RSS Feeds
 |
Joel Stein |
Recent Columns:
I'll take money from anyone. For years, I wrote articles for a magazine put out by Marlboro that was so insidious it was about healthy outdoor living and didn't allow me to mention smoking. I've written for Playboy. For all of college, I even took money from my parents. And I've heard that this newspaper is largely owned by Sam Zell.
Iam not buying enough stuff. I know this partly because President Obama keeps telling me that. Though, oddly, his method for getting me to shop is to give trillions of dollars to insurance and banking corporations. I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure it's more efficient to send us all a bunch of gift cards. If there's one thing I learned from working long hours on a sitcom, it's that no one is angry while drinking a free latte.
President Obama wants to take money away from charities. Which is awesome. Only he doesn't go far enough.
Idid not want to sign up for a birthing class with my wife. This is partly because I didn't think I needed a class to pretend to be interested in someone else's pain for 12 hours. I mastered that in my late 20s, when my friends would tell me how much their girlfriends meant to them and I'd nod in agreement while thinking about what I was going to eat at my next meal. For some reason, hearing "I told her things I've never told anyone else" always made me want jalapeno nachos.
Ileave the petty details of fixing this economic crisis to others. I shall focus on a far more important task: assigning blame.
I've been fired for stupid reasons. Like that editor of Entertainment Weekly who believed -- based solely on book sales, Google hits and other empirical data -- that people enjoy reading Stephen King more than me. And I'm sure I'll get fired again for slightly better reasons. Like that no one reads newspapers.
Nobody likes science. You can tell by the fact that they teach it in school. There aren't any high school courses in pizza, pot smoking or car chases.
Dear Government,
Idon't want to know 25 things about you. In fact, I don't want to know two things about you. But somehow you've found me on Facebook and sent me your "25 Random Things About Me," which I deleted. Like any normal person, I am far too busy learning random things about celebrities.
Imet the last person in the world who doesn't know there's a recession. While CEOs are afraid to use their corporate jets and sitcom writers aren't ordering sushi, the rapper Plies released a song called "I Got Plenty Money." This seemed about as wise a public relations move as Donald Rumsfeld releasing a book titled "I Got Plenty Diplomatic Solutions."