UNIVERSAL DONOR: MA VIE EN CROUTE
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Universal Donor
Like making blog out of nothing at all  feed it up!
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You are just a number to me! And that number is: PAGES UD MADE: My Books Page My Reviews Page My Reference Page My Music Page My Pictures My Store UD-RELATED PAGES: My LiveJournal My MySpace music page My Flickr page My del.icio.us page My Last.fm page My Amazon Wishlist HEAVY ROTATION Ratatat: LP3 Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes Band of Horses: Cease to Begin Krauss & Plant: Raising Sand Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs Beach House: Devotion BLOGS ETC claude le monde nuncstans rock 'em stock 'em tomato nation postmodern drunkard tuckova 22 ghastly mess constintina total virility fuzzysquid drunken bee stacey nightmare elyse from ANTM stereolabrat dark side points jf_franklin 123 i love you READ NOW brotherhood 2.0 NOT BLOGS ETC qwantz (dinosaur comix) go fug yourself the burg cat and girl book of ratings married to the sea icanhascheezburger fire joe morgan hospitality on parade OMG WEIRD LOVE dead amusement pks craters! all content © 2002-2007 Jeremy Broomfield 
Hosted by: HostRocket.Com Comments by: YACCS PRAISE & REVIEWS "[UD] is a genius." --Christian Oates "[Claudia] is fucking awesome, and [UD] is a genius. And vice versa. You should all buy Fear Not." --Tricia Howey MOTTO egeo huic vigorum MY WRESTLING NAME Titan Gently MY PUNK NAME Razor Ection 
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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
I found a new roommate for the apartment, so rest easy, my worried children. Thanksgiving break will end soon. Stay tuned.
Friday, November 19, 2004
During times of stress, we all have our ways of coping or letting off steam. Because I have A.D.D., I can't use just one method of stress relief, like your Xanax or your yoga; I need a rainbow or relief. Yesterday's lunchtime stress valve was kindergarten regression: I picked up a blackberry, smeared it across my lips while mugging into a mirror in imitation of Grandma at her vanity, and then chased after my coworker, yelling: "Unca Joe! Unca Joe! Ooka ma mipstick! Ooka ma mipstick!" He was mildly horrified.
Today, however, I only want to express joy at the following turn of events: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT I had an overdraft fee charged to my checking account because of a mix-up at my online bill-paying service. The details are yawn-tastic, but the gist is that Washington Mutual hit me with a $30 overdraft fee even though my direct-deposited paycheck more than covered the overdraft within 24 hours. (Overdraft fees are so obnoxious anyway. A fee for being broke? Awesome, thanks a bushel, you fucksuck dirtbags! It's like a giant kick in the testicles when you're already face-down in the gutter spitting your teeth down the storm drain.) But but but so they charged me the fee and I called them up. Here's how it went down:UD: Hi. I don't want to pay the overdraft fee because the money was there within 24 hours. WaMu Rep.: It's not 24 hours. If you close the day with a negative balance, we charge you. UD: I don't like that. How about you reverse the charge? I've learned my lesson. WaMu Rep.: We can't reverse fees unless there's a bank error. UD: You mean you can't reverse the charge. WaMu Rep.: No, bank policy states that we cannot reverse the charge unless there was an error. UD: Nobody can, huh? WaMu Rep.: No sir. UD: Well, howsabout you transfer me to someone higher up so they can say no to me? WaMu Rep.: Please hold for Diana. -----------[five minutes of holding]-------------- Supervisor: Hello, Mr. Donor-- UD: Diana, please, call me Universal! If I can call you Diana, it's only fair. Supervisor: Um.... UD: Okay yeah well listen I spoke to the woman who transferred me to you and she explained the bank's policy but unfortunately I had been under the impression that the policy regarding overdrafts was that If the funds were deposited within 24 hours that no fee would be charged and I understand that that's not the policy but I was wondering if maybe just this once -- because I've learned my lesson, and this definitely won't happen again (especially after I talk to my online bill-pay service, the ones who screwed this up in the first place by not confirming the payment with me before sending it, they just sent it automatically and I'm definitely gonna fix that) -- I was wondering if just this once as a favor to a good customer maybe you could reverse the charges for me? Just this once? Supervisor: [stunned silence] UD: Diana? Supervisor: Ok, um, Mr. Donor, just this once I am going to credit back the $30 charge but I'm gonna make a note on your account that this is purely a customer courtesy and that there was no bank error and in the future if this happens you will be charged the fee. UD: Oh it'll never happen again, I promise! Thank you so much! Wednesday, November 17, 2004
My alarm didn't go off this morning. This is usually a lame excuse for being late to work, but today if I had been late (I wasn't) my excuse might have been better just for being spooky. I use a clock radio, and I wake up to WBAI, a local listener-sponsored station that carries Democracy Now! at 9am. Today, however, I looked at my clock at 9am and no sound was coming out. My radio station was off the air. Perfect early morning paranoia fodder for someone who tends to believe political conspiracy theories until disproved, and anyway the concept of radio stations not working gives me the willies because when I was a terrified teen in the age of The Day After, my primary way of determining that nuclear missiles were not speeding towards me was to turn on the radio: music meant I was safe, but the Emergency Broadcast System tone or dead air would have caused instant pants-shitting panic.
Luckily this morning I wasn't wearing pants. Ha ha! Nor did I panic. I saved my panic 'til later, when I saw this picture of me from 1993 on the internet. Okay, it's not me, but it's a pretty good indication of what I looked like, pre-hottness. I used to get looks in dark restaurants when I had the long hair, people pointing and whispering, until they figured out that I didn't have the right tattoos to be the Kiedis, and also that I wasn't a freaking midget. News Summary. Introducing a new feature today, in which I will give you a rapid-fire lightning-round type overview of my opinion of various recent events in the news. Here goes. Ashlee Simpson can lip-synch all she wants, ain't no shame, girl, do your thang -- so what if you can't sang? Dang! Alberto Gonzales is an evil man. He is all smug about how clever he was in justifying torture. Torture! "Ladies and Gents, here's the guy that found a legal way for us to electrocute the testicles of hairy brown people that we have decided to hold indefinitely (the people, not the testicles) without charging them or allowing them legal counsel, woo!" If they put his name up for the high court when Rehnquist kicks I'm seriously gonna blog my ass off about it. That'll show them. Condi Rice has an oil tanker named after her at Chevron, which makes her a particularly ooky choice for State, but can we talk about her hair for a second? Looks like a snap-on Lego-style hair helmet. Fallujah doesn't have the same ring to it as Kandahar. Remember Kandahar? That was fun. Friday, November 12, 2004
Ce n'est pas une habitude
Out of boredom, pique, or temporary insanity, I made a questionable purchase. I was feeling a little weird, a little down, a little vulnerable. As an American, I know of only two cures for this condition, and since there wasn't a television nearby that I could use for a marathon of electronarcotized passivity, I chose the other cure: I bought something crazy stupid. My crisis overtook me as I passed a tobacconist, but as you know, I no longer smoke cigarettes. After much trial, I have decided that cigars -- at least the kind I can afford -- are just nasty, and that smoking them is an act of aggression against the people around you more than anything else. So what's that leave? Yeah. I bought a pipe. I know, I know. It's retarded. I don't know what the minimum age for pipe-smoking is, but despite my disintegrating body and advanced store of wisdom, I haven't reached it yet. This is clearly The Most Obnoxious Affectation, worse than the high-schooler with a fedora or a college kid with a walking stick or (gulp) a staff. Hmm... what do you think, does the pipe still trump the Moses staff? What's worse? Still, the pipe is fun. Undeniably. (Did you know that after filling a pipe and lighting it, it will always go out, requiring you to tamp the tobacco down and light it again? The first light is called the "false light." Hah!) So if I only smoke it occasionally, and alone, in my bedroom closet, that's okay, right? I'm in good company: Bertrand Russell, Santa, Sherlock Holmes, Einstein, Mark Twain, and, of course, Popeye. But then the other night, Cookie gave me a withering look and told me that I'm a smoker again. I disagree, because I think a pack-a-day cigarette HABIT where I needed to inhale great clouds of smokeborne nicotine twenty times a day differs significantly from a take-it-or-leave-it nighttime bowlful of amusingly-scented shag tobacco that just rolls around in my mouth. But just in case I was getting dangerously close to recidivistic levels of nicotine, I handed the pipe and its attendant paraphernalia to J.Ro for safe keeping until such a time as I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that I don't NEED to smoke the pipe. Can we try it here? My boss came back from Paris with a ton of snapshots, and I was impressed with the sights. But when she showed me her shots from Versailles, I almost lost my shit. She said that after walking around there for a while, she completely understood how the French Revolution happened. She wanted to go cut some rich people's heads off. Louis XIV apparently had 20,000 members of the frog aristocracy living with him at Versailles. Here's a pretty little fountain, but my favorite was the shot of Le Roi's backyard. He'd get up in the morning, have the crew of drapery-servants crank up the mechanism that eventually pulled back his ten thousand pounds of drapes, revealing this view, which as you can see extends for many miles unobstructed by any ugly or inconvenient topological features like mountains, hills, or hummocks. He'd had the view flattened, because it pleased him. Jesus. Cue sound of guillotine's thunk and cheering crowd, am I right? Best co-worker complaint ever Quoth the receptionist: "I hate answerin the damn phone. I swear, that shit's nevuh for me -- it's always for Joanne, or Juliette, or it's sumthin work-relatit. Tsk!" Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Time for the biannual haircut post. If you've ever read one before, you can just skip this one, because I do not intend to tread any new ground, though I may throw in a few random, non-haircut-related non sequitur digressions (most redundant clause ever?), like:
• I kinda like the new Duran Duran song "Sunrise," which I saw the video for at Launch, except that during the chorus, they use a chord change that sounds wrong to me -- like it was deliberately chosen to sound "different." If I had an instrument here at the office, I'd tell you what chord my ear wants and the one they used, but I'm too lazy to pick it out with just my head. (it happens on the lyrics "big sky" (first time) and "your life" (second).) I don't know if I'm being conservative/traditional here, but I just want to grab them by their skinny ties and say "don't get fancy, lads, you didn't get famous by using kooky, unpredictable, tinny progressions. You got famous by making videos like the one for 'Girls on Film.' Hottness!" My hair is in my eyes, and has been for a while now. It is at the length that makes it dangerous to perform tasks that require depth perception (driving, fighter-piloting, bowling, walking, life-drawing), and it also makes my mom crazy because she believes that the virus that causes conjunctivitis grows out of split ends and that I'm gonna explode with violent, albino-looking pink eye at any second. • The New York Post's cover page today was so despicable that I almost threw up on the train today. Take a look. That's right. A so-called newspaper gives Philip Morris a full-size ad on its front page, equating smoking with bravery, patriotism, heroism, manliness, and butt-kicking. Un. Be. Fucking. Lieveable. Except that it's not unbelievable, because it's the New York Post, which is the worst rag ever, Rupert Murdoch's toilet paper wiped across the face of New York every stupid fucking day. I just can't comprehend why so many people on the train are reading it. The text is at the 6th grade reading level, which makes it accessible to the undereducated, I guess. But I see a lot of upper-middle class yuppies and even hipster-looking leg-warmer trucker-hat types poisoning their minds with the jewel in News Corporation's crown of turds. I DON'T GET YOU, PEOPLE. YOU SUCK. Read the Times or put out your eyes. The hair is in my eyes and is getting funkier, which means that every couple of weeks or so, I actually have to wash it, which is totally anathema to my system of hair-beliefs. So it must be cut, and soon. BUT! As always, I look totally cute with the hair long. One coworker has threatened bodily harm at the business end of a letter opener if I let scissors within a foot of my dreamboat bangs. AND! I will have to do YET ANOTHER roommate hunt for the third bedroom, which I must fill on December 1. So maybe it's hasty and ill-advised to give myself the severe yet practical haircut until after I've wooed the new roomie. My sexy eyes never look sexier than when they flash out from hiding behind my dangly, greasy forelocks. Wait it out! Three more weeks! • When I heard this next bit of news, I flopped onto the floor in a paroxysm of pop-culture ecstasy: In the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, due out in 2006, the role of Capt. Jack Sparrow's father will be played by... Keith Richards. Oh yes. Just imagine, and oh god. Beautiful. Keith never cuts his hair. Neither does Cap'n Jack Sparrow. Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Some people have the gene that allows them to read maps. This may or may not be the same gene that keeps people from getting lost even without a map -- that special kinesthetic metamap in your head that tilts with the compass and knows where you are in relation to your point of departure and your destination. If they are different genes, I have both, and my sister has neither. She needs two sets of directions: one to a strange destination, and one from that place back home. She's incapable of reversing directions, and it took me too many years to realize that this was not a character flaw born of laziness. It is important to figure out who in your life can't read maps, and to make sure that they're not sitting in the passenger seat with the map in their lap. Badness ensues.
I'm cuckoo for maps. I love maps. I used to have my hallway absolutely papered with the things, and every map to a distant city was like a memory of being there. I had maps of the moon and Mars, too, and I think I would have felt at home there too. But you know what's a fucked-up city? London. I don't want to go there because even with a map, you appear to be fucked. Short of walking around with an open A-Z in front of your phiz, which is a jolly invitation for some ruffian to help himself to your cash, you need a local guide. But you know what? Don't go to London right now, or anywhere outside of the U.S., unless you're planning to stay there for a while, because the rest of the world hate hate hates us right now. If you do move out of the country for a while, never, ever refer to yourself as an "expat," because I will find you and slap you hard. One time I left the country and I got stuck in Copenhagen, which might have been cool if I hadn't run out of money, which meant that all I could do was read big books in exotic Danish plazas. Something you might not know about the Danes? They spend a lot of time drinking beer in plazas. I feel a strong desire to run away right now, but since my finances are less than optimal, this manifests as a near-narcoleptic need to sleep that comes over me if I am not directly stimulated for five minutes straight. Anyone else got the post-election narcolepsy? Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Fuck. Well, I feel like I've been kicked in the nads really hard. I didn't realize until last night that I've really believed Kerry would win for a long time. Two weeks ago I tried to get Raekool to mail me the box she has of Regime Change T-shirts because I was absolutely sure that after today they'd be worthless. I only slept with chemical assistance last night, and I woke feeling like congealed stew. My house is a mess. I had planned to clean up after this weekend's frantic roommate-switch and Halloween prep (my house was a launching pad for several revelers, two of whom were bees. Bees!) but I had no energy for anything. I couldn't watch the returns straight up, so I watched Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels on IFC while Dan Rather blathered homespun Texas editorial commentary in the little picture-in-picture box on the upper left of my screen. "This race is hot enough to fry a buzzard on the blacktop" or "the Kerry camp is nervous as a cat in a firework factory" or "the margin is as tight as a twelve-year-old boy's barnhole." Shut up, Dan.
I called a West Coast friend before I went to bed at 2am EST, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs about buying guns and going out and "shooting people in the middle," which I think meant "shooting people who live in the middle of the country" and not "shooting people in the midriff." I can't imagine what the country is thinking. I feel so incredibly bad, and I feel especially bad for people that I know who have spent a huge part of the last year campaigning, registering voters, traveling, and cold-calling, all for nothing. I think I'd be suicidal in their place. The rest of the world must be gagging with revulsion right now; they knew the last election was stolen, and watched in horror as this administration fucked up everything they touched like King Midas on Backwards Day, but now it looks like America actually voted for the most dangerous clowns the world has ever seen. We are fucked, man. We've got a lot of power, but if the rest of the world gangs up on us, we don't stand a chance. I've tried not to be political here in the past, for fear of alienating readers who didn't agree with me. But goddamn. Goddamn. How could half the country vote for Bush? How could they believe anything good could come of that act? Maybe the FCC rules changes had the profound effect we were all worried about: the vast consolidation of Conservative Media must have woven misinformation into a blanket so heavy that nobody in the middle of the country could wriggle out to the edges to hear any viewpoints to oppose those that came from the White House Press Office or the American Enterprise Institute or whatever. Maybe the paper-trail-less electronic voting machines made by the company whose CEO vowed to deliver the election to Bush were tweaked to steal the election. Maybe the widespread but underreported intimidation, misinformation, and corruption -- like the various companies that "registered" thousand of voters only to throw away those filled out by Democrats -- added up to make the vital difference. Did most Americans know that Bush has slowly been filling positions in local Draft Boards all over the country? Probably not. Maybe P. Diddy drove people away for the Democratic party. I don't know. But four more years can inflict a lot of damage. I really hope it doesn't take another great depression to shock this country into electing another FADER -- the New Deal has been systematically dismantled over the last 40 years, and people seem to have forgotten what it was all about. I can't stop my stomach from gushing acid into my throat. I feel like John Hurt at the Alien dinner table. Help. |
OTHER REVIEWS: John from Cincinnati Menomena LATEST BOOK REVIEWS: The Game Moneyball One-Upsmanship Siddhartha You need the Fear Not Guide to Life. Buy it already. ($4) Now available! The Broomfield Variations CD ($10) or go to The UD Store 
MY IMAGINARY GIRLFRIENDS Chan Marshall Rotem of the IDF Eleanor Friedberger Amy Goodman Bernardine Dohrn ('69) Maya Rudolph Joanna Newsom Imogen Heap Caroline Dhavernas Shana Rae Ray DISALLOWED FOREVER "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!" - "from whence" - "...the exception that proves the rule" - any use of the question "spit or swallow?" - the phrase "drop trou" - fake-o reviewer verbs: "penned" for wrote "helmed" for directed "lensed" for whatever - "expat" - the euphemism "passed away" - pronouncing merci beaucoup as "mercy buckets!" (see also: "grassy-ass!") PET PEEVES "confinscated" - trying children "as adults" - "drownded" |
