The post in which I take out my rage on unwelcome appendages.

And it's all the fault of a phallus. 

Yesterday, I was on Gchat, minding my own goddamn business, when I get a message from someone with the screenname 'andrewsparkes84'. I ask, "Who is this?" - seeing as I, honestly, have no clue who this guy is - and this oh-so-polite gentleman replies, "I was about to ask the same thing. Hold on - let me check if I have your email saved in my phone." A mere moment later, there's an email in my inbox from said Andrew Sparkes. He says, "I think I accidentally sent a blank email to your inbox." I opened the email to delete it, and, whaddya know, it has a picture embedded. A picture of this douchebag's cock.

So some guy I've never met in my life spends his spare time sending messages to me, trying to trick me into looking at his penis. Naturally, I blocked the guy. But not before reaching my breaking point.

I've had about a fucking enough of unsolicited dicks in my life. 

It all started when I was around 14. That summer, I hung out with a big group of people, including a guy who I kind of liked, but only because he was kind of slick and I was a glutton for attention. We used to make out in my friend's driveway. I was just having fun. He was just biding his time until he could bare his dick to me, unprompted.

After he grew bored of sticking his tongue in my mouth, he decided to pull me into a closet one evening and whip it out. I - with my knowledge of penises confined to that of my 8th grade boyfriend - wasn't digging the scene. I refused to touch it and ran out of the closet. So he decided to tell the whole school that my vagina smelled like tuna. Because I wouldn't touch his stupid baby dick.

Oh, but you'll say, that was once, when you were a teenager! Things must be different now.

Several years ago, I ended up going to court because a 40 year-old man followed me in the lobby of my office building and proceeded to masturbate in front of me, while backing me into a corner and trying to get my phone number. Oh, and not only me - FOUR other women that same day. When it happened, I felt incredibly violated and scared. I got back to my desk and cried for 20 minutes. My only thought was that it wasn't fucking fair. It got even less fair when the piece of shit decided to act as his own attorney during the trial and cross-examined me while attempting to demonstrate to the jury that he was 'spitting game' at me and that I was attracted to him.

He had a 30-page rap sheet and was convicted on one count of lewd & lascivious behavior, and then sent to maximum security prison for three years. He will be released in July and immediately deported back to Haiti, which I happen to be thrilled about. The whole experience was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life.

So I'm break it down. Here are some facts, for those of you with external genitalia. Take heed.

1. Nobody cares about your dick. Other than you, of course. And maybe whoever you marry. Unless you're in porn.
2. Dicks are not attractive. Really. They're not. They're only hot in context - i.e., who they're attached to. Seeing a picture of just a penis is like looking at one of those close-ups when you can't tell if it's a knee or an asscheek - perplexing initially due to the potentially taboo nature of the subject matter, but ultimately, completely unstimulating. Do you think sending someone a picture of your dick is going to make them come running (or come at all)? Get a grip.
3. Thrusting your dick upon strangers doesn't make you a man. I don't care if it's on the internet, or on the subway, or on your phone. It makes you a stupid asshole.
4. If you can't keep it in your pants, I won't let you retain any dignity. And you can fucking forget about respect. If any of you plan on continuing with your bullshit dick-sharing parade, I will have no problem making a huge scene, laughing at the size of your penis, and kicking you in it.

2010's douchebag of the universe!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about egotism and vanity. I've realized lately that I don't personally find selfishness that offensive - but only if it's self-aware selfishness. Only if it's selfishness that someone owns and is very clear about. You want to abandon your roommates in the middle of the night without having paid rent for three months? Sleep with someone for a promotion? Do it. Just admit that you're a self-centered asshole. Deep down, we're all kind of terrible, but we're not self-disparaging enough to outwardly proclaim it. Thus, I have a lot of respect for people who know they're shitheads and have no problem letting the world know.

As such, I believe narcissism under the guise of charity is a capital sin. Let me introduce you to 2010's Douchebag of the Universe.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or twenty-five, which is about the number of words in his vocabulary.

This guy, whom I'll call the Simian, is a self-proclaimed "social media superstar," a "model" and a "promoter." Technically, he might be all of these things. He has nearly 5000 Facebook friends, a collection of photographs in various states of undress, and he hosts nights at Boston clubs. But more than anything, he is a vain, superficial, greasy, deluded moron who sells makeup on the internet and thinks he has the right to tell other people that they're ugly.

On his website, he touts the e-book of his "rise to glory" from suburban upper-middle-class friendless loser to club rat that hangs out with walking piles of hair extensions. Since I don't want to subject you to the inanity (I read it and nearly lost my lunch as well as my will to live), I'll sum it up for you: He was fat. He didn't kiss anyone until he was 17. He worked at a bank. He went on MySpace.

"This is where I made a decision. I decided I wanted it all. I wanted the girls in the pictures, I wanted the abs, I wanted the money, the cars, the flashing lights, and I wanted to be right in the middle of all of it. This is where my world got flipped upside down."

What an existential crisis! Honda Civics and glitter graphics are so inspiring! So how was he going to achieve his dream of material satisfaction?

"I figured the most logical way to get something that I really wanted was to observe and mimic the people who already had it."

Brilliant plan of attack, troglodyte. Brilliant. I mean it. He was at the very least smart enough to realize that he will never have the insight or prowess to fashion himself as a unique person. Instead, he nicknamed himself "Hollywood," (though I doubt he'd ever been there by that time), bought a lot of vests, and has landed somewhere between being a juicehead and a motivational speaker. He hawks his brand with the panache of a satisfied client on a Hair Club for Men commercial; hurling epigrams about how feeling good is looking good and taking every available opportunity to compare women to cars.

He uses his internet presence to tell everyone what he's about, which is essentially nothing. Positivity! Hot chicks and money! You're not rich because you're not working hard enough!

Still, women kiss his ass. For every banal, shallow observation about how everything he does is right and everything everyone else does is wrong, there are eight bimbos cooing about funny and wise he is. It goes without saying that these are the kind of women who are the human personifications of herpes, and are guaranteed to have fake breasts, nails, hair, tans, or all of the above. They tend to have even less substance than the men who are so desperate to fuck them.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are always about having a "positive attitude" and "achieving their dreams" are the people who have absolutely nothing under the surface? They're also the same people who don't watch the news, don't care about political issues, and claim to like all kinds of music. I guess it's really easy to be positive all the time when you spend your time not reading or attempting to contribute anything to society.

I have the consolation of knowing that in 20 years, this dipshit will be wearing Sears suits and selling used cars, but it still unnerves me that there are legions of dumb broads in America, swarming around men like him and their giant heads. It irritates the absolute shit out of me that anybody in the world thinks he's an authority on ANYTHING. But what irks me most of all is that he has the nerve to claim that he's "helping people". Here's a recent Facebook comment, full of self-deprecation and modesty:

"Do you know about the countless hours I've spent helping hopeless teenagers actually have a social life, get attention from women, change their image, have FRIENDS? Without asking for ANYTHING in return?"

Oh yes, you are an endless foundation of philanthropy! The world thanks you for your generous donation of hypocritical comments on other people's lives! You're the front-runner to win the Nobel Prize; they just made a new category for being a fucking self-absorbed worthless piece of shit! Everybody knows you're only helping your dick and your bottom line; just get over yourself.

die ticketmaster, die.

I ain't no hippie. I buy clothes that are most likely made in sweatshops. I enjoy Wendy's chicken nuggets and I've probably unwittingly contributed to the 401(k) of the CEO of R.J. Reynolds. But there are two companies that really infuriate me: Walmart and Ticketmaster.

Now, I know that Walmart basically has America by the balls. I know that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of towns across America that base their entire economy on their local Walmart: where everyone works and everyone shops. And though I find their employment policies discriminatory and sexist (and I am rooting for the million-strong class action lawsuit against them), I recognize that, conscience be damned, sometimes you have to buy things cheaply and you have to buy them from Walmart.

But there is no excuse for the monopolistic shitpile that is Ticketmaster.

Yesterday, whilst showering, I was contemplated this devil of a corporation. Seth, Joel and I are planning on going to see Peaches (of F**k the Pain Away fame) in a week and a half. We went online on Tuesday to purchase the tickets from LiveNation - and found that two $18 tickets were going to cost us $54 - with a NINE DOLLAR convenience charge PER TICKET. You may not be aware, but Ticketmaster and LiveNation merged in February - creating the single-largest ticketing powerhouse in the world. Ticketmaster already controlled the sale of tickets for more than 80% of the venues in the U.S.

I still cannot understand how they have weaseled their way into this deal, effectively avoiding federal antitrust law. David Balto, on AmericanProgress.org, summed it up best, as follows. The beast that is Ticketmaster & LiveNation now:

• sells most of the concert tickets in this country through its contracts with venues
• manages a significant number of the marquee performers in the world or controls their tours
• owns most of the amphitheatres in the US and owns more 'club' venues, as well as controlling (through owning/leasing) a large amount of other clubs and theatres
• owns two of the major resellers of tickets
• owns various sources of competitively sensitive data

So basically, unless the only live music you're into is listening to that homeless guy play his 25-year-old broken Fender Strat in Davis Square on a Sunday afternoon, you're pretty much screwed. I still can't even fathom where Ticketmaster gets off charging YOU $2.50 to print a ticket ON YOUR OWN PRINTER, USING YOUR OWN INK. Not to mention the "facilities fee," which, I assumed, the club just made by overcharging you for booze. They now lump all the fees together into a simple "convenience charge," which they say is to pay for the convenience of finding tickets from your home computer, rather than standing in line at box offices, like they did in the days of yore. But here's the thing - running that online system doesn't cost Ticketbastard ANYTHING. It has boosted their profits tenfold to sell tickets online to anyone, anywhere. And now they've been caught with sending customers to TicketsNow, a so-called ticket "reseller," seconds after tickets are put up for sale on Ticketmaster, and charging huge markups. It seems like the rape will never end.

I won't be going to half as many shows as I used to. I guess it doesn't matter anyway, because the new House of Blues fucking sucks.