LMNOP

A Touch of Passive-Aggressive News Banter to Start the Week

A Little Stroll Down Awkward Memory Lane

BuzzFeed got a great collection of awkward TV moments going yesterday/today.  I hadn't thought of Fiona Apple's awkward MTV award acceptance speech in ages.  And I had never seen this--pretty funny:

Also, what language is that??

Sophisticated Jet Setter

The hotel I am in right now has an art deco theme, which means they decided to take advantage of the fact that the building is old and somewhat confusingly built by saying hey, let's pretend that was on purpose.  So the decorations in this art deco hotel are all very, you know, art deco--it's really unfortunate that I don't know a synonym for "art deco," isn't it--and this turned out to be a real problem for me during check-in.

The front desk girl gave me my key and told me to take the elevator to my floor; she pointed to the right as she said "elevator," which I'm guessing is usually enough instruction to give someone about the location of an elevator in a 20 x 30 foot lobby.  But when I turned to the right, all I could see was doors, and I got really confused.  I walked a little further down the lobby, but didn't see any elevators, so I turned back around and looked at the receptionist.  She pointed her thumb again in the same direction, and I looked where she was gesturing and I saw no elevator.  I was totally baffled, and I didn't want to make eye contact with the receptionist again because she was already looking at me like she was wondering if I was some kind of time traveler who was unfamiliar with modern conveniences.

I was starting to feel really helpless and momentarily comtemplated bolting out the door and sleeping on the street, but fortunately at that moment a couple stepped out of one of the doors on the wall and I realized it WAS the elevator.  It was just some stupid art deco shit that had a fancy retro door in FRONT of the regular elevator door.  Like I was supposed to be able to figure that out by myself.  Please.

10 Reasons to Cringe

If you have a few minutes to commit to watching all the various clips, this look at 10 terrible celebrity interviews is very worthwhile indeed.  Ben sent it to me the other day and I proceeded to watch every single one.

A good many of these are painfully awkward, from the college reporter in #10 who is interviewing John Cusack under the mistaken impression he was in American Beauty, to the extremely tense Tom Green clip at #2.  #8 is the Tracy Morgan clip that I love, the one where he goes on a daytime talk show in Texas and predicts that at some point during his two days in the state, "Somebody's gonna get pregnant."

Recent Awkward Moment, Written in the Present Tense So You Can Feel the Uncomfortableness Right Along With Me

At the grocery store, I am standing and staring blankly and intensely at nothing in particular as I wait to pay for my groceries.  I'm fidgety, so I begin to crack my knuckles.  One of them stubbornly refuses to pop, so I employ the motion I always do when this happens: I make a fist with that hand and then repeatedly pound it against the palm of my other hand a few times.

Suddenly, I become aware of the fact that two lines over (in the general direction I am staring in), a young woman with a baby is looking at me with a mix of terror and confusion.  I realize she thinks I have been staring at her, but I don't get why she looks so afraid. Then I realize that the motion I am using to crack my knuckles is the exact same as the menacing motion the bad guys in movies usually make when they are threatening to punch someone.

Please tell me I am not the only person who goes into the store to buy Pop Tarts and ends up borderline assaulting women and small babies.

Note to Self

Just to be on the safe side, avoid eating Fruit Roll-Ups less than an hour before meetings.  There is no quick and easy way to rid your lips and tongue of the conspicuous coloring.

WikiProphesy

Anyone know why the Wikipedia entry for Martha Stewart gives her a Nov. 10, 2006 death date? (Click pic for full-size.)

Finding this kind of makes me feel like Gary Hobson.

UPDATE: The page has been corrected.  Feel free to download, print, and frame our limited edition screenshot and put it with your $2 bills and that creepy doll you bought from PARADE magazine.

Million-Dollar Awkward

I found what I think qualifies as the most awkward moment in the history of time.

You can read the background info in this article or this one, but here is the gist of what happened to casino magnate and millionaire Steve Wynn and the Picasso painting he had just agreed to sell:

Wynn had just finalized a $139 million sale to another collector of his painting, called "Le Reve" (The Dream), when he poked a finger-sized hole in the artwork while showing it to friends at his Las Vegas office a couple of weeks ago. (MSNBC)

Can I just say that $139 million is about the amount I would pay (if I had it) to ensure that I would never, ever, ever, for the rest of my life have to be in a situation as awkward as how it must have been for the friends Wynn was showing the picture too when that happened?  Nora Ephron was there and blogged her account of the moment for good old Huffpo, and it was excruciating just to read it.  A selection:

The Ganz collection went up for auction in 1997, Wynn was saying -- he was standing in front of the painting at this point, facing us. He raised his hand to show us something about the painting -- and at that moment, his elbow crashed backwards right through the canvas.

There was a terrible noise.

Wynn stepped away from the painting, and there, smack in the middle of Marie-Therese Walter's plump and allegedly-erotic forearm, was a black hole the size of a silver dollar - or, to be more exactly, the size of the tip of Steve Wynn's elbow -- with two three-inch long rips coming off it in either direction. Steve Wynn has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that damages peripheral vision, but he could see quite clearly what had happened.

"Oh shit," he said.  "Look what I've done."

The rest of us were speechless . . . I felt that I was in a room where something very private had happened that I had no right to be at. I felt absolutely terrible.

Good lord.  Anyway, by all accounts the situation appears to have been resolved about as nicely as could have been hoped, but if I had been there when it happened I never would have lived to find that out.  I would have died of sheer awkwardness.  Multi-million dollar awkwardness.

As a mental exercise, I've been trying to decide what I would have said/done had I really been there.  Obviously, the best plan would have been to stay quiet and wait for the moment to pass, but if there is one thing I know about myself it is that I cannot handle long silences. Any time my brain senses a conversational lull of more than three seconds, it reflexively spits something out without my conscious consent.  I think this is because somewhere in my mental chain of command, the "JUST SAY SOMETHING, ANYTHING" synapse is fatally and erroneously wired to fire seconds before the "MAYBE TRY BEING APPROPRIATE JUST THIS ONCE" synapse.  It is the perfect formula for creating stiflingly awkward moments, like this recent exchange:

Perfectly friendly and nice person sitting across from me at a happy hour: So, how come you've never been to one of our happy hours before?

Me: Because I don't really like meeting new people.

Nice, huh?  Way to keep up the conversational vibe.  I felt so bad for the poor soul who had tried to strike up a conversation with me and was now doomed to try and spend the rest of the happy hour looking in every other direction than at the psycho girl directly across from him, the one who apparently goes to happy hours in the hopes of not meeting any new friends.

Anyway, back to the $139 million painting.  I tried to recreate the scene in my head as if I were there, and I decided that what would have probably happened is that I would have nervously started to make a joke, realized how innappropriate I was being, and stopped dead in the middle of my sentence to make the situation even more awkward then ever.  Like, "[Nervous laugh] Well hey, I'm sure it's nothing a little Scotch tape won't . . . [Clears throat.  Looks down] I'm so sorry."

I can't even tell you how uncomfortable I am to even imagine that.

AITNF (Awkward Is the New Funny) Bulletin

Check out this US Weekly blog post/poll and tell me I'm not on to something here.  Excerpts (with my emphasis added):

The Emmy Awards began on an awkward note on the day of the deadliest American air flight in recent years, which killed 49 in Kentucky. Host Conan O’Brien’s opening skit found the host visiting the sets of several highly rated shows, including 24, House and Lost.

The prerecorded opening skit began with O’Brien boarding a private plane to Los Angeles. Asked by a stewardess if he was nervous about hosting the show, O’Brien answered, “Nervous? What could possibly go wrong?” The plane then crashed, with O’Brien later washing up on the set of Lost.

Us followed up with a poll asking, "You tell Us. Was Conan’s opening skit in poor taste or was it funny?"  The results thus far?  66% of those surveyed have ruled that unintentionally cringeworthy plane crash jokes are . . . FUNNY. 

Now, perhaps I shouldn't go around taking US Weekly poll results as Gospel quite yet, but I do feel justified in pointing out that this information aligns well with my new theory that Awkward Is the New Funny.  I mean, don't they say that three times officially makes it a trend?  We could be on the edge of something very big here, people.

Awkward is the New Funny?

Now, it could just be coincidence, and it might just be that I am too deliriously tired from the week from hell, and, yeah, it may just be that I want to drag everyone down into my pit of awkwardness with me, but I'm starting to wonder if awkward could be turning into the new funny.

I'm not saying this is a great thing (in fact, it makes me a bit uncomfortable), but it's definitely an emerging trend.  It all started with Stephen Colbert's now-infamous speech at the White House Press Correspondents Dinner--he received a lot of praise for this, but frankly it was one of the most awkward things I have ever seen and I could barely watch it. 

Now, just days ago, Dane Cook created some similarly awkward moments when hosting the Teen Choice Awards.  It started to bring back suppressed Colbert memories that had I had almost finally forgotten.  In all, it's not nearly as uncomfortable to watch as the White House speech, but Dane's interaction with Mischa Barton 55 seconds in is right up there with Stephen Colbert looking at Bush and saying they both live in a "no-fact zone."

Watch, cringe, comment: are jokes designed to make your audience uncomfortable a great new trend, or does it make a mockery of those of us out here who don't have the luxury of channeling our own awkwardness into profit and fame?   Because let's face it: we've all been in that situation before when someone sneezes and you say "Bless you," and then they sneeze again a full minute later and you wonder if you should say "Bless you" again, or if it's too soon and that will make you look too pressed, or if keeping quiet is actually rude and will make the person wonder what they did in the past minute to make you no longer empathize with his/her sneezing?  And when the awkward moment finally passed, there were no cult followers to adore us and blog about us; there was just a slightly uncomfortable person with an itch in the nose.  Isn't this the way it should be?  Or am I just an Awkwardness Purist who's going to get left in the dust by these brazen new kids on the block?