New phone, old problems

After a little over two years I finally have a new cell phone. My friend said the old one was starting to look like a two-way carcinogen. An overall fair assessment on her part.

But my disdain for Sprint PCS, which is well documented, has somehow increased over the last few days. I honestly think retarded apes run the place.

So here’s an abbreviated version of how I came to contemplate therapy last night.

My day started yesterday when I was given a Sprint LGX-180 phone as a birthday present. I followed the instructions that were enclosed in a huge yellow brochure with tiny black print to activate the curse. It said I needed to locate the ESN number, an eleven-digit number (according to the reading material that made about as much sense as Finnegan’s Wake) on the battery, and call 1-888 something.

Of course I did all that and got the same female automated voice used by almost every company. You know the woman because she’s probably on your voicemail. The voice sounds like the Whore of Babylon, but probably doesn’t put out at all. I hate her.

DA DING DONG: “Welcome to Sprint’s customer service line. Please listen carefully because our menu has changed. If you’re a Sprint PCS employee calling to check on the whereabouts of your soul, please press 1. If you’ve been experiencing problems with your Bluetooth-980 headset with dual antennas, please press 2. If you’d like to listen to slow jazz for the next 45 minutes, please 3. If you’re an overweight Mexican and can’t understand shit I am saying, please press cuatro. If you’d like to hear this menu repeated more slowly and condescending, please press 5. For all other inquires we’d advise you to hang up and go to our Web site, which is more than likely under repair. Message 181.” HANG UP.

“Ah, god dammit anyway,” I said to myself. I called back and figured out which number to push in order to get a real person. I think it was cuatro. A woman named Jeanine picked up, who happens to be both extremely polite and extremely dumb.

“Oh hello, sir, what can I be of assistance with today?” I gave the reason I was calling and asked if I could have all of my contacts in my old phone transferred over to the new LGX-180 as well. “Oh that shouldn’t be a problem,” she informed me.

The conversation took maybe five minutes at most. Jeanine gave a couple of simple commands and said to wait about two hours and the phone would be activated and that all my old contacts would show up in roughly four hours. “This is great,” I thought.

However, in typical fashion things didn’t quite go as planned. Four hours soon became seven hours and my phone was still not working. And what about my contacts? God only knows where they were. Probably out making new contacts: Those backstabbers.

When I called again I got a male voice. I don’t remember his name, but homeboy seemed to have the same gleefully moronic disposition as Jeanine. He asked for my social security number and went through all the jazz to confirm that I wasn’t somebody else trying to access my account. Who would try to call these people if they didn’t have to, I thought? And what could they rob from my cell phone carrier other than my nights and weekend plan?

Abruptly, he asked if he could put me on hold while he accessed my account in the computer. I said that was fine and prepared for the elevator music to be cued. But it wasn’t and something far worse was: A dial tone.

Now, generally I try to keep my profanity to a minimum. Only in rare cases will I let f-bombs drop in multitudes of expressive rage that generally end with a certain part of the male anatomy being sucked. However, this was certainly one of those times.

I called back and began trying to take note of every detail I could. The woman who answered this time was Gale. Gale was bar none the stupidest human being I’ve ever talked to. She repeated this question twice: “So you’re having problems with your phone, right?”

For the first time, I snapped. “Gale, do people ever call to tell you guys how well their phone is working?” Gale didn’t respond. Gale then had the nerve to ask me how the weather was. Honest to god, that’s what she asked next. Didn’t even bother asking where I lived. “The weather is absolutely lovely, Gale.”



My friend sensed that it was no longer a good idea for me to keep talking. Taking the phone from my ear, she hung up on Gale and told me to calm down. I laughed at her certitude and sense of purpose immediately. “Why did you just do that?” She didn’t answer and called Sprint from her phone, leaving me to open a beer.

I sat down and proceeded to watch her talk to two Sprint representatives in a span of 25 minutes. After that, my new phone rang for the first time. And it was like seeing my first child come out of the womb – even though I don’t have children and wombs frighten the hell out of me.

All in all, the process took nine hours, five customer service operators, two people and one newly anointed 25-year-old’s sanity for the Sprint LGX – 180 to be activated.

Oh yeah, and later I was informed that I'd have to find a Sprint store at “one of our many convenient locations” in order to get my contacts transferred. Which would cost $30. Also, because they updated my account I was obligated to sign a new two-year contract.

By the end, I was so angry I decided to count the digits on the ESN number. And it was 17 digits long.

Fucking. Cock. Suckers.

The MC that refuses to stop hammering

I went out of my way to see MC Hammer last night. Not that there was a whole lot on my schedule, but I planned an evening around the man born Stanley Kirk Burrell who happens to be credited with bringing “2 legit 2 quit” into the lexicon.

Yes, I realize how this sounds. It’s on par with searching out a foot willing to give your balls a kick.

And, frankly, the only thing that might be more pathetic than seeing MC Hammer is blogging about the experience of seeing MC Hammer. But this was something that needed to be done. For I didn’t know the emcee still performed

So I met a group of co-workers and we made our way to the metro, laughing. Most of us, myself certainly included, were hoping for only one thing from the Hammer Man: The pants. “God damn I hope he is wearing those Hammer pants.”

Nobody in our group could name more than three of Hammer’s songs, or knew if he had more than three songs. To tell you the truth, I think I was the only one who could name the third. I remember seeing him perform the “Addams Groove,” the featured song from the Addams Family motion picture, on Saturday Night Live. It was a reference that didn’t win many cool points I could tell. Maybe because I knew the song’s title.

Excitement had reached a fevered pitch, as if brewing tea were ready, when we detrained at the Federal Triangle metro stop. This was the venue Stanley Kirk Burrell had been reduced to (the stage was literally steps from the exit of the metro). And judging by the number of people there initially, it looked as if we’d have an excellent opportunity to touch the man who’d made a career out of telling people that that particular sense couldn’t be done.

Then I proceeded to get drunk, really drunk. Sobriety and MC Hammer didn’t sound appealing. Shit-faced and MC Hammer sounded fucking awesome.

Waiting at this uppity bar in plain view of the stage, I proceeded to listen to hands-down the worst R&B I’d ever heard in my life. Not that I’m a Rhythm and Blues connoisseur by any stretch, but these guys made R. Kelly sound messianic. The group was the first of two opening acts and they did mostly a cappella numbers, with one member even in charge of what seemed to be the horn section.

When the second act finally completed, the Master of Ceremonies waited for over 30 minutes to take the stage. The performer still knows how to toy with the crowd. He’s a hammerin’ puppet-master with a world full of adoring pawns. Or maybe that’s hyperbole.

Chants of “Hammer, Hammer, Hammer,” and “Hammer, don’t hurt em,” continued to rain down. With fits of laughter almost always following the yells. Which made me feel kind of sorry for the guy, because I wondered if he knew that the clown aspect of his alter ego was the reason he garnered an audience at all (even one that didn’t pay a dime).

When Hammer finally walked out, I realized there was a decent-sized crowd waiting for him. And people erupted. It was as if Barry Bonds had just shown up at a Human Growth Hormone testing lab. There was genuine excitement in the air and some disappointment that he was not wearing his trademark pants. Hammer’s pants were not Hammer pants. In fact, they kind of looked like Dockers.

He was dressed in all black with sunglasses and a bandana. He sang the few songs we knew, minus the Addams Groove. I can’t even tell you if Hammer’s a great performer or awful. Maybe somewhere in between. I mean the music was certainly awful, but the ensemble of dancers he had was downright nasty. They knew how to shake it.

The highlight of the evening had to be when a fellow emcee joined Hammer, who went by the name of Pleasure Ellis. Pleasure gave a speech, while rapping mind you, about the benefits of safe sex. He kept screeching, “If you’re going to have pleasure, oh pleasure, I say pleasure, it’s gotta be, yes girl, ya know it’s gotta be, chocolate girl it’s gotta-got to be, you know, safe.” Or something like that. The refrain might not be verbatim but it’s damn close. And then Pleasure endorsed Trojan as his prophylactic of choice.

This was all followed by Hammer telling the crowd he did not mean to have his last child with his wife.

Unbelievable.



So unbelievable that when I got home I had to check out a few things about Hammer’s life: “His rise, his fall, his redemption.” That line I stole from a Hammer tribute Web site.

The site chronicled how a dude with a net worth, at one point, of $33 million can go bankrupt. Hammer in his hey day owned two helicopters, invested over $1 million in Thoroughbred racehorses, paid his entourage of 200 people a total of $500, 000 a month, and leased a Boeing 727. And there are so many more accounting anomalies that it moves beyond ridiculous into a realm all its own.

My favorites have to be that he repeatedly bought platinum gold chains for his 4 pet Rottweilers and once had a dishwasher installed in his bedroom so that he could easily, “clean up after a midnight snack.”

If you want to hear from the man himself, check out his own blog at: http://mchammer.blogspot.com/

Whew, MC simply dropped the hammer last night. And it's made today awful thus far.

A not so gay week for the G.O.P.

In a city known for its gravity, with the ability to bring the haughtiest of the haughty back to earth, an amazing week passed in the world of politics. Not since a chubby intern sucked her way into the hearts of salacious journalists everywhere, was a story of one man’s love of fellatio so widely reported.

And the tapping sound coming from the stall belonging to Sen. Larry “I am not gay” Craig, a staunch conservative (especially on matters dealing with gays), came after an already brutal stretch for Republicans.

It started at the top when President Bush compared the Iraq War to the one conflict he’s tried for the better part of four years to distance the fiasco from: Vietnam.

The veteran of the mighty Texas Air National Guard told a Veterans of Foreign Wars group in Kansas City that "To withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating…..and unlike in Vietnam, if we were to withdraw before the job was done, this enemy would follow us home.”

Beyond the ridiculous premise that Sunni and Shiite insurgents are going to obtain U.S. passports and continue their civil war on our soil, lies an even more baffling argument the president is trying to make.

A consensus can be found in most analytical circles that, in terms of departure, our troops left Vietnam far too late, not early. And that our presence destabilized Cambodia and opened the door for Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, to execute an estimated 1.5 million people.

This is why in the past the administration went to absurd lengths not to hint at any analogies between the two foreign campaigns. For a solid argument exists in each case that U.S. military escalations turned once functional societies into regional buffets of bloodletting and anarchy, with few of the desired objectives being realized.

The comparisons left most of the country scratching their heads – even the heads belonging to those dwindling few still in the president’s wheelhouse.

Army Gen. John Johns (a dude who clearly was without creative parents), a Vietnam veteran who spent 12 years specializing in counter-insurgency missions, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that "What I learned in Vietnam is that U.S. combat forces could not effectively conduct counter-insurgency operations,” he said, “the longer we stay there, the worse it's going to get."

Then, the already bad week became worse as Bush headed to Crawford and the pesky brush that needed pulling back.

Sen. John Warner of Virginia, a leading voice for Republicans in terms of military strategy, said the U.S. should begin withdrawing small numbers of troops in Iraq by Christmas. His comments were followed by a report from the Government Accountability Office that determined only three of 18 benchmarks, set previously by lawmakers for security and political stability in Iraq, had been met.

Warner went ahead and did the tour de talk shows on Sunday, laying out coherent strategies on why the Iraqi government needs to be held to account and why allied commitments must not be open-ended.



With Monday, however, came an event that appeared would never happen: The resignation of Selective Amnesia Al. The attorney general had become a colorful piñata – the defining symbol of nepotism’s trump over knowledge within an administration more irrelevant by the day.

But the Gonzales resignation was drowned out by the Craig incident, a weird twist in a life of a man almost nobody had ever heard of. The G.O.P. quickly tried to makeup the black eye and demanded the three-term senator - whose explanation of the events is laughable (A guilty plea to a lewd act in a men’s room stall will make it go away?) - resign.

Craig caved to his party’s wishes the day before another White House official jumped ship. Press Secretary Tony Snow, the generally likable face of the administration, who also is fighting a resurgence of cancer, stepped down. Even though Snow recently said the Iraqi Parliament went on vacation simply because Baghdad is 135 degrees in August, missing the obvious irony that our troops spend their days outside, he did an admirable job under the circumstances.

And Karl Rove exited stage right on Friday – meaning the once mighty Republican vanguard had officially fallen victim to gravity’s downward tug.

An Ode to Scotch

"The proper drinking of Scotch whisky is more than indulgence: it is a toast to civilization, a tribute to the continuity of culture, a manifesto of man’s determination to use the resources of nature to refresh mind and body and enjoy to the full the senses with which he has been endowed."
(David Daiches -1969)



A smile comes every time I hear Scotch whisky hitting ice cubes in a glass. The familiar crackle from perfectly distilled liquid settling into those spaces between conjures a relaxing feeling of both mind and body. It means the day is over and uncomfortable shoes will be coming off soon.

Maybe it’s because growing up I watched my dad’s worries run from his face every time he sat in his favorite brown chair with his favorite brown drink. He’d purse those skinny lips and smoothly shake a cut glass carved with my grandpa’s initials on it, before uttering his “damn that’s good” line that became as expected as his Sunday morning bathrobe.

Indeed, the beauty of Scotch lies in the fact the whole body tastes the first sip. As much jolting as magnificent, the liquid – at least initially – brings a heavy dose of clarity to why the evening or afternoon has come. That somehow right now, maybe for the first time, you’re doing exactly what you should be doing. It all makes sense - even if sense is something your life has not made a whole lot of lately

Yet nothing about Scotch is forced and everything about it seems inevitable. A family friend once said the drink made him, among many other things, smarter, sexier, funnier and generally better company. The guy is wicked smart with one of the best sense of humors I’ve ever been around. And even though he falls on the short and balding side of the other attribute he credits Scotch with giving him, three out of four ain’t bad. In baseball, that’d be like the love child of Ted Williams and Pete Rose finding Barry Bonds’ arthritic cream.

One of the best quotes I’ve heard about Scotch came from W.C. Fields, who said, "Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."

Rich in history as well, the drink is largely responsible for the spread of Christianity throughout Scotland. It’s believed that missionary monks brought distillation techniques with them as they undertook the Herculean task of trying to convert the surrounding islands. It had to help people believe what they were preaching and ease the pain when they didn’t.

Today, no matter what profession our world attempts to perfect, Scotch can be found on the top shelf to provide the tidal wave for the good days and the needed flood to drown out the bad ones.

Nothing with it changes. And that’s beautiful.

-----

A few facts from our good friends Wikipedia, which may or may not be true:

To be called Scotch whisky the spirit must conform to the standards of the Scotch Whisky Order of 1990 (UK),[1] which clarified the Scotch Whisky Act of 1988,[2] and mandates that the spirit:

--Must be distilled at a Scottish distillery from water and malted barley, to which only other whole grains may be added, have been processed at that distillery into a mash, converted to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems, and fermented only by the addition of yeast,
--Must be distilled to an alcoholic strength of less than 94.8% by volume so that it retains the flavour of the raw materials used in its production,
--Must be matured in Scotland in oak casks for no less than three years,
--Must not contain any added substance other than water and coloring, and
--May not be bottled at less than 40% alcohol by volume.

If Vice hadn't lost all his virtues....

Ol Captain Dick sure is something ain’t he? In this 1994 clip he almost appears sane. Wonder if he considered Al Gore and the office he held at the time to be part of the Executive Branch?

My guess is, like his thoughts on Iraq, his views on the inherent powers of the V.P. might have changed since those days.

And Mitt will tell us when this heat will finally pass after the break

I'M MITT ROMNEY AND I
PROMISE TO MAKE IT RAIN!

It took me a while to figure out what Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney looked like. Then it hit me.

The meticulously groomed former governor of Massachusetts, whose chin and cheekbones are as square as his religion, is tall and handsome with perfect hair. Romney’s got a smile that feels forced and his jokes usually suck. Hmm, what profession rings a bell? Ah ha, bingo is the name-o: A meteorologist.

If Mitt isn’t a natural fit for telling Channel 4 viewers what the weekend forecast is going to be, then I am out of touch with the modern day weatherman. With the “I-look-like-I-have-trouble-flagellating” appearance and the required cheese-dick personality to boot, Romney has all the quintessential characteristics of those chosen few sent to deliver the news of when “the golf course will be calling again.”

And the Sunday punch of the whole comparison: One trip to Wikipedia and I found out Romney’s real name is – wait for it - Willard! Yes, Willard. It’s as if Mitt, a name which already reeks of local newscast, missed his true calling. I can just see some frustrated producer trying to get the Pre-Modanna into his seat for the upcoming weather tease. “Where in the hell is Willard?”

Comparing Romney to Willard Scott is probably unfair. However, think of all the meteorologists who are household names, and try to make the argument that there isn’t irony in the fact that a dude who looks like a weatherman happens to be named Willard. Maybe it’s a stretch but the dots are there for the connecting.

What scares a lot of people about Romney, though, is his Mormonism. This frankly doesn’t bother me in the least. Although I don’t know a whole lot about the religion beyond the basic tenants, I can’t believe Romney’s faith could be any worse than the current crop’s. The Bush Klan continually finds new ways to elevate religious perversion to old perverse levels. Whether it’s proselytizing against Islam or talking to the Man Himself or ostracizing a lifestyle that some in their ranks are practicing, a Mormon couldn’t hurt. And neither could a Tom Cruise-ologist.

Polygamy is often cited as what makes the religion queer. However, the practice is no longer widespread (with only small percentages – some studies show roughly 2 or 3% - of practicing Mormons who have multiple wives) and Romney himself is the only top-tier G.O.P. candidate with wife number one still by his side.

And Willard R. certainly isn’t the only presidential candidate guilty of having weathermen idiosyncrasies. Hacks from both camps deliver scripted lines that seem meant for those goofy clowns wearing short shorts under the anchor desk. “It’s going to be sunny from here on out.”

They tend to think a smile mixed with emphatic talk and lots of hand gestures will make us believe they know what they’re talking about. As if we’ll be more focused on their patterned ties and tailored suits rather than their voices, which just told us invading the entire Middle East would be a good idea and that rain shouldn’t visit Seattle for the next month.

A nexus of colossal failure exists as well. The only people who are worse than weathermen at what they do are politicians. And the two professions are linked in a variety of other ways - mainly job security. Nowhere will one find employers so untouchable.

Politicians authorize foreign policy blunders that a first-year grad student wouldn’t contemplate and are safe, depending on their office, for multiple years before they have to face constituents again. Meteorologists, on the other hand, get it wrong day in and day out and know the paycheck is in the mail.

Also, these two trades offer a limitless excuse for esoteric language to be barfed in ways that baffle even coastal dwelling highbrows well versed in snobbery-lathered haughtiness? Case in point, the last sentence.

But if you know the definition of quorum or why the jet stream affects the dew point, you’re most likely either dry humping a marble dais or politicking for chief meteorologist. Or both.

Either way, the rest of us aren’t buying what you’re selling. Which sucks because I thought the golf course was finally calling.

Welcome to OnTheFritz

HELLO, From the site's goat:



A buddy of mine sent a quote to me from Comedy Central's Colbert Report that defined what I am currently doing. I'll share it before I go any further.

"If you don't know what a blogger is, it is somebody that has a laptop computer, an axe to grind and their virginity." -Stephen Colbert.

So yeah, if you're reading this you're one of four people who probably just received an email from me telling you to check this site out.

The much maligned livejournal user mwfritz33 has died a slow and painful death due to an intense lack of readership, previous feigned interest no longer being feigned and the overall apathy now consuming its mostly confused author.

But this is the new blog and I guess if it has a mission statement, even though I am grossly opposed to both missions and statements, this is it:

OnTheFritz promises a simple-minded and generally dumb look into the factors that will continually force the world around us to malfunction and break down.

I can promise three things if you continue to visit this site. You'll chuckle, contemplate and climax. Multiple times in multiple ways on a semi-regular basis.

That's all for now because it's my day off and I feel like drinking before the night arrives.