Mid-December means only one thing: best-of lists. It’s the beatnikindustries ten best albums of 2005 … and only four of them were released this year.

1. Spoon, Gimme Fiction. [2005]
With the advent of the iPod Era, the time of listening to an album all the way through, understanding the connections between individual tracks and the connection to the larger whole is wooly-mammoth dead.

That notwithstanding, I’ve resurrected that wooly mammoth. Spoon’s third effort, Gimme Fiction, took a while to understand, but after standout tracks like ‘Sister Jack’ and ‘The Dragon and the Beast, Adored,’ I’ve gained a new appreciation for the entire album.

Britt Daniel has this penchant for taking a track and tweaking it slightly – not too far from the original melody, but noticeably enough that you notice the difference. Say you’re rocking out to ‘Sister Jack,’ a straight-ahead piano-and-guitar rocker with a horribly catchy refrain, but as the song shifts into its outro, your head bobbing is interrupted. Oh, wait! He added a beat! Suddenly the standard 4/4 time signature of any pop song becomes an alternating 4/4, 5/4 signature! What? How are you going to bounce to this?

In any case, each track does something strange like that to you. Gimme Fiction. Spoon. It’s an earworm.

Standout tracks: ‘The Dragon and the Beast, Adored,’ ‘I Turn My Camera On,’ ‘My Mathematical Mind,’ ‘Sister Jack.’

2. Superdrag, Regretfully Yours. [1996]
When my MTV-watching was in its heyday, I fell in love with Superdrag’s single ‘Sucked Out.’ The video was set in some North By Northwest-style 1960s bungalow with exposed brick and space-age clocks, and the video’s ambience was almost as catchy as the song’s chorus. But while ‘Sucked Out’ stayed in heavy rotation in mix albums throughout the years, I never bothered to listen to the rest of the album.

This was a mistake. The album rocks.

Most of the songs are completely unlike that first single, instead trading crunchy guitars for melodic lines – but it’s still at heart a pop record, hooky riffs and all. It stands the test of time much better than other similar artists in the same era, when all production was reduced to a cheap knockoff of Nirvana’s Nevermind.

Standout tracks: ‘Cynicality,’ ‘What If You Don’t Fly.’ And ‘Sucked Out,’ too, I suppose.

3. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine. [2005]
Say what you will about released-yet-not-released, then-rerecorded-and-released, controversy, but this is just good music.

Strangely enough, I’m not one who typically listens to the lyrics of songs – I’ve created malapropisms out of Sublime’s ‘Caress Me Down,’ changing ‘G.l. Joe kung-fu grip’ into ‘G.I. Joe kung-fu kick’ – but for some reason the lyrics are the only thing that grab me on this album. Such a distinction opens the discussion to include just Apple’s phrasing and musical talent, rather than getting into a pissing contest between the freewheeling carnival-esque Jon Brion and the more sparse, breathable Mike Elizondo versions. Either way you spin the record, you have something worth listening to for those moments of relationships just ending – or those just beginning. Or anything in between. Shit, this is just good.

As I’ve said before, ‘I make the most of it / I’m an extraordinary machine,’ Fiona says, and I agree.

Standout tracks: ‘Extraordinary Machine,’ ‘Better Version of Me,’ ‘Not About Love.’

4. Jamie Lidell, Multiply. [2005]
You’re listening to new music late at night, and you’re only half paying attention. You find a track by a drum ‘n’ bass artist on the same label as electro-noize whiz kid Aphex Twin – sure, great, give it a shot … and some Otis Redding vocals hit you from left field.

‘What the hell is going on?’ you think, as this white boy pours his heart and (surprisingly funky) soul into some track left over from a 1960s Motown session, all backed by a crack rhythm and blues band. This is Music. Even as his voice goes ragged screaming ‘take it back / ‘cause I got no control,’ he’s still channeling his inner Stax records vault. Even James Brown would call this boy funky, and that’s saying quite a bit.

The rest of the album isn’t as stellar, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.

Standout tracks: ‘Multiply,’ ‘When I Come Back Around.’

5. M.I.A., Arular. [2005]
I loved this album for its leaked single ‘Galang,’ a song that got to me with its unfettered energy and nonsensical rhymes about razor blades and purple haze. I stuck around for pseudo-political messages about terrorism (I think) and more of that manic drive. Her sound is definitely Sri Lanka-via-London, there’s no doubt about that, and there’s also no doubt I have no idea what she’s saying. We want bucky done gun? We won? What?

But one look at the imagery in the ‘Galang’ video, with bombs going off and graffiti-ed names floating around the screen, it’s obvious that M.I.A. both loves and flaunts, to some extent, her status as the underground blog-championed music avatar of the month.

Then I saw ‘Galang’ used in a Honda Civic commercial. Damn the man. So much for anti-establishment tendencies.

Standout tracks: ‘Pull Up The People,’ ‘Bucky Done Gun, ‘Galang.’

6. Dressy Bessy, Dressy Bessy. [2003]
The inspiration for Dressy Bessy, one of the most amazing bands I discovered this year, comes from the same place as Jamie Lidell’s mind-blowing ‘Multiply.’ Not very often does a song reach through the headphones, grab you and say ‘I am your destiny,’ but it happened twice in 2005, first with Dressy Bessy’s ‘The Things That You Say That You Do,’ and later with ‘Multiply.’

The unquantifiable aspect of Dressy Bessy still remains – are there hidden subliminal messages? Is this what makes people like bands like Hanson? – but suffice that I’ve enjoyed the pop goodness that Tammy Ealom and her backing band serve up every time. Further explorations of the band’s past show that Ms. Ealom is married to the guitarist, John Hill, who is a former member of the seminal Apples In Stereo (and if I ever pick up an Apples album, it will most likely be on next year’s list).

One other side note about the band: In addition to being the show I saw most over the past year (twice), Dressy Bessy’s 2005 release Electrified was compared to Coldplay’s newest self-righteous whiny opus, X&Y, on an NPR show. Guess which one came out on top.

Hint: It wasn’t the one whose lead singer has a child named Apple.

Standout tracks: ‘Just Once More,’ ‘The Things That You Say That You Do,’ ‘Girl You Shout!’

7. Gus Gus, Polydistortion. [1997]
An album notable for its obscure ubiquity – if you’ve ever heard anything Paul Oakenfold has ever done, you’ve heard his mix of ‘Purple’ – Polydistortion has a few other little tricks up its sleeve. Most of the trippy downbeat numbers that came out of the late 1990s, anything other than, say, after Tricky’s Maxinquaye or Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, was mostly uninspired sonic mush.

Then I picked up the track ‘Believe’ and realized there was one more album to add to that canon. Sporting enough cowbell to satisfy even the most feverish Christopher Walken, ‘Believe’ is one of those tracks that makes your want to sit and nod your head. And listen to it, over and over again. It’s so chillingly downbeat that it becomes invigorating. Then you find the drumless ‘Why?’ satisfying your until-this-point-unknown need for a Hammond organ over smooth female vocals asking ‘Is this what you want?’ Listen and enjoy.

Standout tracks: ‘Gun,’ ‘Believe,’ ‘Why?’ ‘Is Jesus Your Pal?’

8. Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire, The Swimming Hour. [2001]
The 1920s must have been a great decade. There were flappers and the was jazz and people listened to ragtime music with the knowledge that yes, things were just great, thank you. Andrew Bird likes his Golden Twenties. He also likes his zydeco. And his plucked guitar. And his violin.

While working to shed his ‘I’m just a contributor to the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ image, Bird created a record full of styles, from straight-ahead rock (‘Satisfied’) to some strange silent-movie film-noir spaghetti-western soundtrack (‘Way Out West’). Not all the tracks satisfy, as he moves into ironic humor music territory best left to Frank Zappa (‘Dear Old Greenland’), but overall you’re welcome into Bird’s tour of his limitless imagination and mastery of musical styles.

Standout tracks: ‘Case In Point,’ ‘Too Long,’ ‘Way Out West,’ ‘Satisfied.’

9. DJ Kicks: Nightmares on Wax. [2000]
The problem with throwing a party is that one girl who says ‘I don’t like this stuff you’re playing. You should play something better,’ using her best whiny, daddy-fix-this voice.

Forget about listening to her, because you just found the best party album ever, and Nightmares on Wax went ahead and pre-mixed it for you. Like the DJ that he is, George Evelyn takes some of his own low-end heavy, chilled Nightmares on Wax tracks seamlessly into hip-hop party mashups of Tribe Called Quest classics (‘We on an award tour / with Muhammad my man / goin’ each and every place with the mic in my hand’) and some old jams you most likely missed (Saukrates’ ‘Ay Ay Stutter’).

Stop worrying about your party playlist and just put this on. If that whiny girl doesn’t like it, tell her to wait until the next brilliant track. If she doesn’t like that, kick her out. She has bad taste in music anyway.

Standout tracks: ‘Ay Ay Stutter,’ ‘Get On Down,’ ‘Award Tour,’ ‘Alphabet Aerobics.’

10. Sigur Ros, ( ). [2002]
Sigur Ros was great and well and fine and hip enough to like until I attended the band’s live show.

Then I was a full-on convert to this strange, atmospheric moodiness sung in a made-up language. After a sit-down concert at the Chicago Theater, a venue nice enough to sport frescoes and sculptures, I understood why, for example, the lead singer played his guitar with a bow. I understood, for example, why the opening act used a bent saw – as in the carpentry tool – as an instrument. That reason is to create Good Music. But I only came to this realization after the crescendo of the untitled eighth track on this album, known as The Pop Song.

Jon Thor Birgisson worked himself into such a lather over the song’s 11 minutes that at its climax, after using horsehair bow on his electric guitar as if it were a violin, he began violently smashing it on the strings to create one of the most tingling live music experiences ever because he was screaming at the top of his lungs in Biblical gibberish while his drummer beat away arhythmically and the keyboards were played with smashing fists, not tinkling fingers, and some staccato approximation of a silent horror movie projected by a green strobe light assaulted you from a reflective backdrop … and the crowd was completely silent.

In short, it was a great show, and this is a good album.

Standout tracks: ‘4’ (Njosnavelin), ‘6’ (E-Bow), ‘8’ (The Pop Song).

Tonight, we bring you a very special presentation of Things Gone Horribly Wrong, featuring the Black Eyed Peas.

We suggest small children and those with weak constitutions to leave immediately. This gets ugly.

Exhibit A: The Peas, circa 1998.

In the fall of 1998, the guy who sat across from me in drawing class mentioned he had just heard a great new hip-hop group, the Black Eyed Peas. The Peas had a fun single - a far cry from the West Coast hardcore sound - that fit the mood of the summer perfectly. My favorite, though, was ‘Fallin’ Up,’ which featured the lyric

I see you try to try to diss our function by stating that we can’t rap
Is it ’cause we don’t wear Tommy Hilfiger or baseball caps?

Sure, the Peas weren’t breaking new ground, but they were fun. Just feel-good rhymes: nothing heavy, nothing overbearing. Better yet, this indie rap crew was all about flaunting its status as the underdog. The three MCs - one was even Latino! - were the new kids in the room with their hands in the air saying ‘Hey! Tribe Called Quest! Hey! De La Soul! Hey! You like our album? Huh? Please?’

The second album followed form. The group was getting guest spots from Macy Gray and Mos Def, accomplished artists themselves, and the sound was tighter, the production more polished. But never did the three members lose sight of what they were and were trying to do, as this was the era of frontman Will.I.Am writing lines like

I know I’m not the only one that’s filling the void
Creatively hip-hop is being destroyed
We the only crew that came original
while a lot of other brothers just mimic the pile
The pile that’s only designed for pop charts
that contradicts thought, that’s the reason we brought
it back cause honestly it lacks
talent and creativity, in fact

And thus began the inevitable plunge to hell.

Exhibit B: The Peas, circa 2003.

The band picked up some hopeless Kids Incorporated reject, Fergie, who immediately bastardized the sound into a hopeless call-and-response pastiche of ‘[guys] she be [her] Fergie [guys] from the crew [her] BEP’ and such. I’ll be honest: ‘Hey Mama’ was an infectious track. But the writing was on the wall and, when an NBA endorsement deal came calling, the Peas were ready to make the jump from credible, if timid, MCs to full-blown pop darlings.

Let me be clear on this: Fergie is a succubus.

This foul being has twisted the band into something grotesque - and she gets to sing lead on these songs. No longer does Taboo rap in Spanish. Hell, I don’t know if Taboo does anything. The Black Eyed Peas, a crew that would gamely try to breakdance at shows and make rhymes about ‘black to Asian, and caucasian,’ have now dropped a ’song’ so devoid of life that your back seizes up in discomfort upon listening.

You’ve heard it on MTV or whereever. Do a lyric comparison - look at the songs above, then read the stellar lyricism of ‘My Humps.’

What you gonna do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’m a get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My lovely little lumps

The descent into hell is complete.

And so it goes in the circle of death and rebirth, we must look for the next Good Song. Once you find it, let me know, as I’ll be sitting in complete darkness learning Gregorian chant to loosen the hold of ‘my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump’ on my sanity.

And look at that second picture again: Fergie wet herself on stage at a concert in Miami. Her lovely lady schlumps!

By any stretch of the imagination, tonight was supposed to be spent a) in a bed, b) sleeping in said bed, c) gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed and d) prepping for a 9 a.m. race and gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed.

None of those four conditions has been fulfilled. Instead, I’m running around a 75-year-old building that looks like a castle, studying up on arcane history for 150 articles that will compose the largest feature ever - by far, at 30 pages - this magazine has ever seen. Excuse the emphasis, but this is going to be the best fucking issue. Ever. And the publication has been around since 1880.

So much for the race.

Just 48 short hours ago, I listed my somewhat dicey turns of phrase that will inevitably appear in print. So - the poorly-chosen phrase updates for Thanksgiving Day are

• ‘four separate glacial periods between Newfoundland and Ireland’
• ‘compared to an astronaut, Captain Nemo and Lewis and Clark’
• ‘Anyone feel like a luau?’
• ‘an obscure hamlet in rural Alabama’
• ‘the original temple to our mother goddess’

By the numbers, I’ve ’slept’ (read: stayed overnight, working) at the office two (2) times in three (3) nights; I’ve made approximately one hundred seventy four thousand, three hundred twelve (174,312) individual keystrokes and consumed five (5) bags of coffee grinds. The grinds were consumed in liquid form, but I have no idea how many cups that equals.

And just for good measure, I’ve given twenty-two (22) dirty looks to coworkers who say asinine crap like ‘hey, you look tired.’

Best. Fucking. Issue. Ever. Give me your address and I’ll send you a copy when it’s printed in January. Maybe.

The ‘this’ in the above title refers to ‘staying up literally all night at the office working on a story – or, more specifically, 150 of them.’ ‘Shit’ refers to ’shit.’

The clock on my machine reads 4:36 a.m., meaning that I’ve been staring at some form of an LCD screen and typing for the better part of the last 20 hours. And at this point, I think I’m going to make it through the next day without a major breakdown or methamphetamine. Granted, working this late and writing has its peripheral creative benefits, with inadvertent fun phrases working their way into my articles. Thus far, I’m planning to publish

• ‘Show Me the Money: The Financial Godfather’
• ‘tubular bells’
• ‘respite from war’s horrors’
• ‘Canada, Eh? Going International’
• ‘the proud papa of one hell of an idea’
• ‘this modern litigious environment’
• ‘the anti-climax of an empty banquet hall’

At this point, I can’t tell if my writing reflects a mindset that’s either slap-happy or apathetic – and whether those above phrases are sheer genius or deranged meanderings that shouldn’t see the light of day.

And I wasn’t joking about 150 articles. I’m finishing number 47 (‘Bells are Ringing: The Carillons, Restored’) as we speak.

This was one of those mornings where I had to wake up early, as I’m leaving on a business trip in approximatly 14 minutes. You know, one of those ‘get up early - like 5:15 a.m., finish packing, go to the gym, finish a project at the office and head out’ sort of days.

So naturally I wake up at 7:40. So much for initiative. And this is my morning, as recounted in an e-mail to a friend:

so right, it was a strange morning. i get to the sheridan southbound platform, and the train is just sitting there. not moving, no doors open. so i wait. eventually the conductor walks along the train, searching for a problem. after a few minutes, he runs back to the front of the train and tries to open the doors, to no avail. they would open maybe four inches, then close. over and over.

so he walks the length of the train again, before returning to the front. tries to open the doors. no dice.

same process a third time. again, nothing.

the entire time, i’m watching with this bemused expression on my face, trying to figure out why this is happening. after a while, though, it becomes clear that the train’s not going anywhere, so i cross over to the northbound train to take the red line (shiver). howerver, i get up to the northbound platform and …

the southbound train starts moving. the first half of it, at least. the end half remains in place, and the metal springs connecting the trains shatter, going all over the track. now, when metal touches an electrified rail, it melts. and smokes. and starts on fire. the northbound train, now approaching, sees this happen and screeches to a halt.

the cta at that point was officially shut down at the sheridan stop.

so i called a friend who drives to the office and he picked me up. i still made it here on time, bag in hand for my business trip.

Hopefully the rest of the day will rock that hard.

I spent last evening as an observer in a marketing class at the University of Chicago. Another prospective student was with me and, while I didn’t know him, we seemed to get along. We were making idle chitchat - god forbid we should speak to the other students - and eventually I asked what he does.

‘I play for the Chicago Bears,’ he said.

That stopped me in my tracks, but not because he played in the NFL per se, as I’m not one to get flustered in those sorts of situations. It was more out of the parochial mindset that says professional football players aren’t allowed to scout for MBA programs. I could tell the guy wanted to blend in, though. After a break halfway through class, he leaned over and said ‘the cat’s out of the bag.’ Apparently word had spread that a member of the Bears was sitting in the class and, sure enough, someone slid a legal pad in front of him:

‘You’re really Hunter Hillenmeyer, right? Could you …?’

Suffice to say we were situational friends. He liked me because I didn’t want to talk football, and I liked him because he helped solve my crossword during the boring parts of class. The first one he filled in: 7-Down - ‘Like many new stadia.’ The answer, as you can see, is ‘domed.’ His contributions are in green.

Leave it to an NFL player to fill that one in for me.

After we leave class, I find a slew of text-message responses from my friends, ranging from ‘can i come to class? tell my boy hunter i say hi,’ to ‘tell him good interception sunday. he’s the hottest bear!’ Apparently Hunter’s the new hotness on the defensive* line. Either way, I never thought I would be sitting in a marketing class next to a professional football player. The world gets stranger every day.

*[Correction, Nov. 10, 2005, 2 p.m.: I originally referred to Hillenmeyer’s position on the offensive line, but that would make getting an interception difficult. He’s actually a defensive linebacker.]

I called the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, at his home this evening. One of the first things he said, after asking the obvious question ‘What are you doing working on a Sunday?’ was to say something to the effect of ‘of course! You’re the editor of The Record. Glad you got my note.’

See, the former Chairman sent me a thank-you note earlier in the week. This was for something as simple as putting him in the alumni section of our magazine, which is pretty much the right of any member of the organization. His note, I think, was the first I have received - in my more than two years of putting the publication together - that thanked me for something that simple. And it was from a man who has been the number-one ranked military official in the United States for the past four years.

During the course of the interview, I asked a set of ten standard questions, designed to work for any alumnus of the organization I care to feature. However, one particular question - what has been the most difficult decision you have ever made? - took on some extra significance. The full implication of the question’s weight didn’t strike me until it was already out of my mouth. His response, though, was something I couldn’t argue with:

‘Given my position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,’ he said, ‘anytime you’re advising the President on going to war, that’s the most difficult decision you can make.’ Considering this is a man who, three days prior to his Sept. 30, 2005, resignation of the position said of the current conflict in Iraq ‘the outcome and consequences of defeat are greater than World War II,’ I’d venture to say those were some weighty decisions.

Either way, he’s a great guy. Coolest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs I’ve ever interviewed.

There once was a man slated to pick up a rental car for a business trip. After filling out the necessary paperwork at his local Enterprise, the kindly employee gave her verdict with all the seriousness of a cancer diagnosis:

‘We’re putting you in a Nissan Altima,’ she said.

‘Does it have a CD player?’ our central character replied. God forbid there be a road trip without music.

However, upon his exit to the parking lot where his intermediate-size Altima waited, the Enterprise worker realized she needed to bring his contract. She ducked into the office, and returned bearing good news.

‘We’re not putting you in the Altima,’ she said. ‘How about that right there?’ She nodded toward an Infiniti RX45.

‘Yeah, I could do that,’ our man replied.

Satisfied that his place would be cemented in the big-boy lane on the highway, our protagonist made his way to the bank, where he attempted to deposit a check. Upon entering his PIN, however, the machine malfunctioned - forcing him to (gasp!) speak to a teller face-to-face.

After filling out the necessary deposit slips, he asked said teller for $20 against the recently deposited amount. She informed our hero that unfortunately, she cannot, as his account was overdrawn. No cash!

This plucky adventurer realized his options were slim and none, yet decided to make the best of the situation. He would take the non-toll roads out of Chicago in his silver pimp ride. He would leave his dry cleaning to be picked up next week. He would use credit cards. The trip continued in true pay-for-it-later comfort. And it was Good.

Crisis averted, he became the Cashless Man in the Luxury SUV. Look for the next installment of our series, the Broke-Ass Magazine Editor on Public Transit, next week.

A story in today’s Tempo section of the Tribune caught my eye: ‘To kids raised on rap, Hancock explores link to jazz.’ It begins:

Herbie Hancock opened obliquely, with a few splashy chords and a couple of rumbling bass notes.

But once he dug into the gently swaying groove that drives his classic “Cantaloupe Island,” the kids literally started screaming.

Instantly, they raised their hands, rocked in their seats, shouted out their approval and otherwise carried on as if they were relishing the latest hip-hop hit — rather than a jazz tune penned eons ago, in the 1960s.

That’s what I’m saying. Hancock, who was originally from Chicago, was playing at a session organized by the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz yesterday. Herbie Hancock: Making heads nod since 1961.

Item the first: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

The most powerful man on the planet, a demigod whose mere glances can send world markets tumbling or soaring, a political stalwart whose other titles include Knight Commander of the British Empire, has strongly hinted his retirement will take place Jan. 31, 2006.

Item the second: Hotel heiress Paris Hilton.

The most photographed woman of 2004 and of 2005, a soulless, lecherous and blonde manifestation of all that is pop-culture America - vapid, too concerned with image and sporting the word ‘entitlement’ like a mink stole - apparently has far-reaching tendrils that reach into the international shipping markets, would make a great replacement for Chairman Greenspan.

Item the third: Justification.

Such a change will result in a fundamental shift of the most powerful economic role in the world from a proactive stance to a reactive. Given the implicit power Heiress Hilton exerts over international markets, there would be no need for interest rate hikes or obtuse phrases - ‘If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said,’ he has claimed - because the world markets will suddenly go the way of Us Weekly and base its peaks and valleys on what America’s most genius, vapid airbag happened to be wearing that particular day.

Export numbers out of Taiwan down? Paris wore the same dress twice in a row.

Housing bubble? She decided to keep her former fiancé’s ring.

You get the point.

Paris Hilton for Chair-Heiress of the Federal Reserve. Support her nomination in 2006.

Posts have been few and far between of late … I’ve been training for the Thanksgiving Day Race, an event I haven’t participated in since 1995.

I’m still in the 19-24-year-old bracket, meaning I’ll be competing against fresh-faced, just-out-of-high-school cross-country freaks. Kids who haven’t had six years of solid drinking and partying under their 30-inch belts. Let the record show that I’m putting in my hard work, however. See the counter on the homepage to see how much training time remains.

If you’re not doing anything, come out and run with me in a few weeks. What you need to know:

- Cincinnati. Downtown. Start somewhere near the stadiums.
- Thanksgiving Day. 9 a.m. EST.
- 10 kilometers (a cute, European way of saying 6.2 miles).
- A 40-minute finish time (optional).

So far, participants include

- John Ryan.
- Heideh.
- Philip (he’s walking the course with his family, but hey).
- Brent (unconfirmed - hearsay only).

See you on the 24th.

Little Jimmy flipped on the television last weekend to watch Saturday morning cartoons. But instead of entertainment, he found the lesson of a lifetime waiting for him.

A commercial produced by the Department of Energy presented Jimmy with the ‘Energy Hog,’ a metaphorical concept for leaving the lights on, running the air conditioner for too long or leaving hair dryers blowing to, I don’t know, keep food warm or something. The bottom line: Wasting energy is bad, Jimmy learned.

The lovable cartoon character, embodying all the bad habits of household energy consumption, was a Department of Defense creation that made an indelible impression on the young Jimmy. As he went to bed that night, he wrote a haiku for his mother - as he was torn between his desire to turn off the lights, but was nonetheless scared of the dark. He wrote:

I’m scared of the dark!
Please? Lights? Just five more minutes?
Fuck you, Dick Cheney.

‘Don’t say that, little Jimmy,’ Mommy said. ‘Just because I drive you to school in an Acura MDX doesn’t mean we should leave the lights on at night.’

Little Jimmy drifted off to sleep, his dreams peaceful and swine-free, safe in the knowledge that the Energy Hog wouldn’t be attacking him in the dark, dark night.

To recap:

- Little Jimmy is pissed that Dick Cheney is a robot.

- When your government has chosen to rip off “Captain Planet” - a third-rate cartoon - to aid conservation efforts, there’s a definite problem. The Energy Hog looks a little too much like Hoggish Greedly. See picture.

- Haiku provides a lyrical outlet for the pouring forth of emblematic truth, namely, the idea of an ‘Energy Hog’ sucks.

A new breed of medical advertisement has caught my attention lately: Have you seen the guy with the busted-ass face peering out at you from your morning newspaper yet? ‘Cause it freaks me out every time.

Rather than using the typical ‘ask your doctor about Wellexetra’ or so forth, we find a gentleman whose face looks like it went seven rounds with a young, tire-iron wielding Holyfield plaintively -agressively? - looking at you while the caption reads ‘If Hep C was [sic] attacking your face instead of your liver, you’d do something about it.’

The grammatical case notwithstanding - the ad copy should use the subjunctive mood ‘were’ rather than the indicative ‘was,’ not that I’m picking nits - I was fine with feeling inadequate after Enzyte’s Natural Male Enhancement pills and I was fine with thinking of many things at once before finding out I actually had Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. But now I have to be fine with something I won’t know exists until I get screened for this ’silent killer.’ I’m sure I’m being (shortsighted / callous / medieval), but I make a concerted effort to get medical advice from my doctor, rather than, say, advertising.

As if I didn’t have enough to be neurotic about (say nothing for beaten faces on my morning commute), now I’ve also found out just what would happen were a Category 4 hurricane to hit New York City. Next will be earthquakes in Chicago and locusts in Seattle and armies of zombie-like Hep C sufferers in Topeka.

Oh, were all those ads I mentioned sponsored by drug companies putting out for-profit ads? Nevermind then. I’m sure they have my best interests at heart, like freaking me out of my morning stupor by showing me an abused face. Thanks, modern medicine!

I can’t put a spin on this past weekend, so I won’t try.

I should be coming up with an ‘angle’ in order to better present an event I covered on Saturday afternoon for a freelance project. This task should be easy, considering the event was a dog fashion parade.

The overall feeling you get while watching supposedly sane people parade their costumed dogs down the street is almost indescribable, but it’s something between ‘watching the fire department use the Jaws of Life to extract a trapped man from a burning wreck’ (for that horrifying, I-can’t-tear-my-eyes-away feeling) and ‘covertly watching ‘Golden Girls’ at 2:30 in the morning to indulge your crush on Bea Arthur’ (because you’re a sick bastard that wallows in your habit thrice weekly despite being well-adjusted otherwise).

During said spectacle, John and I met/witnessed:

A) a few very nice, seemingly well-adjusted people

B) one batshit woman who takes dogs from backyards in the name of ‘rescuing’ them, and told us she was going to strangle another woman at the event who was making money by selling dogs;

C) three t-shirts that boldly proclaimed ‘I have issues’ - whether the owners were cuckoo for their dogs or just had issues in general, I’ll never know;

D) dogs dressed up as batman, superman, a princess (with the cone hat and frilly pink lace and everything), sunflowers and many other various and sundry ‘cute’ tsotchkes.

Apparently you can get the ‘I have issues’ shirts at Wal-Mart. Oh America! Oh humanity!