The ##

So, I’ve just stepped into the big, bad corporate world. It’s been about three months and guess what, I’m already craaaazy about my boss. It started out as a little crush, and now it’s this full blown romance-but-not-romance thing. Ahem! After one night of staying back a little too late, we ended up making out. A LOT. And, it was so good. I mean, the kind of mad kisses you see in movies. We talked about it and how I felt horrible (and not to mention, incredibly YAY, but I couldn’t tell him that) about doing this with my boss. He said he felt really guilty, and that we’d have to stop. Which … ummm, how do I say this, did not happen. At all. The making out hasn’t stopped. We’ve been going out to these cute little dinners and sharing our life stories. Also, we’ve been stealing kisses at work (which is SO wrong, but feels SO good!).

We’ve had a few of these it’s-wrong-to-do-it-we-need-to-stop conversations, but nothing seems to come out of it. Work-wise, he’s not been treating me any different than he does the others, which is something I appreciate. I don’t want any special favors because of the being-busy-with-each-other on the side bit. But, god, he is SO great. And intelligent and funny and all of those things. I have no idea where to go with this. Also, one tiny thing I left out, he’s 30 and I’m 21 … that seems to be an issue with him. Because apparently, I have a lot to see/learn/do/blah, and he doesn’t want to be the one coming in the way. I want to be with him, and in spite of confessing that we’re falling for each other, nothing seems to be coming out of it. What am I supposed to do?!

Fuck him in his office.

Jack?

Phyllis Nefler first met ## correspondent Jack Waffles at The Club’s annual gentleman’s week in Trieste a few months back. Jack, of course, is a longtime member, albeit one who has lost and regained official status due to a variety of mishaps including, but not limited to, the time he was found pulling into the harbor with 10 tons of Colombia’s Finest and paperwork that indicated his intent to acquire a stake in a terrorist-backed front in Qatar; a two-month-long “experiment” with intravenous opiates with a man in Addis Ababa known only as “Holy Man Sam”; and that explosion in ‘97 at the refinery in the Pacific that later resulted in him spending a few years under the alias “Chico Kincaid,” hopping from Swiss cottages on the run from the El Salvadorean royal family’s hired goons. His standing at the club was good enough to allow him to attend Trieste. 

Phyllis, meanwhile, was engaging in her own Eat-Pray-Love sort of faux-soul-searching mission, and she somehow ended up at the Club’s compound. There she found herself in a… well, let’s just say it was a compromising scenario, and it involved something resembling a bridesmaid, and that it always comes in handy to bring your own extra pair of socks to these sorts of things. Short of the long, Jack agreed to keep her secret and bail her out. As always, though, his cooperation came at a price. She had no choice but to say, “I do!” So: Say hi to Phyllis Nefler!

I never thought it would come to this, but two announcements this weekend left me forced to choose between two Supreme Court justices. Which line should draw a firmer nod of approval, I wondered? “Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court justice, officiated,” or “The bride is a niece of Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court?”

It’s kind of a tossup. On the one hand, Katherine Goldstein-Breyer is actually related to an enrobed one, and you’re goddamn right she’s keeping that name.

But on the other hand, it’s really fun to read through the announcement for Channing Powell and Jonathan Soverow and try to ascertain what their connection to Sandy O is. Is she an art collector who has crossed paths with Powell’s father, the director of the National Gallery of Art? Perhaps she also had a child who attended the tony Potomac School, where the couple first met. Or maybe the groom’s father is her shrink. I’d watch that show!

It’s the kind of question that I’d want to ask Sally Quinn, whose column about her son Quinn’s shotgun wedding to his yoga teacher and the, er, unfortunate scheduling conflicts it created ultimately sealed her fate as a coLOLumnist at the Washington Post.

I can’t be bothered to wade through this sea of WASP passive-aggression but it does contain some pearls. Did you know Quinn met his bride “at the suggestion of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd”? Or that… this?

Oh, and one last question for the mother of the groom. Will the baby call her Granny? Nope. “It’s going to be ‘Mama Sal,’” she explained. “Quinn and I go once a week to work with learning-disabled kids at a small school in Anacostia, and that’s what they call me.”

Oh, Sally.

* * *

It should come as no surprise that the wedding of a pair of anarchists would be way more drama-free and lovely than the nuptials of etiquette-mongering Washington insiders, and that’s exactly what we find with the featured couple, Allie Compton and Chris Ryan. True, I preemptively rolled my eyes at this tagline:

The Statue of Liberty was the backdrop for the couple, who met at the Anarchist Ice Cream Truck.

But I mean, how can you not be charmed with an article that has passages like this:

He borrowed a bicycle from one of his East Village neighbors, Donna Squeeze Leonard, known to all as Squeeze. Ms. Leonard realized immediately that it was no ordinary date: “You know when Chris Ryan puts on a button-down shirt things are serious,” she said. “He didn’t want to blow it because she was so beautiful and so perfect, like an angel to him.”

I just… trust Squeeze, you know? Anyway, what I like most about Chris Ryan is the way he can cleverly accept or reject anything while maintaining a cohesive ethos. This is how he manages to be an anarchist while still submitting to the marriage-industrial complex:

“I’ve never been much of a joiner,” he said. “If I see people protesting something, I want to protest them.” Although he initially viewed the loosely organized Critical Mass protest rides “as a party on wheels, not a political statement,” all of that changed after his arrest at a Critical Mass ride during the 2004 Republican National Convention. He said, “I wasn’t so committed” to any particular cause, “until they said I can’t do it.”

Perfect. Watch out, marriage protestors, because this couple is rising up against you, and they’ve got experience with this sort of thing, having met at “an art exhibition called ‘Democracy in America: The National Campaign,’” where Mr. Ryan’s band, Team Spider, was performing and where Allie Compton was engaged in a participatory art installation called “The Anarchist Ice Cream Truck.”

They began talking about art and politics and went inside the truck, which — along with gas masks and progressive literature — actually had ice cream. Because the project’s artist had declared himself off duty, they began handing out ice cream to others who walked up to the window.

Wait, can we pause for a second to acknowledge the “artist” who “declared himself off duty”? I have such a specific visual, and it involves body hair, some glitter, and a caftan.

Anyway, the wedding was itself a public art project, at one point taken over by pirates, as these things are wont to be, and that’s actually the only thing that I’ll shake my head no to here, because people who get all into “International Talk Like A Pirate Day” yarrr the worst.

* * *

Compton and Ryan really set the tone for this weekend, which was pretty pleasant to read because of some of the totally quirktastic couples it featured. A quick and rambling rundown of some of the best.

 First of all, Aimee Carlson and Trevor Moore. It’s almost unfair that you see this picture and then you learn in the very third sentence that the bride works for Myspace.com. At least make us work for it! Her husband is “a creator and a star of ‘The Whitest Kids U’Know,’” a show I’m unfamiliar with which means nothing because I’m still stuck in Season 3 of The Wire and I’ve never seen Back to the Future or Absolutely Fabulous.

(Amusingly, the NYT auto-links the name of his father, suggesting he is of the loud yeller Moores, but an indisputable result from something called Chacha.com clarifies that his dad is not, in fact, that Michael Moore. He’s the “former Christian rock musician” Michael Moore! Oh. I much prefer the job description of bride Eva Labson’s dad, who is the “director of the Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center.”)

Here, without comment, is this:

The bride, 28, will take her husband’s name. She is a full-time nanny in New York. She graduated from Suan Dusit Rajabhat University in Bangkok…The bridegroom, 27, is a news assistant on the obituaries desk at The New York Times.

I mean. How soon before this becomes a Zach Braff movie? And how soon before another bride’s life is fodder for a film? Tiffany Kary’s dad’s job sounds badass: he “retired as a chief superintendent in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; he oversaw the organized crime division in British Columbia and the Yukon.” Dude, organized crime in the Yukon!! Kary and her husband are both financial writers. Seriously, how does one go about “optioning a story?” This could be my big break.

Some couples met in interesting places: Emily Grant and Matthew Turner met in a combat zone in Fallujah. Courtney Knowlton and Terence Li met on a squash court.

I kid, I kid! The full truth is subtler than that. For one thing, half of each couple went to Yale. And the Marines were Brooklyn Heights-bred – their moms set them up – while the prepsters were both working at a wonderful program for low-income kids called CitySquash that I dearly support! There are no villains in Vows this week, there are only well-rounded young people who serve their communities in the various ways they know how! (Also, one bride is “a granddaughter of the late Attilio Castellani, known as Rocky, a professional middleweight boxer in the 1940s and ’50s, and later a judge of boxing matches,” and I mean, you can’t argue with that.)

I wonder how Uncle Rocky would fare against Akemi Nakamura, a ninth-degree black belt who is the father of bride Meg Nakamura. (Unsurprisingly she married a more peaceful sort: a former divinity student who works for the Botanic Garden.) Elsewhere this weekend, John Boehner’s deputy communications director looks kinda like him; one parent works for something called “The Population Fund,” which sounds like a George Costanza concoction; a mother of a groom wrote a book called “Kimono in the Boardroom”; and these two really need to cheer up!!!

This week’s face-off:

Alexis Warner Ginsburg and James Bendiner Weiss

• The bride graduated from Wake Forest and received a master’s in broadcast journalism from Columbia: +3 
• The groom graduated from Princeton and received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania: +6 
• “The bride’s father is senior vice president of APCO Worldwide, a public relations firm in Washington; he is also the president of Layalina Productions, a nonprofit television production company in Washington and Dubai that produces Arabic and English language programming. He was the United States ambassador to Morocco during the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1998 and was the United States coordinator for Mediterranean trade, investment and security affairs from 1998 to 2000. From 1978 to 1981, he served in the Carter administration as deputy senior advisor for Middle East policy”: +2 
• The bride’s mother is on the board of the American School of Tangier in Morocco: +2 
• The groom works for Bain, consulting on “strategy for media, technology and private investment companies”: +1 
• The bride is a CNN producer on the Eliot Spitzer show: +1 
• The groom’s father is “a founder of Longview Investments, a real estate company in Philadelphia, where he is general counsel”: +1

TOTAL: 16

Christine Maclear Benson and Peter George Schwartzstein

• The couple was married by a Presbyterian minister: +1 
• “Mr. and Mrs. Schwartzstein met at Harvard, from which she graduated magna cum laude and he cum laude”: +11 
• “The bride, 29, is a vice president at Goldman Sachs in New York”: +1 
• The bride’s parents live in Jackson Hole: +2 
• The groom’s mother is a registered nurse at Beth Israel and his father is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School: +2

TOTAL: 17

Send a wire transmission to Phyllis Nefler, the author of this post, at hashtaghashtag@gmail.com.

Jack is thinking about starting his own lacrosse club.

John Ashbery Waffles VI, son of billionaire shipping magnate John Ashbery Waffles V, has recently been cut out of his father’s will due to a mishap involving a Malaysian crack den, an Israeli-made flamethrower, and a leather-bound copy of the complete Andrew Marvell anthology, the spine of which is now severely damaged. In order to secure some quick cash, “Jack” Waffles, as he is known to his friends, has joined The ## team, where he will columnize every so often. This is his first advice column.

DEAR JACK: A few weeks ago, I met a group of friends at a local pub. “Charlie” was the designated driver. As the evening progressed, I noticed Charlie was drinking beer. When I mentioned it, he said he’d had only three. Then he insisted he was fine and “it was only beer.” I tried to explain the danger of driving while “buzzed” and told him I’d walk home. Charlie then became insulted that I didn’t trust him to know his limits. He said I should relax and quit being so uptight. A few days later, some of my friends told me I had caused “unnecessary drama” that night and that my standards for the designated driver were “unrealistic.” They also said that Charlie wasn’t drunk and was totally capable of driving. But the fact remains, our designated driver wasn’t sober, and I wasn’t comfortable getting into a car with him. I voiced my opinion; now I’m being punished for it. Did I judge Charlie too harshly? — VALUES MY SAFETY, DAVIS, CALIF.

DEAR MY SAFETY: Simple! Stop being such a pussy. It’s probably dangerous to have unprotected sex, but that’s fun too!

DEAR JACK: My husband and I generally agree on most major issues. We agree to disagree on the minor ones. But there is one issue I think is major and he thinks is minor — strip clubs. He sees nothing wrong with having women give him lap dances. He compares it to seeing a movie — it’s “entertainment.” Abby, I’m not a prude. I wouldn’t care if he went to a strip club for a bachelor party, and I don’t object about his extensive porn collection. But it makes me feel he isn’t getting what he needs from me when he goes to a strip club by himself. I expect my husband to understand and respect my feelings. Is that too much to ask, or am I being unreasonable? — THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT? IN SALT LAKE CITY

DEAR SALT LAKE: You need to chill the fuck out, as well. Lucky for you that one of my bachelor’s degrees happens to be in evolutionary psychology: Men weren’t designed to sit home with you, watch The Bachelorette and eat ice cream. No, no! They were out hunting buffalo, bedding women, and inventing freedom. This is a good sign that your husband is a red-blooded male. Go to Amateur Night!

DEAR JACK: I have a good friend, “Gina,” whom I have known more than 35 years. I relocated 1,500 miles from her recently, and would like to invite her to visit me. The problem is, I want her to come alone. My husband and I have no desire to entertain her husband, “Sam.” Sam is a verbally abusive know-it-all on every subject who monopolizes every conversation, allowing no one else to get a word in. The few times we went out together as a foursome, my husband came home with a pounding headache. How do I tell Gina I would love for her to come, but to leave Sam home? I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but we will no longer tolerate his self-centered personality nor the way he treats my friend. P.S. None of Sam’s family will invite him to stay for the same reason. — NO ROOM AT THE INN IN MISSOURI

DEAR IN MIZZO: Have you ever thought that maybe you just don’t know much about anything? Maybe if you were a better conversationalist, then Sam wouldn’t have to carry the fucking conversation all day. If you really can’t make yourself interesting enough to get a word in, get blitzed before his arrival. Maybe some hallucinogens? His ramblings will be much more interesting.

Do you have a question for Jack?

Last time we left our hero Jack Waffles, he was wandering lust-stricken into some unknown desert. In his own style, he now recants what he recalls as the second part of this saga…

He lurched forward, nearly toppling over onto the cobbled street. He caught himself in time, but not before he tore the sleeve of his suit on the door of a nearby building. A lit cigarette had burned through the lapel of his jacket, and there was what felt like a full glass of whiskey soaking through his sock. There was some matter of what city he was in, but he was totally uncon…

….he woke up. His eyes blinked, and – presently - opened. Light crept over his face, stinging the eyes and forcing consciousness. There was a hazy spire visible in the distance. The Hague? London? He decided that he could really give a fuck. Rolling to the left, his arm tapped a warm, sleeping, 20 something. He struggled upright, slipping a bit before realizing there were silk sheets on the bed. Classy broad he guessed. On the second attempt he made it upright, and began to make a slow trek around the room. It seemed to be the top floor of whatever building he was in, and the well decorated.

Mercifully, some Eastern European hotelier had installed a fully stocked bar in the suite. Pouring himself a fresh Makers neat, he called down to the tailor for a fresh suit. With time to burn, he glanced over at the bed. She was still asleep, blonde. He vaguely remembered meeting her earlier the day before at some charity auction, but she hadn’t proved memorable in any other way. The standard fare of his usual jaunts, she was of no particular interest to him anymore. She wasn’t the one he had come to find.

A light knock on the door signaled the arrival of the concierge with his suit. Closing the door, a smile crept across his face. It was definitely Prague, as he knew the tailor’s card form a particularly nasty debacle in ’03. Immaculate once again, he poured a second fresh glass. Rustling from the other room. He had missed his chance to slip out. “Jack aren’t you going to say goodbye?” His countenance lightened with this unconscious demand of self-worth. “I’m afraid not, I have business to complete here.” He pivoted hard on the ball of his left foot, grabbed his drink, and hit the street.

Having been on a bender or two, he knew how to go about forgetting a woman. When one goes on a bender, he must go abroad. In the Americas, a drunken haze reflects poorly on an individual. Ah, but on the Continent, it is a different story! It is romantic! A gentle ode to the self-destructive nature so deeply entrenched in the heart of the poet. Things here are old and credible, regardless of function or form. Every brick and stone comprising the mighty works of some archaic civilization weighs heavily of suffering, the products of boundless Sisyphean labor extracted from the peasantry. To the South, in the depths of a sweltering jungle, one can feel the damned explorers of time past. For God and Country and self, they set off to find riches and life and spread civilization and culture and God. At sea, the spray and burn of the sun, to travel and see and go and never look backwards or forwards but to seek and feel!

But this is a digression. The street was still damp and foggy with the weight of morning dew. He cut a noble figure in the street, a strange juxtaposition of pleasure mingled with…. something not quite expected. He didn’t know what her name was, but she had clearly done a number on him. He stopped in a café for a cigarette and a newspaper, returning the glares from patrons for his apparent residual inebriation. He took out his wallet to pay, but stayed his hand immediately. Across the outermost Euro was a dark lettered “TRIESTE” scrawled in a heavy ink. It was undoubtedly his own handwriting, albeit somewhat misaligned. Maybe he had found something? He settled his tab, and then made way towards the train station.

He never flew if he could take the rail, much better restaurant cars and absolutely top shelf sauce. He had sworn never to go back to Trieste, not since his jaunt there in ’97. But still, if there was a chance at finding her there, he needed to try it. He made his way to the first class car, and proceeded to get drunk amongst the assembled gentry that one always finds on a train to Trieste….

At this point, you’re probably familiar with Jack Waffles and his proclivities. Here at The ##, we became a bit concerned for our freelance blogger, as we hadn’t heard from him in several weeks. A few days ago we received a handwritten note from Jack, with no return address and stamps from at least 4 different countries. It was scrawled on Ritz-Carlton stationary, looked like it came from somewhere near Cairo, and had a ring of whiskey around the top right corner. The text was difficult to read, but the rough transcription is as follows:

Hello there ##,

Sorry I’ve been out of touch for some time, I seem to have encountered a bit of a tough spot here. Short of the long, some gentlemen with very [unreadable] titles suspected that I had hustled them in a game of baccarat, and I’ve been trying to get away from this god-forsaken rock ever since.  

I need you to do me a favor. Call the following number: [REDACTED]. A man named Montenegro will answer the phone. Tell him that Jack is trying to pull off an Avignon, and that he’ll be in Prague shortly. He’ll know what it means.

Thanks again, chaps. With any luck, I’ll be stateside in a few days. Keep a cold one frosty for me.

Cheers,

Jack

Meet the sloths, from Amphibian Avenger.

Here at The ##, we like a lot of things: red meat, action movies, monster trucks, gratuitous amounts of casual sex. Recently, a lot of attention has been given to the “adorable” three-toed sloth; who knew baby sloths were this cute? (Ed. note: Are sloths the new slow lorises? I think so!) Oh yes, they are cute and cuddly and let’s all look at them! They’re so slow and helpless looking!

THIS IS FUCKING WRONG.

NO NO NO! Just say NO to SLOTHS.

They represent everything that is wrong with society. Yes, let’s laud a barely mobile, resource-hogging, algae-eating, WASTE OF MUSCLE FIBER. They will fucking latch onto anything near them, infect it with their slothitude, and make everything sleepy and WEAK.  You know who slept a lot and became a giant pussy? FRANCE. And look how that worked out. Go out and make something? HAH! No, I’ll just lay around and eat whatever grows on me. SLOTHS EMBODY THE APATHY OF THE WELFARE GENERATION. You will not contribute to society because you’ll be too busy sleeping, looking cuddly, or growing algae on your dorsal side from moving so slowly. You will get fatter from being lazy. Frequently, people will comment on how “huggable” they look. THIS IS A DIRTY TRICK. Don’t be a sloth, and just say no to their empty promises of warm places to nap and easy-to-eat foliage.

Fuck those fucking sloths. You should be swift, vengeful, and powerful. DO THIS:

TEAM SLAYER: ALL ROCKETS.

That EAGLE just showed that SLOTH who’s BOSS. (Footnote: I cite HAWK EATING SQUIRREL.) Yes, fly majestically through the air, grow stronger, and move about with impunity. Be more like AMERICA. To be content is to be weak, and to be weak is to be defeated. Don’t be a loser; don’t be a SLOTH.

Next time someone tells you SLOTHS are cute, slap them squarely in the jaw, break their computer, smack the tea out of their hand, and ask if they want to move to EUROPE. Better yet, tell them about EAGLES EATING SLOTHS. Eat or be eaten, right? DON’T BE A SLOTH.