Mr. Irresponsible's Bad Advice

Letter From Dubai

Word from home is that my typist and flunky, who's apparently had little to do in my absence except chip away at my Black Maple Hill and crack wise with Debbie and Skip, has made a half-hearted return to blogging. I guess you could do worse than go take a look. I mean, I guess you could, I don't know, get loopy on prescription painkillers and some sort of rotgut Arabian hooch and end up driving a rented Aston-Martin at a high rate of speed through a souk at three AM trying to get away from the Dubaian cops or something. But that'd be really stupid, and anybody who did that would probably be feeling fairly contrite by now, even if he was too proud to actually, you know, say it.

Back to the Gulf

I've managed to beat back the flu that was sapping my life force, and have returned that job to my lawyers, where it belongs. While I was ill my friends in the UAE arranged to clear up the misunderstanding that had caused me to beat a hasty retreat from the region some weeks back, and an offer was forthcoming to teach a course in "Life Dynamics," whatever that means, at the Dubai City Learning Annex. So I've decamped to the shores of the Persian Gulf once more, where life is cheap, but thank God, so are the cocktails. Will update as opportunities arise. If you happen to be in Dubai City, call ahead before you drop in on my class. You would not believe the penalty they assess on unauthorized auditors. And one more thing: Radio station KAGM/KBOM, in the lovely towns of Albuquerque and Santa Fe back home, has for some reason expressed an interest in talking to me. I'll be appearing with afternoon host Lee Logan today at about 3:30 local time, which is 2:30 on the West Coast, 5:30 in the East and 1:30 AM Tuesday in Dubai. You can listen live here. That whirring sound you hear in the background will likely be the blender at the lobby lounge at the Jumeirah.

{Cough. Hack.}

Mr. Irresponsible's down with the flu and forcing fluids. Clear ones, no less; not the beautiful, bourbon-colored ones I'm usually partial to.

Back soon.

Mr. Irresponsible Meets Mr. Cruise

I'm not sure how or why, but my assistant Debbie managed to land me an interview with this Tom Cruise guy. I thought it went well, all things considered. For some reason, though, his "people" weren't pleased with it. And man, have they been steamed -- calling, emailing, threatening legal action. Which is really kind of funny, considering that threats of legal action are pretty much the air we breathe around here at Mr. Irresponsible World HQ.

Anyway, see the results here and judge for yourself. And then, if you want to strike a blow against the deadly hegemony of crybaby movie stars and their PR handlers, send the URL to your friends. There's a link right below. See? It's fun! It's easy! Best of all, the First Amendment will thank you, metaphorically speaking. And so will Mr. Irresponsible.

 

Hunka Hunka... Ah, The Hell With It

Skip has asked me to clarify something: Those of you with Squeet subscriptions don't need to do anything to keep receiving Mr. I by email; your existing subscriptions will continue just as before. But he asks me to urge Squeet subscribers to switch over to Feedburner so you won't be bothered by text ads in the emails you receive. Just click the "Unsubscribe" link in the next email you receive from Squeet, and God help me if I have to type "Squeet" one more time, and re-subscribe via the Feedburner link at bottom right. See? Easy! I pray this is the last thing I will ever have to tell you about this, because if I have to listen to Skip explain it to me any more my head will do this.

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Feed

In a housekeeping move that seems sure to baffle everyone except Web geeks, Skip (our intern from the junior college) has moved this blog's email subscription service from something called Squeet to something called Feedburner. I'm not sure what this means to you, or more importantly, to me, or why he did it; the kid had that crazy, quavery Please please let me explain to you why this is so much better thing in his voice, and at times like that I just find it easier to say yes than to listen to him. But he assures me the switch will result in a zippier, more efficient delivery of fresh snark every day. Or at least every day I'm not otherwise occupied, or meeting with my lawyers, or trying to squeeze in a quick 9 before lunch. The larger point is: Hey, look down on the right! It's Mr. I by email! Go nuts, if you so choose.

It's Great To Be Home

I'm just off a plane from Dubai, and if you have any desire to know what that was like, simply fold yourself up like an origami swan and have somebody blow kebab smoke into your face for fourteen hours. So I'm going to have Skip, our intern from the junior college, unpack my bags and draw me a warm bath, and then I'm going to float a number of shot glasses full of Black Maple Hill in the water and crawl in and soak for two days. Before I do, though: You may have read in the International Herald Tribune that there was some trouble between me and the administration of the University of Dubai, resulting in the sudden withdrawal of my stipend and the termination of my teaching position. The IHT story is a little hazy on the details, which it should be, given the outrageous fees I paid to my Dubaian attorneys to keep the thing low-profile. (Honestly, you haven't lived until you've gotten a cease-and-desist letter from the firm of al Shaibani and bin Hader LLC.) For the record, though, let me state the following:

At no time did I jokingly refer to the U of D football team as the "Fighting Disgraced Pop Stars." (Their actual mascot is the camel. No points for originality there.)

While it may be true that I have in the past characterized Dubai as "The Foxwoods Casino of the UAE," it is also true that I happen to like the Foxwoods Casino, where the slots are loose and easy and the breakfast buffet just can't be beat! And say, did somebody say Acres and acres of parking? That's Foxwoods, just off Rte. 2 in Mashantucket, CT!

There is no truth to the rumor, as reported in some maliciously unscrupulous newspapers and weblogs, that I "drank the bar dry one night at the Hilton Dubai Jumeirah, got into a slapfight with the teenaged daughter of the Oil Minister, and threatened to 'sue this sorry Third World backwater straight into the Persian Gulf'." Those statements, had they actually been made, would have been without foundation and reckless and untrue.

Anyway, I'm home again at Irresponsible World HQ and looking forward to getting back to work. Stay tuned. And if you happened to be at the Jumeirah on the night of May 3rd, or for that matter the Burj al-Arab anytime during the weekend of April 29-30, when a tall Westerner who identified himself as Mr. Irresponsible apparently ran up a gigantic room service bill and skipped without his luggage, I'm sure the responsible party regrets the incidents. And please direct any further inquiries to al Shaibani and bin Hader LLC. They're in the book.

On The Road (Again?)

Mr. Irresponsible's been feeling sort of logy lately. What's an advice columnist to do when the big story in the news is one old white guy shooting another old white guy in the face and (we subsequently find out) the heart? How am I supposed to mill advice-giving gold from that? What am I supposed to say: "Hey, don't do that"? Advice columnists live in a shadowy world of nuance and interpretation, and there's no room here for either. So I'm off on a therapeutic fact-finding tour to America's heartland, and will be back next week with fresh ambiguities for your delectation. Tune in then, won't you?  And remember to  keep your shotgun pointed at the ground, for God's sake.

Notes To Self

1) Never put anything on paper. Especially internal policy memos, lest typist/flunky turn around and peddle them to Huffington Post.

2) Have typist/flunky explain to me again what Huffington Post is.

3) Fire typist/flunky.

Bad Advice By Email

As part of our continuing campaign to add more pointless functionality for YOU, the reader, look down on the right. No, down. On the RIGHT. There you go -- under the "Email Me" heading. We've hooked up with the fine folks at Squeet.com to offer more-or-less real-time email subscriptions to this weblog. It's fun, it's easy, and it promises to let you squander your online time in an even more efficient fashion. Skol!

...And a Very Irresponsible New Year

Mr. Irresponsible doesn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. A New Year’s resolution is a dream of self-betterment, fed by the sugary bedtime snack of a wrongheaded belief in human perfectability. (Mr. Irresponsible also doesn’t believe in human perfectability. Gosh, there are so many things Mr. Irresponsible doesn’t believe in!) And yet, people continue year after year to scrawl their New Year’s wish lists, as if they were in the grip of some mass delusion. Which, of course, they are. It is the delusion that this year, of all years, we will live by the lights of what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. This year of all years we will eat less, read more, be kind to others. This year, this year.

The problem is, the well-meaning but scrawny better angels of our nature were long ago whomped into submission by the true angels of our nature -- huge, snappish, ill-tempered creatures who look something like the guy on “American Chopper.” Would you want to go up against the guy on “American Chopper”? Not me, and neither would the better angels of our nature. They checked out years ago. So what’s really fueling the annual ritual of the New Year’s resolution? Some atavistic impulse toward self-improvement, which in any sane world would have been filed away eons ago with other atavistic impulses, like the one that drove our monkey forebears to pick small insects out of our relatives’ coats and eat them.

I don’t really imagine that one advice columnist can break an entire nation of its addiction to a ritual this powerful. The best I can do is offer some tips for formulating your own New Year’s resolutions if you absolutely insist on making them, which, let’s face it, you do. My hope is that these tips will at least help you make more effective use of your resolution-making time by shattering unrealistic goals and lowering expectations. That’s my New Year’s gift to you -- the precious gift of lowered expectations. Take it and be reasonably well and sort of happy in 2006.

MR. IRRESPONSIBLE’S GUIDE TO NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, IF YOU ABSOLUTELY INSIST ON MAKING THEM

1. Make them vaguely useful. The world does not need more French speakers. The world needs more neurosurgeons.

2. Keep them short. A New Year’s resolution which is so verbose it needs to be written down and carried around in your wallet has absolutely no chance of being kept. Here’s a handy rule of thumb: If your resolution is so long it needs to be spell-checked, it’s useless.

3. Don’t aim those things at me. Any resolution whose goal is altering the behavior of another person is doomed to failure. There is a simple reason for this: All attempts to alter the behavior of other people, whether formulated in early January or mid-summer, are doomed to failure. I’ll change when I’m good and ready, thank you. Go change yourself if you love changing things so much. You can start with that striped sweater. You know the one.

4. Keep them to yourself. If there’s ever been anything more deadly than a roomful of people boring each other stiff with their New Year’s resolutions, it would have to have been the Influenza Epidemic of 1918.

5. Have fun with them.  Be creative. As long as you’re setting yourself an impossible task, why not embrace the very impossibility of it? Forget about resolving to quit smoking. A chimp can quit smoking. Instead, resolve to master time travel. That’ll give ‘em something to talk about at your next SmokEnders meeting. (Ed. Note: This is apparently the way the program actually spells its name. My resolution is to procure them the extra “e” they apparently were too jittery to include.)

Good luck, and semi-happy New Year. (Remember: lowered expectations.) And remember too  that if the burden of self-improvement proves too crushing -- and it will -- there is always someone who loves you just as you are.

Oh heavens, I just read that and saw what it looked like. It's not me. I just figure there has to be someone who loves you just as you are. I mean, it's The Law of Large Numbers, right? Then again, I was always pretty bad at math. 

This Holiday Season, Do Exactly As I Tell You And Nobody Gets Hurt

Mr. Irresponsible's taking a week or so off to meet with his lawyers and plot a few fresh ways to brutalize his many enemies. But I didn't want to leave you without some food for thought as we head into the holiday season. So please enjoy, won't you...

MR. IRRESPONSIBLE'S FIVE-POINT PLAN FOR SURVIVING THE HOLIDAYS 2005

Let’s begin by clearing some etymological underbrush.

The Holidays: What Are They? (And Aren’t They?)

The holidays are no longer a ritual celebration of the winter solstice, and they haven’t been that for many generations. They’re also not the modern creation that’s been abstracted from that ancient observance -- a time of gauzy good feeling in the warm embrace of your family. And the truth is, you know that. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa or Wiccan Yule, you know in your heart that the things the holidays really ritualize are more profound than Hallmark images of home and hearth. And what are they? Anger, frustration, and the soul-scorching cruelty that only your closest loved ones can deliver.

I haven’t had time to check this statistic, because I only made it up a minute ago, but social scientists report that a staggering 87% of mid-winter suicide attempts are a direct result of “that terrible thing my mother (father/sister/brother/husband/wife) said to me over the holidays.”  No one is really sure why so many family resentments burst to the surface during the holiday season -- some feel it has to do with the enforced air of jollity that paradoxically spawns thoughts of hatred and misery, while others believe it’s the metaphoric presence of absent family members with whom one has unresolved business. There are those who believe that it is related to the unusually high intake of sugars and fats, and the concomitant loosening of inhibitions. I have a simpler theory: I believe that families spend all their energy trying to separate, and when forced back together they simply go nuts.

Fortunately, Mr. Irresponsible is here to do what Mr. Irresponsible does -- reduce intractable behavioral problems to easy bromides and tut-tut them away. Just follow these few simple rules and you too can live through the holidays.

1) DON’T Make Eye Contact

This is a first principle, and not some sort of half-baked metaphor. What I mean is, when the holidays bring you together with family members, don’t look them in the eye. Eye contact triggers a physiological phenomenon called “Prester’s Invitation,” in which a neurochemical is released that temporarily anaesthetizes the shame centers of the brain, and also serves to induce short-term amnesia with regard to past arguments and recriminations. Eye contact, no matter how fleeting or accidental, is like waving the Green Flag at a Formula One racer. It says, in effect: “Come on in, the screaming’s fine!” Do not, do not, do not offer this opening to family members at the holidays. Avert your gaze at all times, even if it means stumbling into furniture or other obstacles. (There’s a seasonal expectation that one has had a drink or two, so no one will notice anything amiss.) Wear sunglasses or a welder’s helmet if you have to. (I like this one.)

2) DO Bring a Book

Or a crafts project, or maybe those “Learn French in Two Weeks” flash cards you’ve been meaning to study. Maybe you’ll be able to get a jump on next year’s taxes. The point is, find some way to make the time go by in a useful fashion. Why sit numbly, staring into space and ignoring your cousins’ attempts at small talk when you could be alphabetizing newspaper clippings or sorting stray buttons and ignoring your cousins’ attempts at small talk? This year I plan to read through the enormous stack of handwritten letters I’ve received from the Guatemalan orphan child I sponsor, Eusebio. At least I think his name is Eusebio. It might be “Eugenio” or possibly “Guillermo.” I’m not sure, as I’ve never been able to make it through one of his hand-scrawled missives in toto. To be honest, his penmanship is atrocious, and his diction and syntax are worse. And he’s so repetitive -- it’s “Que Dios te bendiga, Sr. Irresponsible” this and “No tengo ningún zapatos” that until you just want to scream. I’m not sure what it is they’re teaching these kids on my dime, but it sure doesn’t seem to be the rudiments of written expression. I mean it, they better straighten up. It’s not like I can’t come up with another way to tax-shelter twenty-eight bucks a month.

 
3) DON’T Take The Bait

Proximity with family members who are for the rest of the year sequestered at safe distances creates danger. Sometimes it is this closeness alone which serves as the trigger for the release of some long-simmering grudge or grievance. Add a surplus of liquor, a deficit of comfortable seats and the stultifying effects of forced-air heat and you have a environment in which there is an overwhelming probability that things will be said that can never be taken back. What to do? I suppose one could, if one were so inclined, “work on one’s emotions” and “show personal growth” and “become more mature” and “rise above it all.” But these things take time and effort, and our immediate problem is getting to New Year’s alive. 

With this in mind, let me suggest two items which will help enormously: a cheap longhair wig and a pair of wireless in-the-ear stage monitors like those employed by professional musicians. (Mr. Irresponsible likes the Shure P4TRE3 system, which is flexible and reasonably affordable at just under $1200 MSRP.) Place the ear buds in your ears and obscure the equipment with the wig. You may, if you choose, employ a confederate to hide nearby and, Cyrano-like, whisper encouraging thoughts into a connected microphone. I prefer to connect a sound source such as an MP3 player, hide the rig in a closet, and go on about my holiday business. Now what do I hear? Invitations to re-open ancient slights? Cutting criticisms of my life choices? The puzzled words “Hey, what’s with the hair? You look like that guy from Twisted Sister”? No sir. All I hear is a pleasant wash of carefully-chosen music. I’ve been listening to a lot of Bossa Nova lately, so any challenges sent my way simply waft past on a cushion of calming acoustic guitars and the comical sight of my relatives’ mouths twisting into hateful accusations I’ll never have to listen to.

4) DO Have An Exit Strategy

One of the unfortunate facts about the holidays is that they have, for the last couple of generations, morphed into an open-ended festival of pain that may last as long as six weeks. The modest amount of actual office work that gets done between Thanksgiving and, say, the second week in January only makes it easier for slackers and layabouts to impose a sort of general period of sleepy unreality on those around them. Anybody who’s ever been on the receiving end of one of those gut wrenching “Oh, you don’t have to head back just yet, do you?” invitations has witnessed the phenomenon for themselves. So it’s critically important to have an unalterable date and time at which to make one’s escape. Note that it’s not good enough to have ticketed reservations for a given flight or train -- the host or hostess in the grip of this feverish attempt to extend their hospitality is unlikely to be swayed by the possibility of added expense and trouble (i.e., your added expense and trouble). And then where will you be? Stuffed like a Chicken Roulade into some niece or nephew’s cruelly undersized, cartoon-branded bed, suffering through an extra God knows how many nights of fitful, miserable sleep, stumbling to the bathroom at 2 AM, tripping over toys the tots have already forgotten they ever wanted and wondering in icy torment why some people bother to have home heating at all if they’re going to turn it down to 62 overnight. No, the trick here is to have hard, firm plans for the immediate post-holiday period. These should be the kinds of things that can’t conceivably be postponed or rescheduled. Some suggestions:

Gall-bladder surgery (No one knows quite what this is, so you’re on safe ground if they ask)

Some “work I have to do for the Government” (Adopt an air of mystery when you say this, and smile enigmatically)

Plans to compete in the Grand Prix at LeMans (Negligible domestic interest and no stateside TV coverage, so you’re not likely to be caught out)

A long-scheduled reunion of your insurance-agent licensing exam prep class (Believe me, nobody’s going to ask you to elaborate on this)

5) AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS:

Narcotize, Narcotize, Narcotize

Let’s talk now about a last-resort, scorched-earth sort of solution. With proper attention to hydration and a strategically-placed infrastructure of chairs, cushions and crash pads (these may be rented from any theatrical supply house which ordinarily caters to stuntmen), it is possible to stay under the influence of a good central nervous system depressant from just before Thanksgiving until just after New Year’s. An RN or home health-care aide may be employed to monitor vital signs and do a little light cleaning, and also impart the appearance of medical necessity to the proceedings. Health insurance, it should be noted, will not generally cover this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Trees Have Officially Died

A little housekeeping, if I may...

Some of you have been kind enough to pre-order "Mr. Irresponsible's Bad Advice," and impatient enough to ask me where the hell it's been. There's one neighbor I've actually had to start avoiding when I'm out walking my Wolfhounds Hans and Betty, because he's started to get this look in his eye that suggests the whole listing-on-Amazon thing has been an elaborate scam to separate him from $10.36. This is absurd, of course, because $10.36 is a ludicrously small amount for even the most inept bunco artist to try to score from a mark. I mean, come on, $10.36... ? What's that, a couple of lattes and a New York Times? Holy cow, what a bargain this book is, anyway!

Oh, right. The point: Pre-orders should begin shipping from Amazon and other online booksellers next week. If bricks and mortar are your thing, please check your neighborhood bookstore, where copies should be available starting about a week after that. And thanks for your gullibility patience.

Irresponsible On The Road

Mr. Irresponsible's on the road this week, traveling the country, gathering fresh outrages for your consideration. Back next week.

I'm Back

I'm no fan of this blogging thing, but when my assistant Debbie pointed out that I could use it to reach a vast audience of slackers, misfits and malcontents, I remember thinking: Baby, that's my people.  When she further pointed out that I could use it to cut my former newspaper syndicate and the courts clean out of the deal, I remember thinking: Clean out of the deal. Hmmm. Yes, it's true that the syndicate summarily terminated my long-running newspaper column, that we are currently engaged in a breathtaking array of interlocking lawsuits, and that the courts have forbidden me to work as a professional advice columnist until all actions are settled. But a close reading of their order reveals nothing prohibiting me from sharing the same Web-based freedom of expression granted to, say, "Tyler & Cassidy's Blog About Kitties." When I realized this, the abstract principle of disintermediation suddenly began to seem as real and delicious as the gleaming chocolate donut before me. (I was eating breakfast at the time.)  Right then and there I resolved to leap feet first into the blogosphere.

There will, however, be some ground rules, and chief among them is that no one in my immediate circle use the word "blogosphere," which is as trite and meaningless a lump of blathery new-speak as it's ever been my misfortune to hear. I was down with a sinus infection last week and forced to watch CNN for a good part of the day, and must have heard the word "blogosphere" a good six dozen times, especially from those two sparkly-eyed twinkies they have reading weblogs on the air. As part of their actual jobs. This was a concept so stunning to me that I forced Debbie to curtail her preparation of the lunchtime Croque Monsieurs which are the only reason I keep her around, and come in and watch with me. After just a moment or two I found myself scrabbling for the remote, asking incredulously "Hey, do you mind if I put the news on?" (Debbie, for her part, was crass enough to point out that I had lifted the line from Albert Brooks in "Broadcast News," which got her banished right back to the kitchenette.)

Beyond that linguistic proscription, however, anything goes. I'll be commenting here on the news of the day, with emphasis on manners and interpersonal relationships. And when Debbie pointed out that this was not only a fine way to spread my innovative gospel of “Creative Selfishness™” but also allowed me to peddle some books from the comfort of my lavish yet tasteful home, I remember thinking: Yes. This scam might just fly.