WEEKLY "THE HILLS" UPDATE

A SoCal Christmas!
Heidi is All About Beach Safety
Heidi "Singing" and "Dancing"
With These Clothes and a Few Hundred Headbands, You Can Look Just like LC!

Next week:

The crew goes to Vegas for Brody's birthday in what looks kind of like the house from the Las Vegas Real World season. If I get that right I'll really be more embarrassed than pleased. Expect at least one use of "whatever happens in Vegas..." and probably some great drunken girl-talk between LC and Audrina.

Elodie quits. Heidi seems hurt, although I can't imagine why and it's probably just the editors fucking with me.

LC and Lo don't get along with ol' Jabesy, who's back for another episode (thank god). Audrina then cries about her relationship and defiantly says "I'm done!" just like she did that other time.

And oh shit, the big bombshell of the teaser (that seems to give the entire episode's twist away!): BRODY AND LC BACK TOGETHER! There's some near-autistic dialogue about a birthday kiss and then HOLY FUCK THEY'RE KISSING ON SOME SORT OF DAYBED, OR MAYBE A COUCH WITH LOTS OF PILLOWS OR SOMETHING!

And just in case you're scared of links,

L'SHANA TOVAH

Welcome to the new year, Jews and others! For Rosh Hashanah I mostly got drunk and went through my list of Hebrew phrases to yell at gentiles. It didn't take very long, so by about 9 PM I was just counting from 1 to 10 over and over. Then yesterday I half-fasted (halfasted? halfsted?) by getting drunk AGAIN and then apologizing to G-d for, among other things, dating a Catholic girl and forgetting to floss every day. He says we're cool and that beer doesn't count when you're fasting because it makes you hungrier, thus increasing suffering and making me a really great Jew overall. Then we high-fived in spirit and I watched the hockey game.

I watched the Battlestar Galactica finale with Mollie the other day and really liked it, but I seriously don't know how much more nerditude I can handle before I explode in a flash of pocket protectors and snort-laughs. All the casual drug use and knowledge of gangsta-rap in the world won't help me be cool if I'm talking about the mythology of the final five cylons and their relation to the first cylon-human war on the planet Caprica. Then I push my glasses up my nose and talk about Linux.

I have become functionally illiterate, thanks to my English lit degree. I know some people may think that just because I'm best fucking friends with literary superstars and I talk nonsense about wanting to work in editing that I can or do actually read, but it's not true. I've spent the last three months reading fifty pages of the new Michael Chabon book, which I actually really like but every time I pick it up I just think about how much I'd rather be watching the Hills. Then usually I put it down and watch the Hills. LC, why won't you come to Montreal and fall immediately in love with me?! I can spike my hair in stupid ways and shave my beard into an ugly chinstrap if that's what you want!

I'm gonna start doing a "LINKS!!!!!!" section on here because my life is really not that interesting. So let me direct you to things that are!

LINKS!!!!!!

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/primer_canadian_indie_rock
http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/mary_kate_olsens_voice_is_almost
http://www.mountain-goats.com/forums/read.php?2,11195
http://indieguitartabs.com/

And for fuck's sake, if you're not Mollie, Carolyn, or Byron, click on their links up at the top there.

Things I Like

So I'm going to turn this blog from an account of my political summer into more standard bloggy territory: an account of things I like! This is partly due to my dishonorable discharge from the employ of not one but TWO liberal political entities, and partly due to my being stuck down here in the deep south. Did I mention that my life in Montreal has caused me to view everything further south than Boston as a disgusting melange of lynchings, white people, fanny packs, and chicken-fried steak?

I've made it my mission to do as many ultra-Amurrican things as I can while I'm here. This includes smoking seriously the most godawful cigarettes I've ever dreamt of in my darkest nightmares, because they cost about three bucks and are covered with American symbols. Flags? Eagles? Minimal health warnings? They're USA brand and they feel like I'm inhaling poisonous, deadly freedom. I should mention that Canadian cigarettes cost as much as a compact car and are plastered with warnings like "THIS PRODUCT WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE," followed by a picture of some malnutritioned Mexican babies. My USA brand cigarettes don't have any of that bullshit, only some tiny print saying "uhhh, hey dude, if you're pregnant, the surgeon general thinks maybe you shouldn't smoke these." Luckily for me, my womb is baby-free and so my lungs are full of nicotine and tar!

Other things I like: watching some TV series I've already seen and spoiling it for other viewers by quoting inane trivia at them until they beg for mercy. Sorry, friends, but the fact that Rob Lowe is first in the West Wing credits because he was originally supposed to be the main character is TOO IMPORTANT to keep secret any longer! I must divulge this information and distract you from whatever banal plot developments are transpiring!

Also liked (by me): defiantly pronouncing the letter Z as "zed." Yeah, I thought at first that this was one more piece of evidence that the Canadians will never tire of sucking the Queen's cock, but it's grown on me. I attribute this growth to the problem of the last letter of my last name. When pronounced in the proper fashion (zee), Canadians think my name is Nosowitc. I've gotten so much fucking mail addressed to Daniel Nosowitc. Who the balls looks at that and thinks it's a real name? So I'm forced to believe that our not-so-tolerant northern neighbors are pressuring me into changing the singsong way I pronounce my name! The most basic parts of me are being taken over by a snowy menace from above! So now, Pennsylvanians give me that look I've grown so used to lately: the "hmm... you ain't from around these parts, is ya?" look of disdain and curiosity. But mostly disdain. Contributing to this problem is the fact that I don't dress like Pennsylvanian college students (no Abercrombie or Hollister? No running shoes? No cargo shorts? WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHAT PLANET DID HE FLY IN FROM?!). The clerk at Trader Joe's asked me my zip code and I said my Canadian one, just for fun (H2X 3H7). She started typing it, then realized that something's odd about it. "Where are you from?" she suspiciously asked. "Oh, um, Montreal," I replied. "Oh. Well, I'll give you a local zip code, okay hun?" she responded. THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY MISS USA!

Honestly though, the Main Line is a pretty attractive place. I'll throw up some pictures to give you guys an idea of the deep-green semi-southern lushness of this humble 'burb. Just as soon as I figure out how to post pictures in this damn adult bloggin-program.

This first picture is taken from the driveway of some woman I canvassed, about ten minutes from my house.


This next one is part of my backyard, taken over by my dad's botanical experiments. That chair is my book-readin' area.


And here are some goddamn fucking deer, or as we salt-of-the-earth folks call them, "overgrown rats." They are a menace to society. I'm not joking about this at all, deer are legitimate man-killing traffic accidents waiting to happen and all my tree-hugging liberalism doesn't stop me from supporting anything that could wipe the furry bastards off the face of the earth.


Click all the pictures to enlarge, and I'd really recommend clicking on the deer picture. That's not bad photography skills that made those deer eyes glow, that's their EVIL INNER NATURE SHINING THROUGH.

I Can Abbreviate "Main Line" With my Fingers

It's four in the morning and frankly, you people haven't left enough comments to warrant much of an update. You understand that I measure your love for me in number of comments left, right?

I had a pretty Main Line day, including a game of beer pong while Dispatch played in the background, those tree-hugging honky-ass hippies. I found myself mired in the same drama I remember from high school, only now it seems hilarious and not CRUSHINGLY LIFE-CHANGING IMPORTANT ARRRR. Something about the birthday boy doesn't want me at his party, and that I apparently am kind of a cock sometimes. Also everyone thought I had long been hooking up with this friend of mine, which makes me think maybe I could/should have been doing so. And then, in the middle of all this high school nonsense, I met this girl who wanted to talk to me about Don DeLillo and how Invisible Man is seriously fucking awesome and who displayed a proper level of awe when somehow (don't ask me!), McSweeney's came into the discussion. It was an odd little juxtaposition of where I'm at now compared with where I was.

I like myself a lot better now.



I really hope nobody was expecting an in-depth examination of my work field a la Graeme or Mike Dineen. Not that I've been intentionally leaving things out, but because I don't have any insight on the American political/electoral system that I didn't have before. I got called a commie for saying that maybe God wouldn't hate universal health care, and called in sick two days in a row. I wish I was getting my hands dirty dealing with real issues, but that's really not what campaigning's about. It seems so far to be about money above all else, not that I'm idealistic enough to be surprised or offended by that. I got promoted to Field Manager already, which means my pay is slightly less shitty and I have to lead someone even less experienced than myself around some days. I'm really digging for work-related stuff to talk about but it's really not that interesting. If anybody wants to COMMENT and ask a QUESTION because I haven't even really explained what I do all day, I'll answer.

PS: Who else thinks Nithya needs a goddamn blog right now?

Okay well it's Monday night, and seriously I'm too exhausted to write a real entry. If you include transportation, and I do, I work from 12:30 to midnight. It's pretty hard work, really. I'm walking around, knocking on people's doors, for about five hours a day in steaming hot weather, and I'm feeling beat up by the end. Anyway, here are some hints I've learned to tell Democrats from Republicans just by the outside of their houses.

DEMOCRAT
Mezuzah or anything indicating that JEWS BE INSIDE!
Unkempt lawn (I've been told this only works in the rich-ass suburbs where there's no conservative white trash)
Non-bred animals (mutt dogs, for instance)
Hybrid car
Inhabitants prone to verbose abuse

REPUBLICAN
Pineapple flags, doormats, or wall hangings. No clue why, but this one's just about 100%. Pineapple doormats? What is this shit?
SUVs
Sterile-type front lawn (perfectly sheared grass of a delicate emerald shade, few large shrubs or plants)
Lawn gnomes
Highly polite inhabitants

Also, sorry to disappoint if anybody thought I was doing anything exciting, important, or honestly all that interesting this summer. This job doesn't give me the opportunity to break into carefully-crafted monologues on justice and peace and freedom and AMERICA! Nor do I get to make any decisions about anything, or have any real impact on the American political system. I do talk about politics for eight hours a day, although not from a perspective all that different from what I had before this job. Canvassing works just about the way I thought it would, really, and the DNC isn't anything surprising, although it is way bigger than I expected. I found that if you think Bush-bashing is as embarassing and sort of dangerous as I do, you'll be far in the minority among DNCers. I found that there are a surprising amount of dudebrahs working for the DNC, and few hipsterfags. I found that I am not the only employee of the DNC who is not a registered member of the party, not by a long shot. I found that Republicans are by the by much nicer than Democrats, even when dealing with somebody who just told them "Our country can't handle eight more years of failed leadership and failed policies" before realizing they've got a fucking pineapple flag. And mostly, I found that full-time work is very little fun. I'm falling behind on my internet knowledge, it's depressing.

Also Philly maybe is kind of cool. And even pretty in parts.

My cat's name is Tasha but I say "Tashiiii" and make approving cat-like noises at her

This is eventually going to be a painfully superior account of my job working for the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, but I haven't started yet so I'm going to talk about my cats and maybe give out some hot fashion tips.

HEY GUYZ, HERE'S A PICTURE OF MY CAT ^_^

My job title is "Official Sellout and Shill for Motherfucking Howard Fucking Dean," and I'll be taking his message to the masses.  The masses, by the way, are not going to be pleased with me.  I tried to get a more, you know, indoor type job, but they just ignored the line on my resume that reads "WRITERMAN 100% Super A+++!"  They also ignored my total lack of political experience or, honestly, interest, so I guess I'll take it.  Now I'm sitting in my suburban basement, reading some pamphlets on Dean's exciting new plans for fucking up the Democratic Party, and realizing that inner-city canvassing probably won't be like The West Wing.  The people I'm working with aren't nearly as attractive or witty as I'd expected, and I've yet to be introduced to the President, Speaker, or even a measly Supreme Court Justice.  There's like twelve of them, not one can spare a weekend to come up and say hi?

Fashion tips to follow!