"Walk to Prevent Suicide"
I saw a poster today advertising a Walk to Prevent Suicide. I saw it while doing my own walk to prevent a senseless death - my own. Now, if they were advertising a noose trade-in program, maybe I'd stop during my commute, but don't try to get me to join a suicide walk before or after my work day.
Ok, look. It's not like I'm an outspoken advocate of suicide or anything. On most days, I don't have the slightest desire to kill myself. But this is one "benefit walk" that just begs to be made fun of. If there's one thing that will make suicidal people feel excluded and isolated, it's "walking 20 miles throughout the night to prevent loss of life from suicide". Why don't these guys do something that suicidal people can participate in, too? The first suggestion that comes to my mind is: why not "Bungee jumping to prevent suicide"?
I bet that bungee jumping to prevent suicide would attract at least twice as many members of the suicidal community. Ok, so some of them will participate for the off-chance that the cord will snap. But at least you give them something to look forward to. Plus, it's a lot less depressing and boring than walking through darkness. It sounds like a funeral procession, for fuck's sake. Do these people want to prevent suicide or encourage it?
I say they pick something more along the lines of an Irish wake. Why should suicidal maniacs have to wait until they die to have a good time? Let's throw them an all-night party to prevent suicide. And if you think that your presence at the party won't serve to encourage them to live, then do them a favor and stay the fuck home. At the very least, have a "No boring motherfuckers to make you feel more depressed than you already are to prevent suicide".
I know that one of these suicide-prevention walkers is going to e-mail me to curse me off, so I'll answer you in advance. Yes, you're special. Yes, you're doing something "socially conscious", and yes, God loves you. Just get back to your walking and shut the fuck up.
My Two Media Favorites
I've wanted to plug these two people for a long time. These two are like the Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde of my personality, and I am absolutely, unabashedly fans of the both of them: Howard Stern and Judge Marilyn Milian. Everyone who knows me well hears me rave about these two constantly. I probably talk about them both so much that by the time I sit down to write for this website, I have nothing left to say about them.
Every morning of every day, I awake to the sounds of two fucking idiots on the FM radio station that used to carry Howard Stern. I quickly run across the room, turn off the radio, reset the alarm, walk to another room, and turn on my Sirius radio. Four days a week (the bastard takes Fridays off), I hear about an hour of Stern's 4-5 hour radio show before I go to work. Until recently, I also subscribed to his on-demand TV channel and watched just about everything they posted. (Time Warner's on-demand service is so fucking unreliable that I cancelled. That, and the Howard TV staff is slow as shit in updating it.) This guy is so goddamn entertaining, I don't know where to start. Let me just say: if you think Howard Stern is just about Lesbian Dial-a-Date, you're very mistaken. His commentary on current events, along with the absurd in-fighting amongst him and his staff, is comic genius. And also, if you don't like Lesbian Dial-a-Date, what the fuck is wrong with you?
In the evenings, or more often, on the weekends, is when I get to enjoy recorded episodes of "Judge" Milian in action. (I guess she's technically now an arbitration attorney, not a judge.) I've been a People's Court fan since the 80s, but then it started getting boring, and later I became a Judge Judy fan for a while. Sorry, Judge Judy, but Judge Milian kicks your ass. In addition to finding myself disagreeing with Judge Judy occasionally, her big problem is failing to explain her rulings.
Milian, on the other hand, is extremely explicit, just, passionate, quick-witted, and (not that there's anything wrong with it) easy on the eyes. When the world seems completely unfair and full of shit, this woman makes things clear and beautifully just. I've always liked court shows and movies, and realize (maybe a little too late) that I could have been a pretty damn good lawyer, so seeing this woman dissect a case, get emotionally involved, but remain utterly clear-headed is like being able to inhabit a little piece of my ideal world for an hour or two. (My record is five or six hours at a time.)
It's interesting that this show, or perhaps court shows in general, get a bad rap. People assume that just because the cases involve missed rent payments, dog bites, wedding mishaps, and dry cleaning accidents, that the cases are necessarily too trivial to be interesting. Not true. Every case has its own particular aspects and personalities that make the case interesting. And, more often than not, you get to hear Judge Milian give some loser a well-deserved piece of her mind. When I read on the show's official website that she earned a 4.0 GPA at the University of Miami and graduated cum laude from Georgetown Law School, I was impressed but not too surprised. I highly recommend you give her show a chance if you haven't already.
Wikipedia
How awesome is Wikipedia in that you can find one of Judge Milian's favorite quotes, in Spanish: "Donde tú vas, yo ya fui, me senté, me tomé una soda, y regresé" ("Where you're going I already went, sat down, had a soda, and returned.")
I'll give Wikipedia a break, even though they start their definition of "business casual" with "Business casual, also known as smart casual..." and "smart casual" with "Smart casual (as distinct from Business casual)..." It's still amazingly useful. And besides, I was able to call up the restaurant and ask if jeans were included in their "smart casual" policy. (They said yes.)
New York City Night Court
Following up on my recent fanatical viewing of The People's Court (and my desire to find a fun and cheap date activity), I recently attended a session of the New York City Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street. I recommend this to any tourist of Manhattan. And even though you can stop by to observe a trial all the way up until 1:00 AM, I'd recommend you postpone your pub crawl until afterwards. (You'll probably want to keep your public displays of drunkenness a good distance away from the cops who run the building's metal detector.)
The acoustics in both court rooms I sat in were pretty crappy, and it's hard to hear a lot of what the defense attorneys say, but you get the gist of it and you can usually at least hear the charges being read, along with most of the judge's comments.
Here's a sampling of some of the defendants I got to see, culled from the ranks of high society, in just an hour and a half or so sitting in two courtrooms:
- A guy accused of holding a gun to his wife's face after she accused him of cheating on her. (The D.A. quoted his words from the police report: "Ugly bitch, I'm gonna kill you.")
- A guy arrested for soliciting the services of not one but two prostitutes and possessing an equal number of "bags" of crack cocaine
- A teenager who, along with a dozen other of his colleagues, helped send somebody to the hospital after kicking and beating a victim to steal his or her wallet
- A guy who broke down somebody's door, while the victim was home, to commit robbery
- Multiple instances of drug possession. (Resulting in what I thought I heard the D.A. saying "2420", but most likely was either 240.20 (disorderly conduct) or one of the 220s (drug crimes). (Check out the laws of New York and click on the PEN (penal) link.)
- A security guard arrested for theft. Note that the D.A. clarified for the judge that the theft did not take place while the security guard was on duty. (Also note that the defendant's lawyer attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to get his client off by pointing out that the defendant had been apprehended with his hand in the cash register drawer, not actually possessing the money contained in the drawer.)
Even with all the cops around, I recommend using caution when using the upstairs bathroom. Friends and family of the accused appear eager to join their loved ones, and the unguarded bathroom could provide a decent opportunity. And it would take the cops a good 30-60 seconds to get up there and save your ass.
Back downstairs in the courtroom, a guy sitting next to me was waiting to see if his "nigga" would be arraigned in time. (Criminal Procedure law in New York says that arrestees must be arraigned within 24 hours of arrest, hence, the need for night court.) He asked out loud, to no one in particular, "If he's not out here in 24 hours, watch this."
As interesting as whatever it was this gentleman had intended to let people watch, it was time for me to go. I had an overpriced hamburger to eat. So much for the cheap date idea.
