If you drop a penny from the top of the empire state building:
You can kill a man.
If you spit off the top of the empire state building:
You can kiss a man, with your mouth rain.
the middle aged man
loses slowly
the use of his knees
the middle aged man
finds difficulty
sitting in seats
while his friends continue
with their usual cricket game.
i have begun to sit at cricket games
so to speak.
i’ve gotten up to play
made eyes at you twice
sat back down.
i betrayed both teams
by making love to all sides
sat back down.
he keeps playing
he keeps running
and i don’t relate to sports analogies,
but i’m trying.
this man is sitting in a wheelchair
and someone is pushing him in.
broken arms
mosquito-thin legs,
and finally when he goes home
his eyes and skin reel, tingle
he cannot anymore
he cannot anymore
he listens to the radio
the crack loud, bam, cheer run.
he can no longer play
he can no longer compete.
and perhaps i need to say
i’m finding difficulty
sitting in seats.
————
www.twitter.com/benbencaro
UNCOMFORTABLE TRAVEL, MADE LEISURELY:
1. Flying economy, for an 11 hour flight.
Washington DC to Moscow. 2010.
2. Un-airconditioned taxi bus, that needs new brakes.
Jamaica. 2012.
3. Taking the metro during rush hour.
Paris. 2008.
4. A six hour train ride.
Scandinavia. 2006.
5. Getting around unpaved country roads.
Southern Virginia. 2010.
In Luray Caverns, Virginia – they have an organ rigged as a player piano. The notes are cued up to ping on certain stalactites to create a song.
Here’s a short video of one of the songs:
Twitter: @BenBenCaro
You are what you eat?
I’ll say it once
I’ll say it again
I’ll say it a few times
I’ll say it several more times
Have you gotten it yet?
Now you think of it in the shower
You think of it on your way to work
While in the grocery store
What was that again?
Why did you have to tell me
How could you forget.
Let me remind you
While driving
Or taking public transport
Or watching your stories
Or listening to other songs
You hate that you know it
It’s stuck
As it should be.
Thank goodness it’s gone now.
She told me she would build me
a castle high up in the air
filled with everything I ever needed
and I could sit up there with her
and we could love each other forever.
SIKE
she said.
But I didn’t see what was so funny.
Because what she didn’t know
is that the castle was filled with dungeons
for those who disappointed me.
have you ever
made a sex tape
no
i have not
have you?
no
would you mind
if we tried
no
i don’t
know what to do
yes
you do
just don’t think
about it
but it’s there
it’s not there
i feel it
i feel it
it’s not there
i feel it
where will you put it?
as long as it
doesn’t go on the internet
ha ha
no
it stays between us
you can even keep it
no
i trust you
i trust you
i trust you
no
March 6th, 2011
A team of researchers in England wasted our time determining which is the catchiest song ever made.
After carrying out “under-cover data collection in night clubs across the North of England,” which is coincidentally what most of the scientists did on their weekends, the scientists “did a musical analysis of a large subset of songs regarding the vocal performance on the recording as well as the structure of the songs.”
After not curing cancer, they concluded that pop songs are catchiest when sung by a male singer, for historically, males led people into battle, so the male vocal register incites the same psychological reaction. Additionally, if he usees his “high chest voice, pronounces the consonants of the lyrics clearly and puts a lot of vocal effort into his performance,” even better. No one wants to try to sing along with someone who makes it look easy, because then who feels like the asshole? An example of a ‘high effort’ male singers included Jon Bon Jovi. The researchers actually determined that.
Miraculously, the scientists found that UK residents were likely to sing along “if it is late at night, if it is a weekend and if the song has been in high up in the UK charts at some point.” What these scientists might discover if applying their brilliance to another field, such as quantum physics or neuroscience, we can only fear.
“We hope that our study will inspire musicians of the future to crack the equation for the textbook tune,” opined musicology expert Dr Daniel Müllensiefen, who was probably really excited to use the phrase ‘textbook tune,’ a term he’d been hard at work refining for months (at night clubs across the North of England).
The Top Ten Catchiest Pop Songs (As Determined by Dr. Müllensiefen’s Team in England)
——–
Twitter: @BenBenCaro
Events that I’ve won– that bring more shame than fame:
1. Best In Show, dog costume, dachshund on Radio-Flyer© (modified to hotdog bun). 1995.
2. Most Shots (without shaking), of espresso. 2002.
3. Least Eaten, turkey leg, Disneyworld Orlando. 2003.
4. Fastest Group, hog wrangled in mud, Wyoming. 2005.
5. Most items amended to animal-style, In-And-Out Burger. 2008.
PATTERN. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]
After staring at my computer screen for several seconds, I started to panic. I had just checked Gmail, then Facebook, then Twitter successively, with no further plan. To do so again in such a short amount of time would constitute madness, so to throw myself a curve ball and hopefully derail my inevitable typing of the letter “g” into my Firefox URL bar, I found myself Googling “I can’t stop eating cereal” instead. The results were surprising: all 4,910,000 of them.
This post contains a lot of links, only given to display the impressive number of these cereal addiction cases — so no need to click on all or any of them. Google came up with plenty of sources, but cited the UK and US versions of Answers.com as the top two results. There, I found myriads of concerned consumers (consumers in the “I down a whole box in one sitting” sense of the word) who had feelings ranging from mild fear to overwhelming guilt about their breakfast cereal consumption and inability to stop. Most of the voted upon “answers” were of course overwhelmingly unhelpful, both the sympathetic (“When I was pregnant I ate like a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch every day!”) or the, well, assholes (“Well…. that stinks”). Thankfully, there is some actual advice given at more weight-loss oriented sites.
Truth is, like any addiction, the best way to overcome it is to not give yourself the option of relapsing. Do not buy yourself cereal. Do not have milk in the house. If you think that may be too harsh, you can try keeping only one kind of cereal in the house. The lack of variety will help you from going back to it again and again. A third option would be to restrict any sort of eating after a certain time, say, 10pm, or only allow one bowl a day. The more black and white the rules, the easier it will be to follow them. The only danger is yo-yoing. I’ve gone without cereal for a few days only to bring home a box of Cheerios and down 5 in a day.
Yo-yoing can be used for good effect, however, if you are trying to build muscle or doing intense exercise. If you plan on cutting carbs one day, and know that an inevitable flood of CTC (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) will be soon entering your mouth the next, try to plan those bowls after your workout.
Let’s not be too hard on ourselves. Cereal is so amazing. The reason why it’s easy to keep eating is because a) there is huge variety. Sure, it’s basically made from the same stuff, and it all tastes like cereal, but as long as there are puffs, flakes, grains, crunch, pebbles, Charms, wheats, oats, bran, and O’s, there will always be something craveable for the next meal. b) It’s easy. No cooking required, and nothing to heat. c) Few people still believe that cereal is good for you, despite the Lucky Charms boxes that blare “Whole Grains” at you in bright blue, but the truth is, it’s not bad enough that eating it constantly will cause disease. Depending on your poison of choice, there is enough fiber, fortified (artificially added) vitamins, and sometimes protein to poorly mimic a balanced diet. The problem is that excessive use will inhibit any chance at weight loss — the sugar will cause insulin spikes and the carbs may leave you lethargic and increase cravings and hunger later on in the day.
All this aside, I will never stop eating cereal. I will try, I will fail. I will stop trying.
Writing this article has made me hungry. There is a box of Corn Flakes in the cupboard, a half gallon left of skim milk in the fridge, and I went to the gym today. I’ll be in the kitchen.
RESOURCES
The Best and Worst Cereals For You by Men’s Health, in case you just want to go crazy with those Grape-Nuts.
TWITTER
@BenBenCaro
Warhol meets Gursky.
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