But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living.

At the Midget level, there was real pitching. There was base stealing. There was bunting. And—at least in my vision—there was hitting and running, double switching, outfield shading, middle-relieving, and a run-manufacturing offensive philosophy modeled after Whitey Herzog’s St. Louis Cardinals.

Now, I assumed he meant “two seconds” figuratively, as in “I just have to wash my hair and put on my makeup—I’ll be ready to go in two seconds.” Obviously, I was wrong. Robert meant two seconds as in 00:02.

Aging hipsters and corduroy-clad high school sophomores are both primarily concerned with dodging lameness.

commercials for cereal assault children with the same theme: A product’s exclusivity is directly proportional to its social cachet, which is the definition of calculated adult coolness.

Here’s what I mean by that: I once read a movie review by Roger Ebert for the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Early in the review, Ebert makes a tangential point about whether or not film characters are theoretically “aware” of other films and other movie characters. Ebert only touches on this issue casually, but it’s probably the most interes

And this is more proof of cereal’s overlooked relationship to American cool: Being cool is mostly ridiculous, and so is sugared cereal. That’s why we like it.

The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy. There is no “normal,” because everybody is being twisted by the same sources simultaneously. You can’t compare your relationship with the playful couple who lives next door, because they’re probably modeling themselves after Chandler Bing an

Spike deals exotic animals in his spare time; nobody but me seems to find this unusual.