61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Friedrich Nietzsche, River City Ransom, angry nerds, and the horrors of time. So, you know, business as usual.
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Veronica Mars returns (maybe), RuPaul is haunting us (definitely), and the Dexter "Pscyho Therapy" quiz (creepy.)
Of all the reasons I hate teenagers — their tent-sized jeans, their problem skin, their failure to accept rides home in my "party van" — none inspires animus so much as their public displays of affection. I see it every Friday night, when me and Mrs. Prude head down to the mall to catch the latest PG-13 offering. There they are, clinging to each other like Bounce softeners to performance fleece, as we both struggle to keep down our onion rings.
Not only do PDAs evidence pathetic insecurity ("Hey everybody — I can get sex!"), but the intensity of the public display seems inversely proportionate to the durability of the relationship. Take Michael Jackson and Anne Heche, who never shrank from publicly kissing or canoodling Lisa Marie or Ellen DeGeneres, respectively. Eleven months after his they-said-it-wouldn't-last make-out session with Elvis' daughter at the MTV Music Video Awards, Jackson left Presley to spend more time with other people's children. And Heche, who like Jackson tired of publicly kissing women, finally left DeGeneres when she discovered Ellen could never give her what she wanted most: penis.
PDAs also adversely affect people's careers. When Al Gore attempted to demonstrate he had a pulse by hoovering Tipper at last year's Democratic convention, he succeeded only in eliciting pity for his wife, who should've pitied us, since she at least had her eyes closed. While John Lennon is responsible for all manner of crimes against humanity (siring Julian, composing "I Am the Walrus"), his most egregious was posing for the Annie Leibovitz photograph in which he rubs his throbbing nodules against Yoko Ono's frame. Three hours later, he was assassinated. Tragedy — or instant karma?
There is a remedy for all this public display. We could follow the lead of Saudi Arabia, where the religious police frown on PDA-committing couples by thwacking them with sticks. If only we could staff up on these brutes, I might retract this column altogether: getting to watch Al Gore smacked upside the head might make all the restaurant tonsil-hockey in the world worthwhile.
