Who’s the Real Newt Here?

Campaign Posters We’d Like To See

Not because we were asked (we weren’t) but simply because we think they could use the help, the crack graphic design team at The Gum came up with the campaign poster designs we would like to see for the 2012 batch of Republican presidential candidates. Enjoy!

Wanna Buy a Used Car?

What Sarah Palin says is not news. The last losing vice-presidential candidate of a major party in a presidential election, John Edwards, began campaigning for the 2008 Democratic nomination almost immediately after the loss in 2004, and receives more mentions in the press today for his extramarital affairs than he did at the time as someone presenting an alternative to Bush administration policies.

GUMpics: Gum LOLZ

EXCLUSIVE: Old and Dead Preview Party Photos

The most exclusive party in New York is with dead animals. These fortunate people are among the few to attend the Old & Dead preview party last night in Greenpoint. Visit oldanddead.com for your finest in used taxidermy.

photos by Andy Kropa

Unemployment Diarist’s Life Is Now Better Than Yours

It’s been eight months. Eight long, tedious months of watching everyone else’s life go on as you wait in your holding pattern – waiting for a job, a boyfriend, something or anything to get you out of the funk you’ve fallen into.  You watch friends get engaged, family members get married, former coworkers fall in love and so forth.  You’re still stuck in your apartment, which has become significantly filthier since your little adventure began in May, despite your large quantities of free time. A friend comes over and remarks that your kitchen smells… not just of the dirty dishes piled in the sink, but of depression and abandonment.  You feel weighted down by everything around you and everything that’s happened.

And then you’re not.

Then you’re driving down Interstate 5 with all your belongings (minus your very comfortable, very expensive bed and anything else that wouldn’t fit in a cargo van) and your dog.  You head north to a new part of the state – wine country, God’s country, the land of milk and honey… nothing but a life of leisure and hiking and sampling bottles that run $70 a piece.   Well, not for you, anyway.

This isn’t the wine country of overpriced country weddings and bike tours.  This is you admitting defeat.  This is you forgetting that just because a recruiter says the job is yours doesn’t mean it is as such. This is you forgetting to downsize your apartment when you had the cash to move to the Valley or Echo Park. This is you forgetting to get a roommate. This is you moving in with your parents. Again.

Bruno Reveals Yokelphobia

When I first heard that Sacha Baron Cohen has filmed the climactic scene (a UFC match that turns sexy) of his summer movie Bruno in Fort Smith, I felt a rush of weird excitement. Arkansas is my native land, and I was excited to see what he would make of it, how he would capture the strange complication and allure of the place I call home. I knew he would be hard on my fellow citizens, but I expected too the cleansing, illuminating moments that I’d seen when Bruno visited Alabama on Da Ali G Show.

Of course I’d built it up too much for myself, so that reality could never possibly compare. Even so, the Fort Smith sequence seems a particularly weak moment in the film, less a crazed and bloody bacchanal than a real-estate infomercial that breaks out into a food fight. It feels very staged and staged in a particularly unfun way, a manipulative way, the crew pushing the drunk locals around, forcing the scenario, and passing out a lot of twenties to keep the whole thing moving along. Not unlike an average weekend at my house.

Help Wanted: Adult Babysitter

Wanted: Gatekeeper — adult babysitter, if you will. Executive caretaker required for successful, high-functioning middle manager. Hours are 8pm to bedtime (12:30-1 AM). Here’s how it works: You’d come over, do some cooking and cleaning, iron an outfit for the next day, pack my lunch. Do NOT let me leave the house under any circumstances. You’ll answer the phone and make sure I do not receive phone calls from anyone who sounds drunk or really happy.  Nor shall I become drunk during your shift. Or leave the house. That’s your job. Your shift concludes upon tucking me into and making sure I am asleep. MAKE SURE I AM ASLEEP. Then you can go. Mondays-Thursdays. EOE.

Inquiries are confidential. Reply to OldandDeadCo@gmail.com

The Gum Photographs Bottle Beach

In a remote section of New York called Dead Horse Bay, the contents of a closed landfill are being revealed bit by bit through the process of erosion along the coastline. Thousands of bottles, old shoes and other items discarded in the 1940′s and 50′s and earlier are now being ejected onto the beach every day with the rising and falling of the tides.

Top Ten Signs Your Business is Going to Fail

10. There’s someone at your desk selling extended warranties over the phone.

9. Congress is talking about making your salary illegal.

8. Your boss is calling you collect. From prison.

7. Advertising your products is now discussed in terms of “tweets.”

6. The Chinese are now outsourcing the manufacture of your product … to you.

5. Your manager just drinks all day under his desk.

4. The bathrooms stop being cleaned.

3. A real estate agent is showing your office.

2. You manufacture small, mylar personal blimps.

1. You and your colleagues earn decent, middle-class salaries.