You know, if we keep naming all the bridges and tunnels after politicians what are we going to have left to sell to the huge corporations when things get really bad?

“The more money your neighbors make, the more likely you are to take your own life. These findings come from a new paper published at the San Francisco Federal Reserve titled ‘Relative Status and Well-Being: Evidence from U.S. Suicide Deaths.’ According to the results, your risk of suicide increases by 4.5 percent if your own paycheck is less than 10 percent of your county’s average income.”
 — Also there is this: “Moving on up to the West Side could mean you’re increasing your risk of suicide,” which makes me want to end it all in and of itself. Anyway, it’s a rough, rough world out there. Good luck.

Photo by Leroy Harvey, via Shutterstock

A Fran Lebowitz talk show? Oh please, oh please, oh please. [Related]

“Men and women use different spatial memory techniques to find their cars in crowded parking lots, says a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology. The research showed women relied more on visible landmarks and took substantial detours, while men were better at estimating distances and more likely to take a direct route to the vehicle.”

Bizarre right-wing Canadian-defector and upper-class hero Conrad Black takes on the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, who Conrad calls a “priggish, gullible, British fool” for not understanding Black’s apparent persecution in America. Other Conrad notable quotables: “Oh God, I’m going to throw up.”

WHY CAN’T WE HAVE THIS KIND OF THING ON OUR TV???

“Dickinson went a little jiggy with it, admittedly, but in poetry and prose alike, the dash is a freewheelin’ punctuation mark.”
 — Eh, just go with it. The dash: Is it for you?

It’s Cat Power at Hammerstein v. Louis CK at NY City Center! Literally a handful of tickets remain for each. And also Edith Zimmerman, Cat Marnell and Moe Tkacik talk sex and Helen Gurley Brown at Housing Works. And for the uptown set, it’s the premiere of “The Tempest” at The Met, and the auction of Robert McNamara’s estate at Sothebys. What a night for libertinism and debauchery all around.

That chill in the air tonight is not just a real alive Halloween monster crawling up your leg. It’s actually Josh Romney, helping the Halloween monster, because there is a chance you are a liberal who “offended Dad” by thinking maybe Barack Obama sort of won the second debate? Whatever happens tonight, during this third and final human-hybrid death wrangle, consider this live blog a “safe house” that Chris Matthews can never enter, because of the voodoo amulets we’ve hung from all the windows and doors. And yet we enjoy the online video from MSNBC, because it works so well … and Brian Williams is being super quiet. Oh wait, that’s Bob Schieffer.

The Final Third Half: Romney v. Obama 3.0

Once again, The Awl intends to use the Twitter-login-liveblogging platform called Branch.com, but right now it’s not working, ha ha, maybe that will be fixed before the debate starts? Choire claims there is a “great server outage” happening right now, probably because of Obama’s kowtowing to terrorists, but The Awl is magically unaffected. (Because of the aforementioned amulets.) Should new technology fail us, in our Hour of Darkness, we’ll just type the old-fashioned way and pretend everything is “great.”

Your Lunchmeat Vs. The Machines

I don’t judge what people want to put in their mouth as food, I mean, I eat at Arby’s sometimes, you know? Have you ever looked at what they make into food at Arby’s? That stuff has bubbles in it, seriously; I guess it’s supposed to be beef-meat, but it’s mostly just salty and fat-tasting, by which of course I mean delicious, in the bad-for-you way, but now they (as in Arby’s) are doing this commercial where they hire this guy who is a “New York detective,” and he goes and finds out that Subway* has their sandwich meats sliced ahead of time in a factory. Pre-sliced!

Seriously, can you ever really “pre” slice? There is no pre, there is only slice! That’s the best Arby’s can do to compete with Subway, bitch about when the meat gets sliced? Man, I could totally go for an Arby’s right now — or a Subway, even.

I wonder when Arby’s** decided they were gonna go after Subway with attack ads, eh? Like, a buncha Advertising people are sitting around trying to find a New Direction for Arby’s, so they change their logo and then somebody goes “Let’s take it to Subway! All they have is that reformed fat guy Jared talking about how he’s not bored eating Subway for the rest of his life!”

I wonder what that guy Jared does all day? I mean, does he have a job, or did he quit it to be a full-time Subway spokeseater? Is he sitting around some place right now thinking about Subway, and wondering which Subway he’s gonna have for lunch? That’s kinda like some serious sad Science FIction stuff, man, just seeing your future, all your meals at Subway, thinking about Subway, talking about Subway, that’s some sorta purgatory or something, huh? Subway…

My fave thing to get at Subway is a six-inch tunafish on wheat avec provolone, lettuce, tomato, hots, green peppers, and salt & pepper, yum, so I don’t care about Arby’s harshing on Subway for how they slice their meats. Plus, didn’t Arby’s serve up a finger part to somebody on a sandwich awhile back?

I know accidents happen, but c’mon, Arby’s, how you gonna go after Subway for having robots “pre”-slice up the meat when you are serving finger? I mean, I don’t like robots, but if it means less finger in my Arby’s, they oughta look into it, you know? Plus, I can’t imagine going to Subway and having to wait for them to cut up some meat for all those sandwiches while I’m waiting for my tunafish, you know? Fast food! Subway should do a commercial where they use fingers, like “We’re number one” or something, but everybody would know what they meant. I bet I could get a pretty good job in advertising if I wanted to, eh?

I think this is good for America, though, this competition between the fast foods. Like the war between Chipotle and Taco Bell, which Taco Bell will win, of course, because they give you too much food at Chipotle, man! They do their assembly line just like Subway, where you tell ’em what to pile on your burrito, but then you get this thing the size of a pregnant football and you go: “Wow, Chipotle is such a good deal! No way am I eating this whole thing, I will eat half and save the rest for a quick dinner or late-night snack, wowee, Chipotle is certainly a great value!” The Chipotle near my office charges $6.84 for a carnitas, but then if you want guac on it, it’s another buck eighty-nine, so that’s $8.73 for lunch before tax and no drink. Do you know how much lunch you can get at Taco Bell for $8.73 before tax? I would never spend that much at Taco Bell in one feeding, unless I had a guest. Plus, with the Chipotle, you need to make sure you start eating your football from the right end, because if you get the end that has mostly rice and vegetables in it you’re not gonna be satisfied, and so if you get that end, you go a little over the halfway point to get to the carnitas or whatever and then you’re a couple bites past halfway and you start bargaining, like, “OK, two more bites and then I’ll wrap it up,” and then you take a look and there’s like 25% left of your burrito, and now it’s the good part, so you end up eating the whole thing, and then you need to go lie down.

* Disclosure: I am a member of the SUBWAY SUB CLUB , even though they don’t have it anymore because people were stealing the stamps or something, which I am still pissed about because I was one fucking stamp away from a free footlong.

** Late-breaking disclosure: I just signed up at the Arby’s site for a free Arby’s when you buy a drink.
No offense, but I really wonder how they can call that thing a “Roast Beef,” seriously. Did I tell you I totally saw a bubble in one once?

Previously: Hey You, Go Wash Your Hands

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.

★★★★ Sky of gas-flame blue, with phosphor clouds. On the sidewalk’s edge, scattered acorns lay. Chain-link shadows fell on paving blocks, diamonds over hexagons. A musical ensemble climbed the high steps up the embankment, away from the river, toting cello and bass cases. Halfway out the pier, there was a bench with two empty benches on either side. The breeze-chopped water flickered like static, slate and olive. Up the valley was some haze. White hyphens and en-dashes advanced and backspaced toward each other on the George Washington Bridge, trucks creeping inbound meeting trucks moving smartly westward. Helicopters growled; the wavelets plashed. A small dog yapped creakily, like a gull. Its fluff was the dirty white color of an immature gull, even. Further up the river, in a youth ballgame, the left-center fielder wore a blue stocking cap, while the other three outfielders wore their red team caps. The green team bounced a hit through the right-center fielder for three bases. Inland, at the playground, each step on the synthetic planks of the ramps and platforms raised a static charge. Sparks popped to the metal handrail at every turn.