how a resurrection really feels
In late January I experienced a tremendous loss. Some of you might remember. On a day like any other, I plugged my iPod into a friend's computer, and then, just like that, everything was gone. It was, on more than one level, an absolutely devastating tragedy. Some might say national tragedy. Let's say national tragedy.
Immediately after it happened I sat down in front of my computer and I wrote about it. It was by far the most emotional post I've ever written on this site. I was a shell of a man. After a year of accumulating 6,000 songs, many from various computers and friends, I was left with nothing. I felt it in my gut. Without a doubt, the feeling was worse than that of learning you have crabs. It was worse than crabs.
When I got home that night and decided that rather than waste time mourning I should start rebuilding my library, I noticed something strange. My 30GB iPod, though completely empty, said I only had 3GB of space available. Odd, I thought. I quickly loaded 600 songs onto the device and vowed to get to the Apple store in SoHo as soon as I could to see if maybe-- somehow-- my songs survived the attack. There was a glimmer of hope. It was like when Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq. It was just like that.
Well, I never had the time to tackle the infamously frustrating and horrible Apple store and their bar full of Geniuses. A month and a half went by, and rather than get my iPod checked out I simply listened to the same 600 songs over and over again. It wasn't too bad. I'm pretty sure I listened to "Beautiful Girl" by INXS roughly 1,344 times. Give or take. Like I said, it wasn't too bad.
This Saturday I went home to Rockland county for the night. After hitting a couple of golf balls at my second-favorite driving range in the unseasonably warm weather, I figured I'd drop by the Apple store at the mall to see if I could talk to somebody about my iPod problems. I walked into the practically empty store and walked right up to the vacant Genius Bar. An employee came over and asked if he could help me, and I responded "hopefully." Without waiting or making an appointment, the Genius sat down and tried to figure out what was wrong. He tried to figure it out. He couldn't. Genius my ass.
He did say one thing, though. One thing that got me thinking.
When I got home that night I plugged into the family computer to dig around. Long story short, after fishing around and cleaning things up and pulling things out... I found them. All of them. I found my entire iPod library.
And now I don't know what to do. I'm intimidated. I'm scared. I feel like Jude Law at the end of
Cold Mountain-- I completed this long journey, I went through so much, and now I finally have what I was searching for right in front of me... and I'm scared I'll lose it again. Or I'll get shot in the back. (Spoiler alert) I've been reunited with my iPod songs. All of them. And I couldn't be happier. It's like waking up on January 1, 2000 and discovering that the Y2K bug didn't wipe us all out. Yeah. It's just like that.
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b at 3:50 PM
Aaron Karo: The Man With Absolutely Nothing Funny To Say
You ever get the feeling that when you set your iPod to "shuffle" the songs that play aren't random at all?Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I report I can not leave
My Blog is Poop with a final
Guess The Karo! Not because I don't want to, and not because I haven't tried. No. It's because there is officially nothing funny about Aaron Karo's Ruminations anymore. Nothing whatsoever.
In the past we've shared a laugh over the mundane observations-- or Ruminations, if you will-- of the comedically challenged Long Island frat boy. We've balked at his obvious punchlines and we've cringed upon hearing the news of his subsequent success. Each game of
Guess The Karo!-- where I challenged you to pick out Aaron's "joke" amongst my similar non-jokes-- left commentators dumbfounded and wondering, "Wait... is this guy really making a living with material like that?" And the answer was yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
And that's why I've never felt bad skewering AK on this site. Because I'm just a blogger. He's a "comedian" with a development deal making good money off an idea he had when he was a college student. If he ever wanted to respond to anything I had written, all he had to say was "The guy is jealous. I have more readers, and I'm funnier." And he'd be right about the readers.
Do I hate Aaron Karo? Nah. Of course not. Somebody recently sent me his MySpace page, where I learned that we both like the same teams: The Yankees, Giants, Rangers, Knicks, and Women (get it? that's a Karo joke). He can't be that bad of a guy. All of my comments and jabs and verbal attacks have nothing to do with Aaron Karo the person. They have to do with Aaron Karo the comedian. And Aaron Karo the comedian isn't funny. At all. It's a fact.
You ever get the feeling that when you set your iPod to "shuffle" the songs that play aren't random at all?Back to
Guess The Karo! Like I was saying, we stopped playing GTK! because Aaron Karo has stopped writing jokes. Some could argue he never did. I think he used to try. But not anymore. He's mailing them in now- and while some comedians can get away with mailing it in, clearly Karo cannot. Just look at that iPod joke. Or read his last
column. How can I pick on him? It's completely unfair.
And that's why today, in my last ever Karo-related post, I'm not going to poke fun at his punchlines and belittle his comedy. No. Instead, I'm going to ask him a simple favor.
Aaron- stop it. Please. Just stop. For all of us. You had a nice run, you made a lot of money, god knows you've gotten laid from it-- what more do you need? Now, you're just being selfish. Because it's clear you're not doing it for your fans or your readers anymore- you're doing it for yourself. So please stop. You graduated from Penn, you used to work on Wall Street-- go back. You'll lead a happy life, I'm sure... and if that's the case, so will we. Everybody wins.
So please Aaron. From one comedian to another. It's time to throw in the towel. Because you know man, from one Knicks fan to another... You're the Isiah Thomas of comedy.
Do the right thing. Walk away.
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b at 3:33 PM
i'm not ready to go yet...
Soon. But not yet. I still have some things left to say.
UPDATE: Okay, so I'm not trying to be mysterious here. The plan was to write a few more solid posts and then pack it in. Unfortunately, I haven't even been able to devote enough time to this site to do that. That's still the plan... it's just taking longer than I thought it would.
Anyway, you can expect posts about 'Or Something' Girls, an exploding toilet, a revolutionary rating system, a final
Guess The Karo, and a few other things here and there. Soon.
In the meantime, I'll be spending all day tomorrow drinking in Hoboken and pretending that it's St. Patrick's Day. I'll also be at the Strokes show tomorrow night where I'm destined not to remember a single thing. So if you see me there stumbling over high school kids and singing all the wrong words, forgive me. I know not what I do.
Have a radical weekend.
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b at 6:17 PM
