A blog in which I will attempt to blog as Andy Rooney

[real quick before I start: Deanna, now watching The Soprano's in order on her computer wearing headphones lets go a gutteral "Oh" that indicates pain horror revulsion, etc. She is now so addicted to the Sopranos she can no longer wait for Netflix to send her the episodes in order. She will brook no delay. If they are not quick enough she runs to blockbuster to grab the next installment. She is behind the curve but that is no impediment to her devotion.end reality intrusion]

It occurs to me that while conscience may make cowards of us all, the Internet turns everyone into Andy Rooney. Andy Rooney is John the Baptist of bloggers everywhere- he is a man with absolutely nothing to say who has been given a forum to say his nothing in front of millions of people for hundreds of years. I actually am a big fan. I find Andy Rooney to be a completely arresting presence. He could do anything during his little segment of sixty minutes and I would be unsurprised. But most of the time he does nothing, says nothing, or says something that you'd probably thought about at some point and deemed too uninteresting to tell even your closest friend or lover.


This is blogging, in essence. my friend over at the brooklyn beatdown described his most recent dry spell with regard to blogging as a form of constipation. Nothing could be more apt. Blogging is an attempt to spew shit into cyberspace (and there's not a person born who doesn't enjoy the typeface of their own craptext).


This is all cool. Until you realize that you're Andy Rooney. But not that Andy Rooney. Just one of a countless number of Andy Rooneys each spewing his own special flatulent underdeveloped opinions into the air- giving vent to a thought that more likely than not never needed venting and filling a moment for someone else who might have been searching for information or entertainment and instead stumbled upon this moment of semi-literate crepulence.


So here's mine for the day. Imagine Andy Rooney saying it and it'll be better for you- spoken slowly, rumpled suit, dandruff, crazy eyebrows, someone in a control booth about to signal for the giant stopwatch graphic after he completes the final punctuation.

"I was taking a bath. I still take baths. Showers are great but you can't read books in the shower. Some of us still enjoy reading books. For you younger people books are those things on the shelves next to your CDs. In French, the word shower is douche. I can't believe they don't snicker at that. Anyway I looked over and my girlfriend, who is still younger than me after all these years, had a new pair of contact lenses from 1-800 Contacts. The picture on the box was of a young white woman with good skin in a white suit. I don't think she had glasses on. That wouldn't make sense. At any rate, 1-800 Contacts is a company that makes inexpensive contact lenses. Or sells them at any rate. The white woman is intended to be comforting. But the contacts probably come from a land far away. And since the point of 1-800 Contacts is to sell the cheapest contacts possible- shouldn't they put someone else on the box? Perhaps someone desperate. Living in a shack. A picture of 14 year olds working in a factory in Indonesia. Indonesian people always seem to have great muscle tone in pictures. Or if that's too depressing or distressing maybe just a promise. In big letters. "These Contact Lenses Were Made For You As Cheaply As Possible By The Poorest People We Could Find." That would reassure me that I was getting a good value. Because like you, I hate getting cheated. I'm Andy Rooney."