Pop-Tarts: The Mostest of Toaster Pastries

Pop-Tarts, how I love you.

You hit the spot. You are cute and easy to heat and eat. You are certifiably flammable when left in a toaster too long -- trust you to have that hint of danger about you, you old scamp (44 years old this year, you cougar). You solve many a hunger pang problem with a minimum of fuss. You are the James Bond of toaster pastries.

Some defile you with butter -- I had never heard of this until I read it on the internet, which proves that the internet spreads filth for the mind. Butter on Pop-Tarts is nothing but food porn, and I think more of you than that, Pop-Tarts. I would never subject you to that.

Some eat you raw. The uncooked food movement has reached even to you, has it? Will they stop at nothing? Yet only heat releases that sweet lava center. And don't they know that Pop-Tarts is Latin for "put it in the toaster"?

I forgot about you for years, Pop-Tarts, but our estrangement wasn't you, it was me. I was foolish. I thought I'd outgrown you. Now I know you don't outgrow perfection.

Hikers and bicyclists knew about your all along, didn't they, you little adventure-seeker? They remembered that you are high-carb and low fat, a perfect burst of energy for a dreary trek around the cubicle. I mean trail. I mean couch.

I love you, Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries.

(But only the strawberry frosted ones; the others are crap on a cracker.)

I hate people, don't you?

Don't you? Them and their faces, and the noises they're always making. They even make noise when they walk, fabric on fabric or skin on skin, like they're applauding themselves with every step, and they don't have that much to be proud of if you ask me.

They leave their appendages flapping around all over the place; they don't even look where they're going, and that's how we end up with accidents and disease, all over the world.

No matter where you look, there they are. Even when you close your eyes and dream, they're bound to show up sooner or later, with a hand growing out of their fused heads or giving you a math test when you're naked. That's just how they operate. They confuse and humiliate you. Don't you find that to be true? I do.

And they never shut up! Complain and die, that's all they do, complain and die. If they're aren't doing one, they do the other.

And now they want to run away to space, leaving a big mess behind just to create another mess, or so I think. I do think that, because they've proven they can't be trusted. In space they'll be more meaningless matter twirling aimlessly around, just like on the highway on the way to work.

There couldn't possibly be an afterlife. People are too stupid to put together something like that, don't you think? It sounds complicated, what with the dimensional shift and the rearrangement of matter. Lots of paperwork.

But if there is an afterlife, I bet you dollars to donuts it'll be just like here, but forever. And in reverse -- die and complain, that's all they'll do, forever and ever.

I want no part of it, no, sir. My plan is to never end.

OxiClean. No need to yell.

Look, I swear I just read a novella by D.H. Lawrence, and another by Henry James, and a third by Leo Tolstoy (I found a book of masterpiece novellas; can you tell?), and I might write very intelligent stuff about that stuff they were talking about -- humanity and love and stuff. And snow.

But the real story of my real life right now is OxiClean. I don't understand this. This is a product that flat out works, I mean like miracle rejuvenation of yellowed t-shirts, curtains, stained couch cushions, and what is euphemistically referred to as "pet stains" on the carpet. This motherf'ing stuff works! I am obsessed with it like Henry James was obsessed with insecure and naive women! I am as proud of it as a Russian aristocrat is of his horses and serfs! D.H. Lawrence should've written "Sons, Lovers, and OxiClean"!

It is sold in stores. I did not realize this until I looked for it in Target and Ralphs. It's a real product, not just a late night TV virtualclean thing, like a NoFuzz Duster (I made that up; good idea, no?). It is a legitimate, though MAGICAL, cleaning bubbler thing that agitates the material and lifts the dirt away (as I understand it). I bought a 16 gallon bucket just for OxiCleaning, and I am so happy! Everything is clean now!

I must grow a beard and yell at people about this product. Seriously, why the annoying pitchman? Is he Mr.Oxi? Why is he yelling? He makes the product seem like a rip-off when it is most certainly a rip-on. I can't figure out the advertising, but I am insisting you start cleaning all your stains and spills with the O.X.I. or I can not visit your house.

This Year's IFC Independent Spirit Awards nominees

Yeah, whatever -- the awards were weeks ago (months? Who can keep track?), way to be on top of all the new stuff out there. And I watched these before the awards so that I could vote, so these are opinions that have been allowed to sit and ripen, like dates, or pickles. That makes them sweeter and tangy-er.

Disclaimer: I hate independent films, just on principle. Don't we all? They're grainy, and slow, and stuck in a Hal Ashby world when the rest of us are in a McG world, right? Am I right, people? And they're so concerned about everyone's feelings, ewww. Crash some cars; then everyone will feel better.

Never mind that most of my favorite, most cherished movies of the last five or fifty years have been tiny little indies. That is not my point. I want to love Hollywood movies, but they make it so damned hard.

So I popped these films into the old player with my usual sense of dread, but look what happened: something wonderful!

(These are in no particular order)

1. LAND OF PLENTY -- look, I've heard of Wim Wenders, I don't think it's fair that he's on this list. But I guess if you make a movie for three cents, then you earn your props. This movie starred Michelle Williams, who I will watch in anything, anywhere, at any time. I have loved her since DICK, and I loved that she showed up in the great THE STATION AGENT, and she is luminous and expressive and great. It also starred some dude named John Diehl, never heard of him, but he too was great. This movie was kind of annoying and precious and 9/11-ny at first, and I was worried, but the more it went on, the more I liked it. It is buoyed up by two things: its own sense of humor (as in the scenes with the guy who works for the Diehl character), and the incredible letter that the dead mother wrote to her brother Diehl, which Williams delivers. The letter is one of the finest pieces of writing I've ever heard (Diehl reads it to us in voiceover). There is a depth of emotional understanding and compassion in it that took my breath away.

2. QUINCEANERA -- Ok, I'm dumb, I kept confusing this with REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES because all those Latino movies look alike, right? Am I right, people? They couldn't be more different. I loved this movie because it was very matter-of-fact in what happens to the characters and in how they deal with life. Stuff happens, they deal with it. Period. There are no neon signs saying GAY! OLD! KICKED OUT! PREGNANT! REALLY GAY! POOR! The characters are people, and stuff happens to it, and some of the stuff is mean, and some is nice, and they are themselves sometimes mean and sometimes nice. That's why I loved it -- because I believed it, and I really wanted many nice things to happen to the people in it.

3. MAN PUSH CART -- I have a lot of reservations with this one. I mean, holy shit, did that man ever push that cart. He sure did. I know because I watched him do so for many long minutes. It's worth seeing because the cast is great and the triangle between the cart-man, the lady, and the creepy businessman is really great and subtle and inescapable.

4. SORRY, HATERS -- Robin Wright Penn fucking RULES. She is fantastic, and Abdel Kechiche and Sandra Oh are really impressive as well. This is a fun and surprising movie that Wright Penn totally owns.

5. ROAD TO GUANTANAMO -- Every time I watch the news these days I think of this documentary and the appalling information within it.

6. BUBBLE -- Steven Soderbergh goes back to his roots, or even underneath his roots, for this one. Watch it, then definitely watch the making of extras for lots of excellent information about how it came together. The first twenty minutes or so are so boring you will wonder why you're sitting there watching it when you could be staring into space in peace, but then it winds tighter and tighter until you can't stand it. I was so worried for the characters as the movie progressed that I think I got hypertension just by watching it. They asked for so little out of life! And they couldn't even have that without problems problems problems! A wonderful story and a film that is truly inspiring for those who still believe in truly indie movies.

7. HALF NELSON and PAN'S LABYRINTH -- You don't need me to tell you how great these are and that you should watch them.

The end.

Answers to Questions Asked in a Job Interview

Q: Where do you see yourself in five years?

A: In five years, I see myself working here and working hard. That's my personal motto, and I live it every day of my life. If I combine working hard, which I always do, with working here, which is a dream of mine, I will finally be living to my highest potential. I plan to work so hard, yet so efficiently, that I will quickly rise in the ranks of this fine corporation, of which it is a dream of mine at which to work and for which to make money. In five years, I see myself taking my boss's job, then my boss's boss's job. In ten years, I see myself running this excellent company with an iron fist covered by a velvet glove. That's what a hard worker wears. In fifty years, I see myself dead.

Q: What are your best and worst qualities?

A: Let's start with my worst qualities, because I believe in self-criticism as the path to increased productivity. I sometimes work too hard, and I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'm also too modest. I don't like to toot my own horn, which I understand can hold back even an outstanding worker like myself. Also, I am a Communist, which causes conflicts with my quest for salary increases and an 3500 square foot home, but that is my personal issue, and I have been successfully struggling with it since that one summer I backpacked in Europe with an Armenian guy.

My best qualities are my generous nature and my attention to spelling, despite a slight dyslexia that makes me occasionally type fuc instead of cuff. You'd be surprised how often the word "cuff" comes up in interoffice disputes. Also, I love to work and work to love.

Q: Here's an example of a situation that you may encounter on the job here. Would you tell me how you would handle that situation?

A: Of course I will. I want to provide as much free work for you as I can and disseminate my ideas before being paid for them. I love you.

Q: What kind of salary range are you considering?

A: What kind of salary range are you considering?

Q: No, seriously.

A: I am always serious. Except when I play table tennis. Then I am fun-loving and competitive without being creepy about it.

Q: Yes, we have a ping-pong table in the--

A: Table tennis.

(pause)

Q: I see you have a gap in your resume. What were you doing between 2004 and now?

A: Consulting.

Q: What kind of consulting?

A: Value added.

Q: Point of sale?

A: Return on investment. Also, Just In Time deliverables.

Q: Multi-tiered, or VPN?

A: Vertically integrated, mostly. I maximize profits, minimize pain. Hard stop.

Q: You sound perfect.

A: I am.



Did I get the job? Yes. Yes I did. Did I accept the job? (!Cliffhanger!)