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| THE BLACK LIST: ALMOST FAMOUS. | |||||||||
| By The Black Table | |||||||||
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We were at the gym the other day when some guy stood next to us on the treadmill. We had headphones on, so he had to wave to get our attention. "Hey, are you an actor?" We unplugged our headphones and turned slowly toward him. "Uh, no. Not an actor." "Really? Because you totally look like an actor." We told him, sorry, not an actor. Not even very good with the public speaking. "Oh, sorry, man. So, what's your name?" At this point we put our headphones back on and watched a documentary about how women raise their cheekbones using unnatural methods. After all that, we still put together 10 Black List reviews for you this week. We'll have 10 more next week, promise, if you play the game on the right. -- BT
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The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.
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FRIDAY NIGHT AND MARRIED: The cat isn't peeing, which is a problem no matter what your species, so I take him to the vet, then drive home again at lunch to play with the pup since she's been giving us that "I'm about to turn into a seething mass of adolescent rage if you don't play with me" look. It's Friday night, and I can't remember the last time we went out, because it's no fun to get drunk with the one you've seen almost every day for the past five years, and all our friends are pregnant with secondary or tertiary kids and don't do fun anymore. So I'll go home, and my husband will get the cat from the vet and make me hamburgers, and we will sit together on the couch and watch "Battlestar Galactica." I won't have a hangover tomorrow, and the man I wake up with will hang around and clean the bathroom. B+ -- Lori Weber THE NEW BUFFALO NICKEL: OK, so I'm a couple months late on this. Still, I just got a look at one of these the other day. I'm left with only one question: Was it really necessary to make the buffalo's junk so prominent? I mean, it's only a tiny fleck of metal that creates this buffalo's member, but it's really all you can see. Very unscientific research has concluded that 3 out of 5 people immediately notice the excessive size of the package. (This was comprised of me showing some people the nickel and asking, "You notice anything about this buffalo?" The best answer was, "Why are you showing my some buffalo's |
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garbage hanging out on my money? You ruined it.") How did the U.S. Mint get away with such a show of sexuality? I guess maybe they're trying to ease into the semi-nude Sacagawea dollar coin that they're going to issue to really get that thing moving. D+ -- daniel goslee SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION: Bloated, uncaring government money pit with talent for crashing into the nearest celestial body launches seven more victims into the vacuum after reacting to the latest engineering glitch with a mechanic's shrug. Mission: to see if they can repair any nicks the launch may have caused in their craft's heat shields. If they miss one they just might get incinerated on the way down. Being a spectator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's billion-dollar version of stock car racing: F. The mission itself: F -- Doug Gray CHICKEN ROULETTE: Hungry, broke, and determined to be resourceful, I whipped up a damned impressive looking batch of scrambled eggs, loaded with some jalapenos, scallions, the last slightly-too-squishy half of tomato in the crisper and about a quarter of a chopped-up chicken breast. Hold the phone -- when did I cook that chicken? And why did I have to ask myself that question in the middle of bite number six? Am I just psyching myself out, or do I suddenly smell something a little... off? Does botulism have a taste? Is there such a thing as mad chicken disease? I decide that if I take a big swig of coffee after every bite, that'll kill anything trying to kill me inside this breakfast I was once so proud of. Waiting all morning to see if your stomach is gonna power-launch your culinary masterpiece across the office: D+ -- Bergman THE SONG I HEARD EARLIER: I was peacefully reading with my cat asleep at my feet, or rather on them, when the song came on. A female vocalist with a small combo was singing some up-tempo tune about love or some other warm fuzzy. Things went wrong when she decided to do her best impression of Dizzy in the second chorus. Some of the scat was imaginative, but I objected when she began trumpeting at the top of her range, that note wailing and glass shattering and never ending. My cat started suddenly out of her slumber, eyes wide and pupils shining, tail fluffed. She dove for cover out of fear. Realizing I wasn't the only one who thought that singer was awful: A+. Cold feet and a terrified cat: C- -- Kelley THE SUMMERTIME COWBOY BOOT TIPPING POINT: Few are the occasions on which The New York Times can be said to have performed a genuine public service, but the paper's reliably rear-guard tribute to the vile three-year-old trend of cowboy boots in high summer may well atone for the darkest of its WMD-promoting misdeeds. Surely the death knell sounded by the combined endorsements of the Styles section and Lucky magazine can only mean a mass migration of this revoltingly unhygienic trend from the streets of the Lower East Side to the malls of Kansas and beyond. Perhaps like the recent heat wave itself, the sight of sweaty bare legs chivvied into old leather like fetid sausages will soon lift from our shores and settle upon the Gap-going masses. After all, if ever a boot were made for westward walking, it would be the official footwear of Crawford, Tex. Then again, Jesus always did favor sandals. A- -- Rachel N. SITTING ON A WARM TOILET SEAT: Say you're in a public place -- the office, an airport, a Barnes and Noble -- when your breakfast decides to start making its way out of your body. No problem; you just go to the bathroom, take down your pants, turn around and sit down. Only instead of the shock of cold plastic that you have prepared your butt cheeks to receive, all you feel is... warmth. Gaaah! A grimace comes across your face, creeped out by the knowledge that someone's bare pimply ass had been on that seat immediately before your bare, pimply ass. The shock of cold is designed to make you forget how many people have used this seat before you; its icy surface gives you a false sense of sanitary security. But the warm seat? It robs you of that security, and your imagination runs wild with the number and types of germs that might be currently scurrying into your body via your bunghole. Scared shitless, you do your business as quickly as possible, wipe and get the hell out of the stall, vowing to use those disposable seat covers the next time but knowing you probably won't. F -- Joel Keller LITERARY THEMED GOING AWAY PARTY: You're a sassy-but-nerdish young woman moving far from home to get an MFA. Your friends are even bigger nerds who like throwing parties where people have to dress up in hilarious costumes and relive their glory days humiliating freshman on the high school track team. You want a going-away party. They throw one, and invitees must dress as "authors, characters or literary/poetic devices." You dress as Anna Livia from "Finnegans Wake," which you've never read. Your friends go as Hunter S. Thompson, Lolita, Hemingway, Holden Caulfield, etcetera. You are such fucking geeks. But the party almost gets a noise violation anyway, and you spend the rest of the weekend being proud to have graduated with an English major and knowing that even if you never make more than $40,000 a year, you'll always remember the sight of your best friend in a homemade "Pencey Prep" t-shirt and Luke screaming about "bat country" from the porch. Leaving the University of Michigan: F. Leaving UM like a true high-honors-on-your-thesis, "Ulysses"-reading, vodka-slugging badass lit geek: A -- Mara FROM HARMLESS TO HORNDOG IN ONE DAY: We had a nice, casual relationship, Formerly Liked Male Co-Worker. You greeted me every day as I passed your desk, and I greeted you right back. And sure, at times, it felt like you were flirting with me, but I tried not to let that bother me, because even that felt like friendly flirting -- believe it or not, there is a difference -- and I was trying to get over my feeling that all guys who say hi to me are sex-crazed. So I wasn't prepared when out of nowhere you asked me out to lunch. I hate confrontation and I didn't want to hurt your feelings, so I just grinned stupidly and then accidentally "forgot" about it later. I figured you'd get the hint. But no. You didn't. You kept it up, asking me how late I'd be staying at work. (And what the hell does THAT mean?) Look, buddy. I don't want to bring out the bitch guns, but I will if I have to. And, just for your information, I'm a dyke. D -- GM SEEING THAT A GUY WHO YOU LET GET TO SECOND BASE IS RUNNING FOR OFFICE:
I saw this politician on CNN a couple of days ago giving a rah-rah speech
for Tom Delay. He looked familiar. He's a guy from my home state, very
white, very politician-looking. He dreamily talks about wife, his five
kids and traditional values. CLICK HERE FOR THE BLACK LIST ARCHIVE.
Each and every week, Black Table readers like you write the Black List and get absolutely nothing in return. Ain't that some shit. |
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