of late and apparently the girls love that sort of thing. I've been picked up twice this week. Rock Rock On!

ps- shoutout to Matt and Katie. those random encounters are def the mos fun. beat that for a rapper spoonerism pun. (whut)

Dear Usher,
Go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,
Everyone

Ok so I guess, what with Katrina and all, that it has become a little bit more obvious what is wrong with America. I was walking up Broadway on my way to VH1, passing all these tourists thinking "why would anyone want to visit Times Square? It's so tacky."

And it's that unfathomable arrogance which afflicts our nation. I question the value of an edifice like Times Square, without taking a single moment to marvel at its mere existence. I've lived with the pulsing, LCD reality of Times Square for so long that I have had time to develop an opinion of it. Would that would cross the mind of a child from Senegal? or even Eastern Europe?

But here I am, rushing north along Broadway with all the JP Morganites and fly-over tourists, ignoring the fortune of my birthright.

So much is being said about the relatively biblical destruction of a large part of the gulf coast that I feel I must chime in.

First the immediate... Apparently the city of New Orleans is a total mess; to the extent that members of congress are suggesting that rebuilding would be a waste of resources (since there is no way to prevent a similar catastrophe next hurricane season, and every one after that). What a tragedy. From what I hear, the people that have been hardest hit by the destruction and displacement are those who could least afford it, and considering the high value of the dollar in our current political climate I worry that they're going to be stomped again when it's all over and the government decides on a permanent solution.

I read a piece on Fark today that made reference to this sort of event as a "third world" disaster. Fuck you, whoever wrote that. News flash: mother nature doesn't give two shakes about GDP. It actually seems poetic to me that one of the countries most responsible for damaging the biosphere should be the first to suffer a major climatological disaster. Somehow I doubt that anyone in government will connect this sort of event to the Kyoto Accords though.

It's too soon to think about that right now anyway. According to the Times, conditions on the ground are something akin to one of those countries the US is "rebuilding" on the other side of the world right now. There have been concerns over typhoid and cholera from dead bodies floating in the stagnant water, widespread looting, and outbreaks of predatory violence against civilians, emergency personnel, and representatives of the media. Security is enough of a concern that NBC detached it's own personnel to protect its reporters/crews because there just aren't enough National Guardsmen to maintain the peace. The good news? Those National Guard personnel have succeeded in preventing the same sort of thing from happening in a dusty, oil-rich country on the other side of the world. At least for today...