in his defense, he is an indian guy with a beard

Sometime in your life, and likely, sometime during your day today, someone has complain-bragged to you. There are few things that turn me off more than a complain-brag. I doubt I am the first person to coin that term or decry this behavior, but it came up again in a recent conversation that started with “do you know what I hate?” In this case, it was sequels that use another form of the word “two.” (Yes, I’m looking at you, Tyler Perry). From there, we took a little journey of things that answer that question: the overpopulation hipsters in Soho, those Old Navy mannequin ads, skinny jeans, NYU freshmen, the way that the Village keeps changing, and, among others, complain-bragging.

Complain-bragging is exactly what it sounds like it is. Someone frames a brag in the form of a complaint. So, instead of smacking you in the face with a wave of overconfidence, they force your hand. You have to commiserate with the complaint, thereby affirming the brag. Let’s use an example. “Ugh, I have so much work to do this week because no one else in my department can be trusted to handle this material!” Or, “I’m so tired from working out so long at the gym last night!” Or, “It is so hard to find size 0 jeans in this store!” Or, “I can’t believe how expensive it is to get a BMW repaired in this city!”

The most egregious form of complain-bragging comes from, as the most egregious form of anything does, from annoying girls. You know how it goes. “Oh my god, I went out to this bar last night and these guys would not stop hitting on me!” Yeah, okay sweetie. Strangers thought you were attractive and told you so? Wow, your life sure sounds tough. You know the cure for that complaint. You go out one night, wear your short skirt and your low-cut top, you go do your hair and makeup and put on your heels, go out that night and have no guy hit on you all night. Sit around with your friends and have no guy pay any attention to you. Is that really what you want? No. No it isn’t. So just shut up.

But complain-bragging is not just the hallmark of an annoying girl. It is also deep in the pocket of any academic douchebag. “I can’t believe how heavy the seventeen books I checked out for my thesis were!” Here, in case it isn’t obvious, you are supposed to be impressed about the seventeen books. You are supposed to sympathize with the struggle of carrying all those books at the same time relate your awe that someone read seventeen books and is working on a thesis. How impressive! You managed both to carry home a bunch of crap, but also, you are really, really, really, really smart! Seventeen books worth of smart!

I like to play a different game. “Maybe you should have made a couple of trips.” Perhaps we can’t learn everything from books.

A complain-brag also has an equally ugly cousin with a longer, more hyphenated name (as ugly cousins often have): the self-deprecating-but-actually-self-aggrandizing joke. It follows the same sort of philosophy as the complain-brag. Instead of hailing the conquering hero (i.e., yourself), you make some comment that makes the other person inadvertently affirm you. It goes something like this:

A-hole: Yeah, I was so dumb. I was like “imagine libertarianism is a whale.” Look how fun and fancy free I am!

[Expected response]: Yeah, you are just a free-wheeling academic. Your whimsical references are at once silly, but also really insightful. Thanks for being both fun and smart!

Jesse response: Yeah, remember when you said used the word libertarianism in an English Lit class? Ew.

Let’s be clear. This is not the “does this shirt make me look fat” question. Nor is it the I-say-mean-things-about-myself-so-you-can-tell-me-good-things-about-me game. While those are also hallmarks of both annoying girls and academic douchebags, they are the tools of lesser such, well, tools. There is something more sinister, more calculated about the complain-brag. You are not just openly asking people for affirmation that you are so great (or at least perpetuate the myth that you are not fat). You are almost trying to trick people into giving it. You choose your words carefully and craft a conversation in which you steal from people both sympathy and admiration.

Person: Oh, I wish I could have done X in high school, but I was too busy with all my AP classes. (HA HA now you feel sorry for me for not doing whatever you were talking about, you will be impressed with how smart I was slash am!)

Now some of you keeping score may try to point out that I complain-brag about being called a high school student. Let me show you the distinction. I know I look younger than I am, and I enjoy that. But there is a huge difference between someone saying “oh, you look youthful and vibrant, full of life!” and “Oh, you look like you have not yet taken the SAT and are really looking forward to (junior) prom next year!” I especially loved when I was asked if we, my volunteers and I, were all high school volunteers. I would make big gestures, swirling my arms around everywhere: “THEEEEEEEY ARE; I graduated college. I have voted in multiple presidential elections. I have a 401k!” I try to list things that make me sound old. “I try to include extra fiber in my diet. I once had to see a doctor about acid reflux!”

I appreciate when I get carded at a bar. One such story:

Jesse: Can I get a beer?

Waitress: Sure, do you have ID?

Jesse: Sure. Do I look especially young or something?

Waitress: Oh, no we have to card anyone who looks under 30.

Jesse: Oh, okay.

Waitress: Great! [Checks ID].

Friend: Can I get a beer, too?

Waitress: Sure! [Leaves].

Jesse: HAHA YOU LOOK 35! I LOOK NINETEEN AND YOU LOOK OLD!

Also, I love the idea that it was like a 35-year-old and his 19-year-old friend, hanging out in some unromantic interracial version of Harold and Maude (yes, apparently a 35-year-old is now a Maude).

In any case, this is an epidemic that can stop with you! Be on the lookout for them and do not indulge them. If you see something, say something! (And by something, I really mean nothing).

and i didn't need to upload it, as all those songs are already on my computer...

I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Well, no. I’ve had absolutely no trouble sleeping from 6 am to 3 pm. That’s been effortless. I have had trouble sleeping like a regular diurnal mammal. So, in between when I decide to go to bed and I actually fall asleep, I have been getting a lot done. For example, I have upped my winning streak on FreeCell from the low to the mid 300s. But, I felt that I could perhaps be even more efficient. So last night, I decided to go through a stack of unlabeled CDs to label them.

I found some weird things. I found a mix CD that was labeled. There was “[undisclosed name]’s mix” written on the front, along with the date and the #7. The date harkens back to a more innocent time, pre-9/11 time when we had boy bands aplenty, J. Lo had not yet met Ben Affleck, and Aaliyah was still alive. Ah, the halcyon days of yore. In any case, here is the playlist (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up, folks):

1)‘N Sync – Gone

2) something Indian

3) Theme from (the original) 90210 (which you now sadly have to clarify)

4) Linkin Park – Crawling in my Skin

5) from Rent – Rent

6)‘N Sync – Dirty Pop

7) something Indian

8) Blu Cantrell – Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)

9) J. Lo – I’m Real

10) ‘N Sync – Do Your Thing

11) Mandy Moore – In My Pocket (a very poor quality version)

12) ‘N Sync – Celebrity

13) Xtina, Pink, Mya, Lil Kim – Lady Marmalade

14) Willa Ford – I Wanna Be Bad

15) from Moulin Rouge - Hindi Sad Diamonds

16) Jordan Knight – Give it to You

17) Aaliyah – Are You That Somebody (RIP)

Full disclosure: the tracks showed up in my iTunes without labels. I had to look them up (by reaching into my memory and instantly knowing the songs). Also, I was trying to detect a theme for the CD. And I couldn’t even come up with a joke answer. Something using the word bling?

Also also, let’s talk about 2001 in music for a second. Napster was in full swing then. Music was apparently doomed forever, and the sale of music would never be the same. Number one selling album that year? Linkin Park. This album went like ten times platinum. Things were free and still (somehow) legal, and something like ten million people spent actual money on the Linkin Park CD. Just saying.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I had come across something even weirder. There was a CD with just two documents on it. One was a set of notes and the other was an essay written by, well, I don’t know. Not by me or anyone I know. WHERE DID IT COME FROM? And, if you are me, you would naturally start to play out the first twenty minutes of Enemy of the State in your head. Did Jason Lee drop this in my shopping bag before he rode his bike in front of a bus?! Is Gene Hackman standing on my roof?! Are a bunch of people going to try to kill me?! What is going on?!?! (Apparently, in my head, I am played by Will Smith.) (I imagine that actually casting the role of me would involve doing a wikipedia search to see if William Hung is still around and then calling the South Park guys to see if they still have the puppet they used in Team America).

I think it was someone’s homework. I hope that person worked it out, as this CD been in a box for years. In any case, I can cross that off of my list. CDs I never look at have been messily labeled. Good. So that way when I put them back in the box and not touch them for three years, they will at least have the words “mp3s” or “pictures” scribbled on the front of them. I can sleep soundly now.

full full disclosure: i may have been thinking of joanna kerns the first time

I once had a writing professor who decried the rampant iPod usage in New York City. You miss out on hearing the world around you, she would say. There is where you’ll find inspiration. There is where you’ll find stories. Well, I have been iPod-less for a while (not by choice, but by my clever combination of clumsiness and poverty), so my commute is often subject to inspiration and stories whether I want them or not. The other day, as I headed out to my second ever day of (still fartless!) yoga, I was unintentional eavesdropper to an odd conversation.

The woman next to me was telling her friend about her CUNY School of Journalism application. She complained as she flipped through the pages. “They want us to answer all of these questions. Here, look at this. They want us to identify all of these.”

Well, I felt like I was in it to win it, so I peeked at her list. There were many blank spots. “Look at this, I don’t know who these people are!” The first three were all blank: Judith Miller, Tom DeLay and John Roberts. “Who is this? Tom DeLay. I don’t know who that is.” Now, I don’t necessarily believe that everyone needs to who Tom DeLay or, say, the current Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court are. But surely, the one group of people who absolutely should is journalism students, right? Am I crazy?

Full disclosure: if someone were to ask me who Judith Miller is, I would quickly and confidently answer, “oh, she was the mom on Who’s the Boss?” But, I am not applying to be a journalism major anywhere. And, if asked who Valerie Plume is, I would know. So there.

I mean, different people know different things. She did have something written for a lot of the other terms. For example, for “Derek Jeter” she had written “Yankees” and for “Darfur” she had written “hunger.” She gets points for concision. Too many writers today suffer from an intolerable, over-modified case of logorrhea and pretension—showing off for their readers that they know who Valerie Plume is (as if it is somehow impressive). Touché, subway lady.

But, I can’t help but wonder why she is even looking at a degree in journalism. Is that really what you’re drawn to? I mean, it’s not exactly a degree that opens a lot of doors (says the English major). What is your end goal? Maybe she intends to learn who Maureen Dowd is (another blank she asked her friend about). Maybe. But the way she said it, it was as if no one should care who Maureen Dowd is. Like a high-school student asking during a poetry lesson, “when are we ever going to use this?” (Answer: the ability to understand metaphoric language is essential to all forms of communication; the overarching skill of being able to read, understand, and reiterate the meaning of a text is necessary for any professional job; and engaging the imagination, that is, the metaphoric, allows any and all learning to occur, you little punk). She then took her application, folded it into quarters, and put it back into her purse.

Maybe I am just a big snob (true) and maybe she has some vision in mind in which a degree in journalism will be useful (it’s possible). I mean, there are plenty of celebrity news writers and whatnot that probably have no clue who Samuel Alito is and will happily live their lives not knowing. And they’ll probably make more money than I will and get to meet cool people like Maggie Gyllenhaal or Zooey Deschanel or that guy from Once. So maybe she has a point.

Or maybe, I just need to invest in a new iPod (donations are always welcome).