Postmodern Conservative.: My Whiteness: Part One of a Continuing Series

Now that the list's all in one place, let's measure. Why not? Today's installment: #97 - 70.

#97 Scarves
I own two. One my sister made for me. The other was a Christmas present from Grandma. Do I like these scarves? Yes. Because they're scarves? No. Unless Scarves includes day scarves. Y'know, like Hermes scarves for greasy-haired, pointy-shoed, wiry little goombas with deep tans, little sweaty ringlets of chest hair, and sunglasses that are eating their face. Those rule.

#96 New Balance Shoes
I threw out my last pair last year. I did this because my wife started making firm and not unreasonable demands about this pair of shoes, which was purchased in North Carolina in 1999 after returning from London, where every punter, piker, pikey, pouf, ponce, nonce, nan, sod, and homeless person with hair so long it had turned into a yellow mat hanging over his buttocks was wearing a pair. In London I went to Pharmacy, spent three and a half minutes in Ministry of Sound, ate bad nachos, and ogled peoples' New Balance 'trainers', which I had never seen before and came in more colors than God. I will never again own a pair of New Balance sneakers.

#95 Rugby
My fraternity has a sport called Zamboni. Zamboni is rugby with all but three of the rules eliminated. The three remaining rules are a cruel mockery of real rugby, which I have never played in my life and am now too scared to play. In Zamboni, the 'ball' is a duct taped-up full roll of toilet paper. The 'goals' are two industrial-sized plastic garbage cans placed at either end of the large field. Finally, the game ends at halftime. Playing this game, I executed a victory backflip after scoring what I hope was the winning goal, popped out of the flip in midair, and pile-drove my neck into the ground, shattering two inches of collarbone and almost punching the crunched-celery-like stalk of bone through the skin. Bruising was instant, shock was imminent, and were it not for Duke hospital and the brilliant Indian doctor who inserted an invented-yesterday metal screw into my body, today I would be a hobbling freak with a hideously shrunken T-Rex arm, pointing with my hideously overmuscled 'regular' arm toward local playgrounds and neighborhood baseball diamonds, gesticulating and jabbering like Hillary Clinton after she lost Indiana.

#94 Free Healthcare
I like free healthcare, but I dislike bad healthcare, and I hate socialized medicine. My life as a normal person was saved by Duke hospital, remember.

#93 Music Piracy
As an independent artist, I stand foursquare against ripping off hardworking members of the musical profession, men and women who pour out their hearts for the sake of the art and the fans. Please stop pirating U2, Coldplay, and Aerosmith songs. These guys're in it for you, and without your money, they'll be driven right out of the business.

#92 Book Deals
If anyone wants to pay me to publish a 600-page novel I wrote eight years ago, yes, I like book deals.

#91 San Francisco
Growing up across the bay from this third-rate Boston with an ego big enough to eat Manhattan, I not only dislike San Francisco, I usually bristle instinctively when someone from San Francisco walks by. San Franciscans fake all the tuneless arrogance of Los Angelenos without actually being nihilists. In San Francisco, environmentalists drive Land Rovers and eat organic sushi off mahogany tables. The most fun you can have in San Francisco is repeatedly driving down Lombard Street at speed in a jacked-up Jeep Wrangler. The least fun you can have in San Francisco is parking somewhere, or smelling. If the bums took over San Francisco everyone would think there were fewer bums. I hate San Francisco.

#90 Dinner Parties
Dinner Parties are the greatest. I like to serve an appetizer of chilled Old Overholt, followed by Wild Turkey with muddled mandarin oranges, and three fingers of Glenmorangie to finish. For a really big do, serve artisan cheeses, cashews, and popcorn.

#89 St. Patrick’s Day
Last St. Patrick's Day, I had to ward off Ray Liotta from my wife and sister as the NYC parade went past. Ray had a Budweiser tall boy in a brown paper bag and kept jittering and muttering and leaning up against my back. He breathed fetid Bud breath over my shoulder, so I started whistling the hook to George Harrison's "What Is Life," and he faded back into the crowd. My ability to enjoy St. Patrick's Day is severely impeded by the posters passing off bad American beers as perfect ways to party that blanket cities everywhere on that morning, posters which linger long into the week. Anything that makes people drink more Bud and Miller -- and thus less PBR -- is playing with fire in the unlikeable department.

#88 Having Gay Friends
Because they're gay? Or because they're friends?

#87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
My idea of outdoor performance clothes is a Puck mask and a pan flute.

#86 Shorts
In LA, nobody wears these. It's the same pair of jeans every day, straight through the summer. I should qualify that to say no guy wears these. I have a few pair anyway, mainly to subconsciously convince myself to buy a boat and begin a neverending tour of the Mediterranean.

#85 The Wire
Never seen it. I read The Corner, though. Dag.

#84 T-Shirts
There's so little you can do with a t-shirt that's appealing except look cut, which you can do to similar effect without the t-shirt. But a favorite t-shirt is irreplaceable.

#83 Bad Memories of High School
Have them, but don't like them. For the same reason I can't understand why people want to come home from a day of lame interactions with annoyingly typical people only to sit down and watch four hours of situation comedies about annoyingly lame people interacting typically, I am out of guesses as to why anyone would want to nurture old hangups from a time when the deck was always stacked against maturity and relaxation.

#82 Hating Corporations
Yes, but only because most things corporations do or produce are things I wouldn't want to be a part of. Though this in turn is largely because I would ruin them within 15 minutes, probably along with the business, entirely through spacing out.

#81 Graduate School
Bonus: even more likable than grad school is exchanging consciously unjustifiable complaints about grad school.

#80 The Idea of Soccer
In theory, running around without respite across a field of play the size and shape of Portugal, never getting tired, ripping off your shirt, sweating Gatorade, being swarthy, and headbutting people for calling you swarthy is awesome. In practice, the fun lasts for ten minutes before the panting begins. Plant hands on knees, relax pounding heart, stick with contemplating the Forms.

#79 Modern Furniture
Only desks should be modern. Modern chairs belong in that scene from The Big Lebowski where the nihilist won't stop giggling at the Dude. Modern tables look like operating tables. Modern beds look like giant bars of nougat without the chocolate coating.

#78 Multilingual Children
And here I thought white people liked attaining bare literacy in one language, then smacking their children when they started talking like that Dora cartoon and blaming public education.

#77 Musical Comedy
As an independent artist, only Music & Lyrics is remotely watchable.

#76 Bottles of Water
Mmm. Make it Smart Water! Not for your brain, so you can ditch the chapstick, brah.

#75 Threatening to Move to Canada
Never have, never will. Am not now.

#74 Oscar Parties
Apparently these are fun, but only if you weren't invited.

#73 Gentrification
Particularly when the gentry in question is the New Scottish Gentry.

#72 Study Abroad
Cf. the hand-cammed sequence in Roger Avary's film version of Rules of Attraction. When I was in London, nothing exploded. Except the musical career of Kula Shaker.

#71 Being the only white person around
<awkward turtle>

#70 Difficult Breakups
See #83. If my generation and those surrounding could get over this -- their creepiest, most perverted, most wearying, and most contemptuous touchstone -- I would end my life as a public commentator.