Monday Wanderings

Breakfast was a glorious thing this morning. Waffles. The science museum in Golden Gate Park was pretty groovy too. Tonight, it's off to see Ben Sollee at a cafe.

Day Three

--Day three of internment--
Dear journal,
My captors still torment me, insisting that I eat dim sum with my brother and Hillary and my cousin Dave and his girl Annie.

Then they flogged me to search in vain for an open bar in the financial district on a Sunday. They cruelly separated us, insisting we drop David and Annie someplace crowded and then head back to The Ramp (they are trying to break me with repetition, as I was there yesterday) for alcohol and sunshine.

My captors then returned me to the cruel prison, where I was left with no other choice than to loaf in a casual manner on the couch for a few hours while drinking bourbon. They treat me like an animal, and that's exactly what I've become.

The inhuman living conditions are worsened when I was cast out into the harsh cold of the night and forced to watch screen-projected moving images before finding myself the victim of barfly syndrome, a condition that manifests near the bottom of pint glasses and carries such side effects as blurred memories and excessive smoking.

I don't know how much longer I can hold out under these oppressive conditions. My liver grows weaker as I try to cling to my remaining shreds of humanity.

In other news:

Tech 21 Oklahoma 65 while the fog rolled in and I got shitfaced and ate Indian chow.



Shortly thereafter, I witnessed Bela Fleck playing sh!tty CHRISTMAS MUSIC. Not impressive. I haven't even had my turkey yet, asshole.


I woke up on the couch holding an empty pizza to-go-slice box at some point last night, and then stumbled off to bed.


Vacations rule.

Foe-tose

Saturday. Part 1 - Daylight. Off to watch the Sooners.

No Holds Barred!

The line between wrestling and goatse blurs.

Real post later. Promise.

Embrace Your Inner Sassy Inner-City Black Woman

So, according to many of my friends, every moment that I'm using them for something other than reading a Cormac McCarthy book, I am wasting my eyeballs while simultaneously causing affront to one or many gods. I have thus far managed to avoid reading any material by him for the twin reasons of my preference of biographies over fiction and Oprah Winfrey's rabid endorsement of The Road.

[It may shock you to learn this, but I fit exactly ZERO aspects of the 'sassy inner-city black woman' demographic, and often feel compelled to do the exact opposite of anything she recommends.]

Still, my friends all assured me that even though I wasn't part of the Oprah-nation, I need to be reading Mr. McCarthy at every waking moment, even going so far as to drill two holes through the books ala Very Hungry Caterpillar so I can hold it up to my face and read while I drive, if necessary.

And still, I remained skeptical...

But a few things may have finally shoved me across the hearth and into the fire.

First, Ben Nichols of Lucero hammered out a seven-track album influenced by McCarthy's book Blood Meridian. The two tracks I've heard so far have made me want to reach for a bottle and/or a pistol, and while that remark might sound cutting, I personally don't know how to pay a higher compliment. I am a person that spends 99.9% of his time in a level, moderate-to-good mood, and when something shakes my emotional snowglobe (for better or worse), I tend to take notice. It's one of the reasons Bruce Springsteen's Ghost Of Tom Joad is one of my all-time favorite albums; that album is so damn gritty that I feel like I need to floss after listening to it.

Second, Amazon has an excerpt in the review for Blood Meridian that reads colder than a polar bear's crotch: "The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed."

Oprah be damned, I might have to pick up a copy of that sumbitch to read on the plane Friday. I should probably get more floss too.

Ben Nichols - Toadvine

AND WELCOME NEW FOLLOWERS!

Sound Off

In an effort to avoid the thrill-ride of writing a research paper, I felt the need to push out another post. Let me tell you, it is hard to tear myself away from riveting text like "nondisjunction in meiosis results in gametes with an unreduced chromosome number." If I were to replace words I didn't fully understand with objects and situations common to my everyday life, that sentence would read: "Dog hair in nachos results in disappointment with an unreduced alcohol consumption."





As previously promised/threatened, here is that gem of a song by Sammy Johns.
Sammy Johns - Chevy Van

And to help you cleanse your palate, here's some decent music.
Van Morrison - Caravan
Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
The Roots - The Seed 2.0
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Béla Fleck - Etude in C-Sharp Minor

I caught wise to Wreckless Eric while watching the mediocre Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction. Béla Fleck is the only artist I could find playing in San Francisco during my stay that was worthy of my dollars. Almost exactly seven days from now, I'll be seeing him and the rest of the Flecktones live. I'm jazzed.

Friday Mash-Up

First off, welcome to any voyeurs that have been kicked here from the website of the lovely Muddy Veasey. It was a bit of a surprise to receive acknowledgment for my loosely structured rantings. If it results in a growing number of readers, I suppose that will make frequent posts to this site compulsory. Curse you Lorrie for making more work for me! New and familiar viewers alike should feel free to look through some of my older postings, as recent postings may be devoid of rational content. Also help yourself to the comments section while supplies last.

Second, one of my 3.6 readers mentioned problems with the shiba inu puppy video feed. This link may work better. The feed is so cute, you'll barf a rainbow.

Third, some friends and I crawled through about half of the thousand plus songs linked to last weeks post about horrible music that you love. Out of the hundreds that we listened to, we only found TWO that we had never heard before but still enjoyed. Thought I'd point them out, in case you missed them.
King Curtis & The Kingpins - Memphis Soul Stew
Aretha Franklin - Spanish Harlem



We also found one tune that was so hypnotically invasive, I feel certain I will still be able to sing the chorus on my deathbed, even though I only listened to it ONCE. I think studies will show that Alzheimer's patients can recite this song long after they have forgotten the names of their loved ones. You've been warned.
Albert Hammond - I'm A Train
Awful. Especially the a capella harmonies about 4/5 of the way through.

Have yourself some kinda weekend.

So Cute I Could Puke

This live streaming video of puppies is ridiculously cute. But just like every other cute thing in the world, it's the kind of cute that only lasts for a short time.

Vacation, Had To Get Away

One week from today, my vacation begins. One week from tomorrow I leave to go visit my brother and his partner for Thanksgiving. I haven't had a REAL vacation in so long, I think I may have forgotten how.



Photos by Matt G, my brother's big squeeze.

How To Think Like A Guy

Last night I went to a party at a friends to watch the Oak State game. In between the blown coverages and bad play calling that amounted to OSU's crushing and expected (by me) loss, we swallowed many of Ted's beers and were subjected to countless commercial interruptions.

This commercial came on sometime late in the third or early in the fourth quarter:



At it's conclusion I turned to Mike and Danny and quipped, "Hey... That chick has FOUR tits!"
I suspect I may have missed the point of that commercial.

The Sooners play host to Tech in two weeks, and I have a sneaking suspicion that number two will get knocked off.

Oh, The Humanity...

A friend of mine recently posed a great question: "What is the worst song that you actually like?" He qualified this statement by saying that the song couldn't be immensely popular. It had to be something that only one out of a thousand people would find enjoyable. Y.M.C.A. by the Village People doesn't count, because too many people would sing along if you cranked it up at a public gathering.

After much deep reflection, I think I've discovered that I have a soft spot for what I like to call The Mellow Gold of the late 70's and early 80's. This music served as a soft, non-threating bridge to help Americans make the transition from Bee Gees disco to Huey Lewis pop-rock. It is what Bart Simpson was talking about when he referred to Wuss Rock. It is also the only proven antidote when you've taken Viagra and your erection has lasted longer than four hours.

Some fine examples of this genre include:
England Dan & John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love To See You Tonight
Randy Vanwarmer - Just When I Needed You Most
Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne
Stephen Bishop - On And On
Christopher Cross - Sailing

But I think my favorite "worst" song doesn't really fit into this genre, even though it was released around the same time. It is a bit too peppy.
Sammy Johns - Chevy Van
The song is an audible atrocity. It is so bad that I could not locate an example of it online. So I had to break down and buy a copy from Amazon. Best eighty-nine cents I ever spent. I may host and post it later.

What's your favorite "worst" song? Something by El DeBarge? Lionel Richie? You may be able to locate a new favorite barf-maker at this site.

On an unrelated note, I'd stab a granny for John Denver's Dobro.

Recycled Election Day

I wrote this in 2004, but it still feels just as relevant today. ESPECIALLY today.

I've finally achieved burnout, politically speaking. Years ago, I made a few decisions regarding political parties and social issues before I became too old and lazy and jaded to chip away at the layer of hardened pigshit that cloaks politics' chewy center of truth. I've thought about just using these decisions to guide my votes in a few weeks, but upon review, I rejected that idea. First, if I weren't so unconcerned with the outcome of this ballot, I'd have done some research and uncovered some actual facts to influence my choices. I've noticed lately that facts have a bad habit of being distorted by modifiers. For example, the headline "214 terrorists gunned down" and "214 helpless teenage civilians gunned down" tell two vastly different stories while numbering the same in the corpse column. Second, I am now more aware of the way my intuition is wrong more than half the time. If I could trust my gut feeling enough to base critical decisions upon, I'd be sitting next to a roulette wheel somewhere. Third, despite a vocabulary that flirts with adequacy, I'm dumber than a mouthful of piss. Some of the state questions on the ballot are so cryptic I suspect they are not in English.

The final and chief reason I'm not using my ideals to cast my vote is because I'm sick of being fucked with. Every twelve goddamned seconds some pandering douchebag is singing his own praises with one face while pimping false accusations about his opponent with his other face. "Bob Smith rapes dead babies in the ass with a pitchfork! If you vote for him, he'll finger-fuck your wife while snorting cocaine off of your daughters tits! He'll make your son have sex with the dog, and then force them to get married! Then he'll slaughter everyone in the entire state with his teeth! But only after he raises your taxes! Frank Jones would never raise your taxes, much less do any of those other morbid acts that Bob Smith is guilty of. Frank Jones loves you and Jesus too, and Jesus loves Frank Jones. Isn't it time you voted for Frank Jones and against cocaine pitchfork anal dog sodomy? This ad paid for by an organization accountable to no one and will not exist three months from now so fuck you."

And the ads aren't even the worst part. The worst comes from assholes and idiots I meet on a daily basis. It seems I can't even go take a shit without someone wandering over to check if I'm leaning to the left or the right when I wipe. People talk to me about the horse they've picked to win with fire in their eyes and fervor in their voices that rival that religious dipshit on channel seven. I understand that you have political opinions and are proud of them. You should be. But seriously, get the fuck out of my face.

After all the tiresome ranting I've been doing about my disillusionment with the entire political process, you may suspect I will forgo voting entirely. This is NOT the case. You see, I've hit upon a solution that makes everything square again. All the petty politics and shitty banter and one side trying to one up the other don't amount to a puddle of ass under my solution. I've solved my problem in a way I feel good about, while also making a mockery of everything for which politicians and their supporters have strived.

Monday, before the election, I am going to a toy store and burning nine bucks on my crucial vote-deciding apparatus. I will stride into my polling place with my new oracle in my grubby little fist. And I will vote for whomever and whatever my plastic sphere advises.


And you can fuck right off.
~

Go vote.

Word Verification

In order to leave a comment, some people's blog sites require me to enter verification text, yet others do not. I haven't cracked the code as to why some ask and others don't, and quite frankly I'm not concerned enough to delve into the matter. In the past, the random, nonsensical words were amusing to me, as I would imagine the words as names for new porn moves. The "quintlo" and "stetlar" were two of my personal favorties. But lately, the words had been less random text, and were getting closer to being actual words.

Today, I was dealt my first real word from the software.








I can't help but wonder if "large" will be followed with more real words, and if they will have meaning when strung together. "Large" followed by "breasts" and then "climax" might portend excellent things for my future, or at the very least leave me grinning. However "large" followed by "tumor" and "skull" or "penis" and "jail" would freak me right out of my skin.

I'll keep you advised as events warrant. In the meantime, keep updating your blogs, so I'll have reason to comment and enter more word verifications.

UPDATE: I'm not sure I like the direction in which this is trending...