The Class War Room

Puppeteering

2009-12-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

I cannot get enough of this. Can we make some more movies guys?

2009-10-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

One of the Better Videos In A While

Revive

2009-07-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Just went through several alleyways, having the balls to snatch up some tight junk straight from the hott crotches of NE. Me, Lee, and Hanna came up with four license plates (two NY, one NC, and one MN), one tore up half picture book in Chinese(man), one wacky sequin Hindu skirt, and one squeaky-toy stretch Hummer.

We passed by a bunch of a lot of handy electronics that could have been soldered into a nightmare/dream apparatus that sucked or demolished penises.

I am a quarter done with the first step, learn to solder.

I know how to be kind to a penis.

Sometimes lessons are a little out of order, like these:

(this is actually a very real and upsetting thing)

(A too-real shanty relic)

(Like this, not only because of it's painful truth, but also because the Elrond guy is supposed to be the most excellent senator Feingold of Wisconsin. He also has a podcast of smooth alt music he is listening to at the moment, called "Fein Tunes".)

Or, just pay ten bucks for a forever subscription to http://forums.somethingawful.com, go to PHIZ or LF, and be set on electronic insight forever. Why not?

Also text of the month (sic):
"No I won't shut it and you may think I'm a crazy fuck but at least I'm not a selfish shell of a humanbeing living in an alchol driven space fantasey"

I will not argue with that.

Not Much Going On On Our Blog These Days

2009-04-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

I Love You Freedom Of Life Choices

Tiger Tiger

2009-03-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Luckily, Nee can't say much the same.

Amateur Tattoos.

80 & Sunny & Waiting for the Hungover to Activate

2009-03-08T13:09:00.001-07:00

Neat: http://thru-you.com/#

All the Animals: Hungry Ants

2009-03-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

Insignificant internet accident

2009-03-04T12:03:00.001-08:00

Check out entry number two.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-true-stories-behind-5-famous-wtf-images/

Thanks again Digg.

Have you ever seen sad kermit?

2009-03-04T05:51:00.001-08:00

whoa.

2009-02-26T14:58:00.001-08:00

everything i wanted in my neverneverland

Who Is a Bad Man?

2009-02-25T16:31:00.000-08:00

Everything I hate.

Disgraced!

2009-02-19T06:49:00.000-08:00

Women = Objects

Peter, Bjorn, and John + Japanese Rockabilly Dancers

2009-02-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

Apart from the canned punching sound effect, this makes me want lots of tattoos and beer.

This is what littleboots (SOHOT) showed me on a tweet (help)

2009-02-17T23:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=12185178001

Damn sun

2009-02-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

makes me drool:

http://www.aintnodisco.com

Inside some of the best agency offices in the world.

Additionally:

2009-02-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

Don't know their music just yet, but Black Black: Prettiest Band Ever.

America: Words are For Jerks

2009-02-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Link to a 27 page internal pdf on logic of the new Pepsi Logo

2009-02-10T09:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/7w0i2/pepsi_logo_a_response/c07k9l7

Is that Ghostface?

2009-02-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

Tony? TONY?

Qaddafi--George Lucas Ain't That Much of A Genius

2009-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Fuckinn', does anyone read this thing anymore or have any thoughts or anything?

Vice Article on How Their Personal Ads Are Better than Ours.

2009-01-28T15:41:00.000-08:00

You should read the Review of Books link, if not the Craiglist.

http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2009/01/london---our-se.html

Jobs, son.

2009-01-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

Big Companies Still Hiring

The Gravity Equation Sex-Fest

2009-01-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

For some godforsaken reason I spent too much time already today watching youtube clips of O'Reilly and other insanity. I think that Paul Krugman & O'Reilly on tim Russert's show is one of the more painful things I've seen. O'Reilly and Colbert is like walking through that time-space rip they make in Contact. But, today, this took the cake as demonstrative po-mo redshift dung:

Crapstone, England

2009-01-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

NY Times article about funny place names in the UK. When reading this article, try to appreciate how the author waffles between really enjoying writing these place names in a world famous newspaper and soberly trying to distance himself from that reality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23crapstone.html?em

Thanks Dad!

2009-01-21T08:19:00.001-08:00

Neil Baby

2009-01-19T13:09:00.000-08:00

Apparent Neil Young has a new concept album coming out about green autos. This is, to my mind, a mystical sign whose form is solid evidence for general Hegelian thought: the universe has an arc, it is long, and it bends toward something a child drew. Here is the video for the first single. Highly recommended.

As p-fork put it: "And if sources are to be believed, the new songs are both perplexing and terrible, which of course will not prevent Neil Young from stuffing his setlist with these songs until he gets tired of doing so. Neil Young, you see, does whatever the fuck he wants."

Don't forget, he named his son Ben.

One Other Drug Video

2009-01-17T17:05:00.000-08:00

Let's find more animals on drugs.

Serial Disappointment

2009-01-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

Remember (you two, "yo, let's go to florida"), that morning-night at the end of the semester. I think this gets closer than most else. And, generally, it's nice to watch a man in jean shorts inside become charismatic.

Ted talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/93

I Haven't Even Watched/Read These Yet, But I Bet They're FASCINATING

2009-01-09T13:39:00.001-08:00

Nixed Obama Logos

The Guy Who Made The Logo

This World's in Bad Shape

2009-01-09T12:58:00.002-08:00

In the words of Mr. Nikola Tamindzic (courtesy of SF/J) : “we will not know if acid is dangerous until we test it on THE FOXIEST GIRLS IN ENGLAND.”

Guess what!? Kids are groovy too!

Not so fast kids. You can't just go tripping balls in class and shit.

Then what do we do with all this acid we just bought? OMG, let's go find THE CAT. [DISCLAIMER: This video may be traumatizing for catpeople.]

P.S. I do not endorse drug use. But if you must, please document it and place it on Youtube immediately.

Your favorite black people--on drugs!

2009-01-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Buddyhead was a site I used to frequent back in my dial-up AOL days. It was a site put together by a bunch of guys who hated everything besides a few Tool albums and The Icarus Line (if I am remembering correctly--I truly don't care to check), a band that some of the site's writers belonged. Thanks to Gordo's response to my last post, I stumbled upon (literally, rather than through the use of some website for people with even more time on their hands) their Youtube channel. I decided to not waste any more of your time, and compiled the best of these "Related Videos."

Richard Pryor, twacked. It is worth it, I should add, to watch the whole thing.

James Brown, having just got high on himself, or got himself high, or got down with his high self.

Sly Stone, in a groove of sorts.

To each his own. Let's dance.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug

2009-01-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

Take it from somebody who knows.

2009-01-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

SAVAGE MAN FIGHTS ADDENDUM: MAN FIGHTERS HELPING MAN FIGHTERS

2009-01-07T01:24:00.000-08:00

things learned:

2009-01-03T23:06:00.000-08:00

just keep your ducks in a row, okay?

Dylan Sent Me This. Not Sure What's Going On. Good Luck Everyone.

2008-12-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuUnTJgD9M

My Stars

2008-12-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

Deary me! I bitch a little in my own indirect, passiveaggressive way, and suddenly here are 6 new posts poppin' up on Google Reader. Hot damn. Anyway:

Why I am not going into (print) journalism and why I am a bad person and why David Byrne is God and you should worship him or at least subscribe to his blog.

Now, over a Chicago breakfast burrito reheated.

2008-12-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

When was the last time you watched The Peanuts Christmas Special? Very surreal New Yorker jokes put through a Midwest Flanger pedal made by Boss. And then set to Charlie Mingus.

"Who me? I'm nobody. I don't even have a dog."

-Rerun

BANANA PEEL DEFEATS MOCK-MAN IN HALL BRAWL

2008-12-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

THIS IS RECORDED HISTORY:

YOU CANNOT UNSEE THE DEFEAT OF THE CONFOUNDED CONFEDERATE CONUMBSKULL!

SAVAGE MAN FIGHTS

2008-12-19T03:09:00.000-08:00

DARE NOT TO QUELL YOUR SPIRIT FOR HERE RESIDE THE MAN FIGHTS

Truths (1-3)

2008-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Your Names.

2008-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

It's only in recent years that I've come to appreciate how obnoxious I was as a teenager. This is due in large part to meeting people younger than me who share my same interests. There really isn't anything more tedious than listening to someone elaborate on the history of their surname or to tell history jokes in any context other than a seminar or a class.
I think this makes me a self-loathing historian. Today I've googled and wikipedia-ed the origins of my surnames and ethnic backgrounds for around half an hour again. The industry based around this shit is completely bogus-- especially for Scottish surnames. Users looking for family history are hurriedly shuffled towards crude mock ups of heraldry, sept lists, and famous ancestors. Very little of it is real and what is real is completely superficial. White people are grasping desperately at ethnic straws and spending a lot of money to do it. That being said:

Geary
Irish: reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Gadhra ‘descendant of Gadhra’ (see O’Gara)
English: nickname for a wayward or capricious person, from Middle English ge(a)ry ‘fickle’, ‘changeable’, ‘passionate’ (a derivative of gere ‘fit of passion’, apparently a Scandinavian borrowing).

Meiners
Dutch variant on:
German: from the Germanic personal name Meinhard(t), composed of the elements magin ‘might’, ‘strength’ + hard ‘hardy’, ‘brave’, ‘strong’.

Schwartz
Black, Swarthy, German.

Nee
Irish or Scottish: reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Niadh ‘descendant of Nia’ or Ó Niadh ‘son of Nia’. With "Nia" meaning "champion."

Guide to the Fall(s)

2008-12-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start leading by example, for better or worse. Meaning: from now on, I have no secrets, and you shouldn't either. I have this theory that you should have something interesting to say everyday by noon. There were 16 posts on this blog during the month of December last year. Maybe next year?

Alex Schwartz is a lower case D devil.

2008-12-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Steve Harrison recently told Alex and I that he's planning on us coming to Beloit to perform at the C-Haus sometime after mid-February. This means Alex and I (and all of you if you'd like) need to come up with some sort of show to put on, be it a play, an off-color talent show, or anything else. Submit your ideas if you want to get on board for the big win. So far my only idea is some kind of circus, talent show, and vaudville thing. I would be the Ringmaster.

edit: In fact, it's going to be a circus. I've got a few acts in mind already.

You killed the blog, John

2008-11-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

I sat outside this morning with my hands freezing for no other reason than that there was an incredible number of birds roosting in the trees in the back yard and I thought it might be nice to take some pictures of birds for a bit. I had taken about eight pictures, none of which turned out how I wanted, when I heard a mass spreading of wings (there were about 200 of them in those trees). The birds took to the air, and they all shat on me as they flew away. And that's how I feel today.

Bonobos

2008-10-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Watch this shit----> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html

Bloggism/Bloggasm

2008-09-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

I've lost the capacity recently to do any good for anyone. Eat this:

Because I just did.

2008-09-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

So, you guys ever drink some whiskey with coca-cola and then fart while sitting on the edge of a leather chair?

You got it all wrong, John

2008-08-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

This is the exact video that made me cry. Wow, I can't believe I found this:

Fucking priceless. Also, I hadn't seen the Bernie's clip since childhood. Why was I sympathetic with that goddamn protobro as a child? Stockholm Syndrome indeed!

An Important Message to Schweetie Pie

2008-08-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here are two things that made you cry as a child:

I was Mr. Rogers for Halloween once

2008-08-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

With regards to Mr Frere-Jones:

More from the front

2008-08-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go ahead and publish this--sorry, bjg, if it was capywritten.

I think these are the types of conversations that we should have publicly. More importantly, I think that an interaction with the major media outlets is KEY for having a paper that is smart, lively, timely, and fun. Putting our particular spin on things that are considered "news" (or at least talking points) will be the thing that will push this publication. By that I mean our "voice." It won't be the people's. There is no reason that this paper (I'm talking about the RT, in case you're fucking retarded) can't have a slightly more polished version of the content we generate here. Because we're smarter than that. Every single one of us motherfuckas better be generating portfolios this next semester if we expect to eat after May next year. There is quite a lot of anticipation about this school year and the paper from both faculty and studentry (I'm serious actually) so, for ourselves, and for the institution, it is of critical importance that we knock some socks off. We don't have much of an act to follow.

* * * *

Message from sender (BJG):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08brooks.html?ex=1218859200&en=fbfae5aae1a74108&ei=5070&emc=eta1

The iPhone section and immediately following paragraph or two are the notable bits. It's getting to me that now we are all "recognizing" this form of operational reality, but still neglecting its primary aspect as responsive and secondary aspect as formative. By that i mean that, driving the aparatus there has to be some form of content. A producer cannot be an aggregator, and yea, somewhere it gets fuzzy...but kottke.com aggregates (and produces a product: opinion, filtration, etc) whereas those headphones from finlad (brooks) are really the primary content, whether in just being or some other malignant modern telos. Can't wait to see you in your underwear.

Response (RAS):

What we have here, boss, is what may be, finally, (to use a term that will make any member of Beloit College Class of 2009 surely gag) the "tipping point" in terms of hipster culture spilling over into Culture with a kapital K. These New York media outlets have historically had a collective ear reasonably low to the ground, but when David Brooks of all people is cognizant of things such as pitchforkmedia and the particular brand of hipster ennui which we are all too familiar with, this becomes a conversation you could have with your grandmother--truly! If anyone does, you know how long I have been lamenting (or maybe just spectating) this phenomenon as being (for better our worse) the cultural shift of our lifetime, the lamentation being that we were too young to really be players in its incipience and now it is too old news to claim any part of it. Another portent of the zeitgeist:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

Your prejudice aside, you have to realize the the level of saturation this force ("hipsterdom") has reached when a fire-and-brimstone outfit like Adbusters has turned its 'hairs on it as the new doomsday (Global Warming? Pssht...). And when Brooks says Design has replaced Art, he is referencing precisely the same shift that this article is. And isn't it true? The new "Cool" (because let's face it: to whatever extent "hip" was code for "cool" underground, on the surface they use the term "cool." Does Brooks use the term "hip"? No, because that's at least one tiny facet of the culture that wouldn't translate entirely to the mainstream, or other generations for that matter.) is intrinsically superficial. Isn't this a little, ahem, wrong? And yet on the other hand, don't you feel it within you? That brutal, militant aestheticism that you've had in you since birth, that led you to become acquainted with this culture long before it breached our Daddies' world? Funny how Brooks namedrops Kierkegaard in a fake letter written by a fake aesthete. In a fake letter written by a fake aesthete, K (tongue firmly in cheek) exposes the ethical paucity and general irresponsibility of a life governed by aesthetics in Either/Or. And that was in 1843.

What is this sense of jealousy and possessiveness that I feel when my highschool sweethearts appear on Letterman and in the soundtracks to movies that go on to win Oscars? Is that not the jealousy of a spoiled brat generation? Is the stereotype true? The similarities are frightening.

Who's ready for a cigarette?

Charlie Rose & My Finest Bees

2008-08-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

Charlie's guest tonight was the CEO of News Corporation. Guy that runs myspace, greenlighted Titanic, and is in charge of where the Simpsons go next.

I found particularly interesting some of his comments concerning the basic nature of media services and the media industry.

1. It is, basically, "expansive".

2. There is a zero value in a mediocre product.

Number one is by far the more important. It boils down to media being the kingdom of choice. However, media, being communication, is fundamentally about expanding that communication, whether that be in the "world of ideas," or social networking sites. It also references the ideas of the Long Tail. Our interviewee keenly explored-twice-his belief that you either make what appeals to everyone (the Big Hit) or something that appeals exactly/directly to someone. This is the realm of specialized content and form media (which is where they are going to move myspace asap, AND how they control advertising on it).

So you get part two. Making mediocre content generally invalidates your shot at niche markets, particularly in pioneering content fields, or it hurts you even worse when you go for the blockbuster. People are going to go see Step Brothers, and many wild find it funny. However, it will not continue the meteoric rise or save the steam (hello metaphor) of either Reilly or Ferrell. People lined the streets for thousands of miles in anticipation of Bale and Ledger. Hell, they even got the guy who did those other, stranger niche movies to make their blockbuster.

Anyhow, my point is that I've thought about the niche market, combined with very new media outlets (the newscorp guy was bully on the inevitability of creative young people developing what he was going to buy next) and doing it all well as something worth looking into. NewsCorpMan put a particular example on the table: Short-form multi-media content that can be distributed to mobile phones. Leland, I would put into this realm what we talked a bit about when I was in Chicago. Imagine, for instance, getting a contract to do these sort of shorts for NPR or PRI.

So:

1. Choices are the golden ducat.

2. Choice cannot be controlled for, but can be maximized.

3. Maximization relies on quality.

4. Quality is pretty exciting?

I don't feel very ethical when I think this way, but it's kind of sensual sometimes.

New Favorite Ultimate Video (My Foghorn Leghorn Problem)

2008-08-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

So, what.

Japan's Buzz Bullets (guess which) & Seattle's Sockeye- An Exhibition Match

Especially with those Games so soon.

Franklin Avenue Follies

2008-07-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

These 1920's vaudeville style vignettes featuring the modern tramps Meth Seth and Vetty the Vet were met with uncomfortable laughter and those sad looks you (or I) get when you are talking to girls and they know you're too drunk to be talking to them. BUT: HERE YOU GO:
(All said in a fast Marx Brother 20's-30's radio style voice)

(Song!)

Here come the Franklin Avenue Follies!

Could you spare a quarter or dime?

There’s just one thing to remember:

Keep walking and avoid eye contact at all times!

---
Meth Seth: Boy, I sure am tired of all of these mex-e-cans comin’ around here, taking up space, and taking away our jobs!

Vetty: Like whose job, Meth Seth?

Meth Seth: My job, for instance!

Vetty: I’ve never seen a Mex-e-can sucking dick for meth!

---
Meth Seth: Say Vetty, which presidential candidate are you voting for this election?

Vetty: That’s easy, come election day it’d be John McCain!

Meth Seth: John McCain? Why’s that?

Vetty: He’s the only candidate that I can relate to!

Meth Seth: Howdoyafigure?

Vetty: He’s the only candidate who knows what it’s like to be beaten mercilessly by the Vietnamese!

Meth Seth: Well, it’s your own fault! Mr. Trong told you to stop shitting in his grocery store!

---
Meth Seth: So Vetty, did you see any action when you were at war?

Vetty: Sure was! I was at Fallujah!

Meth Seth: Gasundtheit!

Vetty: No, I was in Fallujah!

Meth Seth: God Bless You!

Vetty: No, no, no, listen, I was in Fallujah!

Meth Seth: That’s some cold you got there!

Vetty: LISTEN YOU COCKSUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! I WAS IN HELL! I WAS IN HELL!

---
Meth Seth: We’re only out on the street here because we’re marginalized minorities!

Vetty: But, Meth Seth, even if you put us together there ain’t a minority between us!

Meth Seth: You seem to be forgetting about our foursome last night with Tyrone and Juan!

Vetty: Oh, so I did!

---
Meth Seth: This housing explosion is ruining my livelihood!

Vetty: But Meth Seth, there’s a housing collapse going on!

Meth Seth: Right you are, the lab in my basement exploded, and then my house collapsed!

---
Meth Seth: So, Vetty, you gonna put that GI Bill to any use?

Vetty: Sure am! I’m gonna go back to school and get myself a degree in art history!

Meth Seth: And they call me a delusional leech on society!

---
Meth Seth: Boy, I’m having trouble exciting my woman as of late!

Vetty: Your woman? Are you sure?

Meth Seth: Yeah, she just doesn’t scream like she used to!

Vetty: Boy, if I saw a meth addict crawling naked through my window with a knife, I’d be screaming all night!

---
Meth Seth: Boy with these rising gas prices, a guy sure can’t get around like he used to!

Vetty: I know what you mean! I’m considering choosing an alternative fuel!

Meth Seth: Why, you don’t say! Me too! Whatcha thinking!

Vetty: Oh, Eggshell White 23!

Meth Seth: Ah, moneybags, huh? I’m just sticking with good old paint remover!

(Both huff)

---
Vetty: Meth Seth, have you seen the latest headlines?

Meth Seth: No, I haven’t had to make a bed in a month.

Vetty: Haven’t had to make a bed in a month? Why’s that?

Meth Seth: CAUSE I’VE BEEN A-TWEEEEAKIN!

---
Meth Seth: So Vetty, what story do you usually use when panhandling to con some rube out of their money?

Vetty: I tell them that me and my wife need money to buy medicine for our sick baby.

Meth Seth: Say! That’s a good one! Did it work?

Vetty: Not really. I traded all the medicine for crack, the baby died, and my wife left me!

Meth Seth: Women!

---
Meth Seth: Say, whatcha doin’ Vetty? You alright?

Vetty: I’m just about to start blogging!

Meth Seth: Why Vetty, I didn’t know you had the internet—

Vetty: BLLOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGG!

Meth Seth: (Looking at the BLOG) Ah, I see, I see. Why that sure is a poignant commentary on (looking towards the audience in a deadpan way) THE STATE OF THE HOMELESS IN MODERN AMERICA.

Junk mail for your consideration

2008-07-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

I got this spam this evening:

Subject: Computer can help youur dog communicate: scieentist
From: Kitcher Phifer

God dag,

Ha, ha,, ha! With a penis of your's it's onlyy possiible to fuuck a TThumbelina! Go fix it right now!
Clicck here 7

--

It is more clere then the sunne, that if thesame from the
floor to the roof, which was coloured and satyaki and kritavarma,
conversant with (the could a wild beast speak english. It
occurred and flaming lances, and stout clubs, and as the
in getting at the root of the thing for which example, and
the piety of the more prominent people, ways of youth were
a part of the great plan. 'thorns! Of ever rising to such
a height of roughness, in the same temperature, grow the
cool masdevallias, the great forest harry had met david
parish and janamejaya said, 'if vyasa, disposed to grant
help to arthur or to susie, but something, she little hope
of much payment from the mothers of attached thereto, and
which was the product of indra with the maruts, and dharma
will not venture lives). Therefore, at my word, o king,
abandon made tea, and cooked some fish. Ol' chief waked
trevvy was in the hotel and saw her. But they the geography
of the country. Our map must have.

Bug Porn

2008-07-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

It's not dirty if it's educational.

2008-07-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

bum bum bum, da, doo-wah- just swimmin' around

Lusty Lord Gabriel

2008-07-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

Act One:

Act Two:

Can't Miss It If It Already WAS

2008-07-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

The pleasures of a perk are, in principio, inversely related to the expectation of that perk. Or so I've heard.

One such unexpected perk was that when you first heard the EeeeEEEEEkchshchhhhh of dial-up you had no idea it would eventually mean you could watch the actual video of your favorite James Brown performance like it was yesterday today.

Now that relationship has been turned around and you might even expect it. Even so, I didn't suspect that Peter Gabriel song to have a latex-suit corollary:

or, dammit:

It's called Jeux sans frontieres, or Games Without Frontiers. All those people are citizens somehow selected (e.g. through a similar gameshow apparatus in the UK) for each country. Sounds familiar. Apparently there's been a petition going to revive these things. I guess they started as a way to make friendly between German and French youth. You know they'll never let us play, and that they shouldn't either.

What I did over my summer vacation

2008-07-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

(and how I make 11-14 year olds love me):

Did this in about 36 hours for an action-adventure-storyline-team-scavenger-hunt-competition event for the summercamp from which I am currently dispatching. It's not the masterpiece I (of course) envisioned, but I hold that it is just cute enough to watch. The kids were in fuckin' STITCHES!

fuck the Ice Hogs

2008-07-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

"It will be like a big pig war," Davis said. "The sawdust will be flying everywhere." when the hogs meet on the ice. I think that will be great."

All My Dreams Are an Amazing Battle Where I am the Hero

2008-07-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Michael Bay thinks this way too, in Batman terms.

Naps, Ups.

2008-07-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

1. Finally, the Truth.

2. I was wondering if everyone could take the next week and identify one product or service that would improve something you do everyday.

3. What's everyone's summer been like in music?

I'm not cut out for these times

2008-07-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of
article that is calm, rational, and timely but when you describe it to someone you sound like a greybeard shouting in a mall parking lot.

There Are Always Options!

2008-06-28T14:38:00.001-07:00

Can't count on your degrees anymore boys, not in this N.W.E.

Just remember, there're always other options.

Budget Hero

2008-06-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

Better than Guitar Hero, Budget Hero let's you shape the US budget.

Prehistory

2008-06-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

I don't want to explain this right now, but I just found this:

One of my websites from 1998/1999.

There are a lot more, but they'll be hard to find.

Moonlighting

2008-06-25T02:04:00.000-07:00

I thought I knew you guys pretty well. I thought we didn't keep secrets. It never entered my mind that all four of you would hide so much of your lives from me after I've carried each of you in the stumbler's march.

I mean, Leland. For fuck's sake, if you have a 1999 Beetle sitting around, I don't know why we're always cruising around in whatever emerald shoebox you're stuffing jerks in this year.

And Schwartz, by the looks of your resume, you just walk into any backlot or studio and hand some jerks money or become their assistant.

Ben, I thought we made a pact that we wouldn't let eurotrash walk all over us.

John. I knew you approved of waterboarding brown people, but I didn't think you'd make a career out of it.

Why can't you guys just come clean and make people happy?

Font Madness

2008-06-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

And meanwhile, blogger font options are, well, few.

Stockholm Syndrome at its finest

2008-06-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have explained to bjg before my propensity to get downright depressed while feeling sorry for someone I shouldn't really feel sorry for. I mean I dwell on it. It all started when I was watching Weekend at Bernie's II one time. There is a scene in which a woman spurns her beau because she would rather dance with Bernie's voodoo-fueled corpse, because he apparently has much more flavor (shades, mustache, neon-track suit, moves on the dancefloor) than her thicknecked meatheaded boyfriend. Well in the scene, this meathead honestly looks dejected--and not only that, but devastated--that his girl is leaving him for the other (dead) guy. He stands there after she pushes him away looking like he might cry in this hot-colored tank top with something happy on it--like the type of shirt you'd buy for someone back home while you're on vacation. And I remember sitting there as a kid and I actually had tears well-up in my eyes because I thought about the day he got that shirt and how happy he was, and how she probably even got it for him while she was on vacation when she still loved him and everything was still good between them. And I thought about how he would probably look down at that shirt later that night and see it as nothing but a mocking symbol of his cuckoldry and of how things used to be. And the whole scene was supposed to be funny.
Well, I got the same feeling today from the following items, linked from a Frank Rich piece in the Times:

Of course Obama is a better speaker. Obama is probably a better person. But Christ, it's like me going into an assisted living home and challenging everybody to an arm wrestling tournament. McCain will lose (barring the influence of all Republican black magic, technical malfunctions, mass exodus, etc.). Watch the video. He speaks like a man who knows he is going to lose. The truth of the matter is, McCain knelt by his bed each night praying that Clinton would miraculously pull it off in the 4th quarter. The general election would have become a Clinton skeleton-closet smörgåsbord. Obama means bears (as in BAD NEWS) for the McCain people and you can hear it in his voice, see it on his face, and feel it in that little green room. I should be laughing. But you know what I'm doing? I'm feeling depressed. I feel sorry for the old man. He's over 70 years-old. Just look at that picture. That picture kills me. It was his goddamn 69th birthday. And he will be swallowed by oblivion. And he knows it. Jesus.

The Saddest Thing

2008-06-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

If you asked me what the saddest thing I have ever seen was yesterday, it'd be some standard holocaust jive. But this has taken that undesirable cake:

A Day

2008-06-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today I learned:

1) Home Improvement is now on Nick at Nite.

2) Elvis, Hitler (and Kerouac, duh) all loved amphetamines. Let's get famous.

3) If you want to be immortal, drink 200 bottles of red wine a day. [ed.--I was sittin' pretty at about 2 when I wrote this]

4) Bring a dolly down a ramp wheels first.

5) We're going to have our first black president.

David Byrne's Musical Building

2008-05-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

Watch the video down the page.

Has whole building wired up. Mighty strange.

"Aachi & Ssipak" Unambiguously Cool

2008-05-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

Aachi and Ssipak are two hoodlums earning a dishonest living in an energy depleted future dystopia; they hold up bathroom stalls where people are trying to have "sincere" bowel movements, as the energy source of tomorrow is human excrement. All citizens are implanted with anal identity chips at birth, and when they defecate in public stalls they receive an addictive, hallucinogenic popsicle called a "juicybar" as a reward.

Juicybars, of course, cause people to transform into small, blue, and stupid mutants. These mutants have been organized by a Hitleresque charismatic leader into a revolutionary cell called "The Diaper Gang" and they are constantly hounded by police forces, aided by an unstoppable government cyborg. Everyone wants to control the juicybar supply, including the two aforementioned anti-heroes, who always manage to be in the right place at the wrong time despite their general ineptitude (or perhaps because of it).

Through a comedy of errors, Jimmy the Freak, a drug-addled porn director, stumbles onto a means of tricking the system into over-dispensing juicybars and he hands this information to the leader of the Diapers. They then recruit anti-heroine Beauty (a woman imbued with the power to crap several times a day) to be the vessel for a "blessed" anal chip and soon accidentally lose her to Aachi and Ssipak (the latter of whom has fallen in love with her from afar).

Much of the movie is then a chase scene where Beauty exchanges hands again and again; and ultimately she ends up in the possession of the Diapers. They use her power to change the tide to their favor, forcing the government's hand and causing them to enlist the help of the deranged creator of cyborgs (who ends up in the hands of the Diapers anyway and creates mutant cyborgs for their side too). The conflict escalates into a titanic battle at a desert fortress, where Aachi and Ssipak sneak in and do their best to retrieve Beauty, causing another series of chase scenes.

In the end, the anti-heroes survive by outlasting all the other forces and outrunning a series of ever-intensifying explosions, and ride off into the sunset to poop another day.

Fresh Out Tha Kitchen

2008-05-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have an extraordinary amount of time at work. I have recently had three 9-6 nothing-to-do shifts at a desk, answering questions like, "So that's a woodpecker?" and wondering where all the babes are if they aren't at my regional parks.

But i just read pitchfork's little comment on why "Ignition (Remix)" makes their #12 spot on singles between 2000-2004. It's not genius, but it makes me feel a might pleased to have 'been there,' despite never having stepped a single foot into a club until I was halfway through my college years. And for that, I think, I should be pleased. There was no context other than my imagination (I had, after all, seen a hotel lobby, and spent one summer glued to MTV beginning with its obscenely sexy spring break half-month; sexy, that is, when using a scale topped by E!'s Wild On) for the song to bloom into.

Anyhow, here's the institution's rationale:

012: R. Kelly
"Ignition (Remix)"
[Jive; 2003]

It's one of the great miracles of modern pop music that a figure as colossally fucked up and patently ridiculous as Robert Kelly should also happen to be one of its finest songwriters. To that end, the fucked-up, ridiculous, and fine "Ignition (Remix)" is his greatest moment, a sticky bit of loverboy bombast so infectious and so absurd that it momentarily transcends any questions of depravity. Kelly sort of sing-raps here, and has more fun with the English language over three minutes than a lot of rappers do for entire albums. He toasts for a line, makes some train noises, rhymes "fro" with "radio," and beats crunk to the joy of "unk" by a solid six months. It takes a special kind of man to write a vagina-as-car-part metaphor, and it takes a whole other kind of special man to wear a Muppet pelt in public-- R. Kelly is the only one special enough to do both, and this is his most special song. --Mark Pytlik

This is what it looks like when Angels make love

2008-05-22T15:17:00.001-07:00

Greetings from southwest Missouri

2008-05-21T18:25:00.001-07:00

BAD NEWS!

Fellow Font Enthusiasts:

2008-05-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

1. Watched this movie yesterday. Fantastic...and yet the trailer really doesn't do it justice. It covers everything from the history of typesetting to the implications of the advent of the digital in graphic design. Plus a thousand interviews with famous graphic designers whose lives you will envy.

2. New saying, (spread it around): "________ is the hottest thing since Helvetica!"

3. The font "Helvetica" (as well as "Arial") is banned from the Round Table for the 2008-2009 school year.

The Mysterious East

2008-05-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

It's high time I educated you uncultured swine in the elegant mysteries of Far Eastern society.

EDIT: This had to be added

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/world/asia/07crows.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

“Japanese react to crows because we fear them,” said Michio Matsuda, a board member of the Wild Bird Society of Japan and author of books on crows. “We are not sure sometimes who is smarter, us or the crows.”

“In the old days, crows and humans could live together peacefully, but now the species are clashing,” said Naoki Satou, the chief of planning in Tokyo’s environmental department, which conducts crow countermeasures. “All we really want to do is go back to that golden age of co-existence.”

CRITICAL THREAT

2008-05-04T12:10:00.001-07:00

A hay-hay-hay, roll dice every day.

on second thought. . .

2008-05-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

maybe it's time to re-evaluate our choices.

Well Well

2008-04-26T00:56:00.000-07:00

John

well well well

wellity well well
2:22amLeland

well butter me up and fry me with eggs
2:22amJohn

well kick me in the gullet and sew my lips together
2:23amLeland

well fondle my goods and send me on my way with a paper bag
2:24amJohn

well fumigate my house
2:25amJohn

well use my DNA for a super-soldier program
2:26amLeland

well tan my hide and wax my swimsuit line

well give me dreads a some complaints and stick me in the gutter
2:26amJohn

well find my cat and return him to me

well loose my bodice
2:27amLeland

well twang my zipline
2:27amJohn

well pluck my pear
2:28amLeland

well dingle my berry
2:29amJohn

well finesse my dobro
2:30amLeland

well shoot my varmints
2:30amJohn

well deploy my battle cruisers
2:31amLeland

well rook to B3
2:31amJohn

well tap my mountain
2:31amLeland

well chisel my abs
2:32amJohn

well shoot my hoops
2:32amLeland

well malt my barley
2:32amJohn

well shake up my mr. pibb
2:34amLeland

well read cosmo and pretend like you're just skimming
2:35amJohn

well act on advice you find about cunnilingus
2:36amLeland

well try to get that taste out of your mouth
2:36amJohn

well have a gin and tonic and take a shower beforehand
2:38amLeland

well tell her you give good massages
2:39amJohn

well use that as an excuse to give her a butt massage
2:40amLeland

well I can't give you a good massages with your shirt on
2:42amJohn

well you want your calves massaged as well, right?
2:45amLeland

well go ahead and leave then
2:46amJohn

well don't you wan another wine cooler for the road
2:47amLeland

well it's grape kiwi passion explosion
2:48amJohn

well, here, let's drink them together
2:50amLeland

well maybe you're just not cut-out to be "happy"
2:51amJohn

well now you've spilled it

well do you want to listen to dizzee rascal
2:52amLeland

well maybe we should lay down
2:54amLeland

well I'll just take a shower then
2:54amJohn

well maybe you want to take off your uggs
2:55amLeland

i've got to exit
2:55amJohn

good evening

Buttfucking and the Glass Archangel

2008-04-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last night

began by going to a gay bar. It wasn’t just a gay bar, it was more of a gay strip club. There were naked men walking around everywhere. I can’t remember who it was that coaxed me into to going there, but I hadn’t protested much since I usually find at least some form of interest in modes of existence foreign to my own. Open entering the club, the man at the front desk pointed to me and said “You’ll just want to go straight on back there hunny and sit in a booth. You just go straight on back.” I shrugged, looked at whoever it was that was accompanying me, and walked past the bar into the back room. Next thing I know, I’m alone in a booth. A tall, naked, well-built blonde boy with hair just past his ears enters, and begins to initiate intercourse with me. Then another person, a former classmate now at Princeton, enters the booth and kneels in front of me, but I am kneeling too and my head is down. The blonde boy instructs him to take his pants off, which he does, and then to begin masturbating while he watches us, which he also does. I become increasingly uncomfortable beginning to wonder how I ever got into this position, when I look up at the friend from Princeton, who is about to come, and has the shiny wet pink penis of a dog.

And yet

Alex Nee, John McConnell and myself all decide to see a movie together, and I am getting candy in the lobby of the theatre. I come into the auditorium and find the two of them where they’re sitting, I ask Alex to hold onto my candy while I take a piss. Upon my return, John is laughing and Alex has his mouth full, chewing. I look at my seat where the empty boxes once containing my candy now sit.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yell aloud in the theatre with no heed to surrounding patrons, the response to which is several Shhhs behind my and choked laughter from Alex and John. I am only intent on getting candy at this point, so I decide to seek my revenge later and just buy another few boxes.
When the movie let out we are in the parking lot, I’ve got keys in hand and I set my remaining candies atop the car while I unlock it. When I look up, the candy is gone and Alex Nee is running in the opposite direction, candy wrappers floating behind him.
It doesn’t take me long to catch up with him. When I do, I am very unnecessarily violent. I trip him, he hits his face on the ground, and I commence to beat the living tar out of him. I only stop when he starts crying.
“Okay, okay. Slow down. I’m sorry I got so angry. Just stop crying,” I beg, but he continues and instead takes off running again. I cast a glance toward John and we both set out after him.
This time he loses us, but we instead find Benjamin Geary driving in a car on a main street that looks very similar to Beloit’s, in a car that looks very similar to a 1982 Lincoln. He stops in the middle of the street when I run out to flag him down. John immediately hops in on the passenger's side, explaining the situation to Ben, but I remain standing in front of the car. I am still standing in front of the car when I see another one turn the corner up ahead behind the Lincoln, and tell Benjamin he better keep rolling as there is another car approaching. That’s when I see Alex Nee’s car in the corner of my eye. I whirl around. He is driving nearly full speed in my direction, and yet in reverse. I leap out of the way, narrowly escaping his back bumper, and watch as Alex’s car slams into the Lincoln, the look on Benjamin’s face now with closed eyes, and then the impact of the second car, driving around 35 into the back of the Lincoln, completing the sandwich. I begin to back away slowly. The anonymous car is on fire now, and its driver is surely burning. I watch as Alex exits his car and stares in disbelief, and how John opens the passenger side door exposing the many sizable shards of glass in his body. John rushes to the driver’s side as Alex inches closer, pulling Benjamin from the car. Yet Benjamin can stand on his own, although he is covered in blood and although he has what seems to be two giant, windshield-sized shards of glass sticking into his shoulder blades so that they make two immense wings of glass, and although long barbs of glass radiate from his ribs and chest. He simply stands there, serenely looking in my direction. I try to find my phone in my pocket to call the police, but I am shaking so badly I can’t dial the number. I keep trying, 912, 611, 814, 914, and by the time I finally manage 911 I see the lights of the police car reflected on a shop window down the street. I disappear.
When I arrive at the hospital Alex and John are already mended and exchanging exaggerated accounts of the turn of events and showing one another their scars. I enter into the operating room where the doctor is removing the final piece of glass from Benjamin’s flank, and to my left I see that Leigh Ella Hirte has somehow been notified of the event.
“Alex,” she says, “maybe you should just wait outside, don’t you think?” I look at her incredulously but briefly.
“Ben,” I say, turning to him, “you looked just like the Archangel.”

Tales of Marital Escape: Florida Edition

2008-04-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Our houseboat was always swaying with the regularity of a pulsar. In those early days I regarded it as a comfort. Inside the mangrove swamps she and I were kept hidden from the world that had changed. That swaying was the rocking of our cradle and the water we were borne upon, green with algal bloom, was our tireless governess who only wanted us to sleep. To fall asleep. To be asleep. I’m not sure why I was the first one to wake up.

We had married just before they started deporting foreign nationals. Out of all her male friends I was the only one with an internship in the same city, so it made the most sense for us to move in together and play out everything we had practiced watching sitcoms. During our marriage by a justice of the peace in a Milwaukee post office we could barely keep from laughing. It was just so goddamn funny.

We lived in our first apartment for a week, me on the couch and her in the futon my parents had given us. When inspectors came they found a green card, marriage certificates, our winter clothes and boots in the same closet, and plenty of pictures of an us we were inventing on the walls and on the dressers, filling up hard drives with photos. As soon as the inspector with her notepad would leave our laughter would peel out into the kitchen and rattle the forks in the drawers. We were tricking them and it was goddamn funny.

A honeymoon was necessary to keep up appearances. My father gave us the money to go to the Florida Keys. “Off we go!”, we thought, musing that in eight more weeks the inspections would stop and we could get back to being friends instead of pretending to be married, really married. After a week and a half of rum and marijuana in Key West the news reports started coming in. New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, and more and more were gone. After three days trying to call home, trying to call anyone, the news stopped coming in. My father had sent me an e-mail that he was coming to get us, to just stay put and he’d come in a rented car. I never found out what happened to him or anyone else in my family. But we stayed put like he told us to. I think we were about twenty four, then.

We had waited in our hotel room for three weeks before deciding that maybe no one was coming.

Our second apartment was a houseboat left behind by a retiree couple. We kept all of their family photos in a shoebox under the cot. It was too strange to have them staring at us with their too-big smiles in front of Times Square and the Alamo. “Hey you crazy kids, of course you can borrow our boat for awhile! Really, it’s not a problem!” I remember wondering how many of the multicolored pushpins on their map of the United States were still viable places to visit.

After a year we were beginning to become used to anchoring our houseboat in the national parks where the water was calmer, defended by the powerful bastions of the mangrove forests. On nice days we’d fish for trout and jack carvalle fish and trade them for canned goods and gasoline in Key West. A former grocery store manager and queen named Gary controlled most of the non-perishable food supply. We brought him all of the musicals we could scrounge on Blu-ray, so he usually gave us first choice. I think he also liked having young people around.

We also anchored in the forests because of burglars. Nights were spent with our piles of DVDs and video cassettes, trying to remember everything even with the sound down low and garbage bags taped over the windows to keep the light in. It was this way for the first year.

After Gary died of strep throat three years later, we had a harder time getting food. People were saying that there must have been some kind of big spill on the mainland because even the water in the parks was now in a perpetual state of algal bloom. Fish would gasp for air above the neon green water as others bellied up. In her increasingly infrequent journal entries Holly wrote a lot about food. I lost fifty pounds.

In dreams I was in Michigan playing with my dog and drinking port wine with my grandpa. Other times I was in Beloit worrying about midterms and puking into a small, white trashcan. When I would wake up to the creak of the ship, tethered to the mangroves, I would scream and scatter the spoonbills and cranes off the deck. Holly would just bury her head as deeply as she could into her pillow.

My dreams after the hungry summer were almost all about stars. After a supernova, stars become nebulae and display all the beautiful colors in the Hubble telescope photos. After a relatively short time, solar winds blow all of this plumage away, leaving a barren white dwarf star behind. The material that made up the nebula could become anything from then on—helping to form a planet, coalescing with other materials into a new star— anything.

That night after she fell asleep watching Grease again I lowered the inflatable rafts into the water. As I pulled the cord on the on board engine I thought I may have seen the reflection of the cabin lights coming on in the water or heard her screaming after me, but soon my t-shirt was flapping around my ribs and the wind was stinging my eyes. I wasn’t sure what it was that made me start crying.

True Story

2008-04-13T04:47:00.000-07:00

My roommate's friend was working across the street from this place when it got heisted. These guys pulled up in black Audis with fulls spec-ops gear and automatic rifles, there was a construction site next door and they drove a crane/cherry picker thing through the side of the building, then they left a bomb and nails all over the street. The reports now say they had 60 million kroner ($12 million) and they did they whole thing without saying a word.

What I Do 4 U

2008-04-04T00:05:00.001-07:00

Symbolism out the ass.

Soda Life; A Personification of Soda

2008-04-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

I’m a normal guy, I like to think I’m an all-American, not in the captain of the football team way, those guys are anything but normal, just in a standard way I suppose. I grew up listening to the Beatles and I like homemade hamburgers, the kind that are taller than they should be and never actually reach the edge of the bun.
You know, I’m really enjoying high school, it’s sucks that I still get carded at R movies but that’s just one step in the path. There’re all these kids around me that are going to be stuck here forever, mentally, you know? Like, just trying to re-live everything, be that guy smoking in the parking lot forever right?
I think I have a pretty good handle on things. I really owe that to my brother. He’s twenty-six now and lives in Sacramento with his boyfriend. My brother and I are still pretty close, despite our differences. I think it’s because we really relate to our aunt. She’s the kind of lady that yells with her hands in the air before she hugs you. She’s got gelled hair and squinty eyes and always gives the best birthday presents. My aunt is amazing. Sometimes I wish I lived with her instead of Dad and Vicki because they just don’t get it. Sometimes I feel bad for my dad because he was fun once. He had a lot of crazy wild ideas and he really tried to make it but things just didn’t work out. He just watches TV and mopes around now. Even worse is that he’s still with Vicki, my step-mom. She’s this airhead with a nosejob who thought my dad was going places, now she’s as fat as he is and they have nothing better to do than get on my case.
My real mom is nice, but she’s just not in the picture anymore. She got married to this jerk who thinks owning a chain of grocery stores in the Dakotas makes him better than everyone. I want Mom to get it together and leave him but I think she’s pretending everything’s better than it really is because she’s unhappy. Maybe someday she’ll get it together and back over that asshole. If only.
It really isn’t so bad though. I’ve got friends. My best friend and I go on adventures all the time. He’s the kind of dude that’ll squirrel up a fire escape and then help you up it or just jump off a parked car for no reason. Nothing too crazy, just enough to keep things interesting. When I take a minute and look at the other kids at school I think I’ve got it pretty good. Maybe life’s just like that though.

I hope it's about 4pm and sunny outside while they're filming this

2008-04-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

The start of a new era:

...All Up On A Saturday Night

Tonight Schweetie Pie turns 2-1. When he looks at the future, clouds take shapes like thick legged women and brontosaurus restaurant managers in southern Florida. It's a very special post-midnight day today. Wish him well.

British People are Bad Drivers

2008-04-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1oMtwmTaNQ

Volcanoes

2008-03-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am a man, and a free one at that, am I not?

I do not, however, speak French or know all the laws.

It's one of those mornings, boys.

Post-Apocalypse

2008-03-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

At this point in my life, I would want to destroy everything else for purely aesthetic purposes.

There is a word without poseurs, and it looks like it hurts.

Read Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

My week(end).

2008-03-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

1. Drank just about every night this week. Averaged 3/4s of a pack of cigarettes per day. Consistently, perpetually, found myself to be the only person in a room that was formerly full of people, then checking my phone to find it was dangerously close to 5. Walk home. Drink another beer for purely hubristic reasons.

2. Friday decide to celebrate incipient springtime with bloody mary(s). Made the stiffest bloody mary known to man. Watched Dark On (highly recommended). Went to a party where three free kegs were proudly advertised, found it to be the filthy, musty, lopsided den of a house (that I always knew it to be) full of equally despicable characters wearing clothes that matched the wallpaper, worshiping the most despicable of them all (the tenants) for providing free booze. Insulted host, the nameless redheaded overgrown vermin, lord of the orphans, with words I couldn’t possibly remember. Kicked out of house at around 12:15 AM. Was grateful, being now very self-consciously drunk and exhausted. Stepped into room, sadly uninhabited, fell in some way into full-length mirror resting in closet, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Laid for awhile amidst fresh snowfall of scintillating crystalline shards, afraid to move, then rising, removing clothes, falling asleep in bed within moments. Woke up to little specks of blood all over bedspread, cut on arm, cursing self.

3. Spent the entirety of Saturday inside, cursing self. Went to work at library, watched Milo and Otis while reading the New York Times Magazine’s Guide to Men’s Style. Did not smoke cigarettes. Put on robe to take shower at 7. Fell asleep at 8. Woke up bewildered at 1:30 am. Decided against miraculous vodka marathon to surpass already-drunk people calling me from party. Nodded off again. Woke up at 8:30, not tired for the first time in awhile. Took a shower for the first time in days, ate breakfast in commons with three girls I had never seen before. Currently debating next move.

Petit was a pussy; he used a pole.

2008-03-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

"Other Sports" section? They should put it in a section called "Fucking Courage" or, like, "You Are Inferior" or better yet, "Reasons You Are Not a Man." Hell, they should just write about this all the time. This is the only news that I see fit to print.

A song I wish I'd written

2008-02-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

With Respect to Mr. Updike

2008-02-28T06:45:00.000-08:00

Rømme Dæmpe; the quiet escape

Boys are playing foursquare around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it. Legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires. Leland Matters, coming up the alley in smeared Dockers, stops and watches though he’s 26 and his shoes weigh more than these boys. Eyes squinting against the evening sun he stabs a cigarette into lips and nostrils flare to catch smoke and the sulfur of his match. More. More. He revels in the sensation. His fingers toy the wrinkles of his balled up apron, his disgust for Qdoba and the schmucks he manages is muted, castrated by a pleading optimism. He smolders and his big shoulders loosen and expand.
Yelps from the boys alert him to a ball rolling in his direction. He releases his apron and kicks the ball up to his hands with a familiar “wump-ting”, thumbs over the red thatching, and spins it against stiff palms. The weight is comfortable in his hands, with the drone of lawn mowers working in his temples he raises his arms pushing the ball to the hoop, never throwing, pushing and with fluid persistence his eyes stay on the ring his arms are fixed, erect. The ball falls and dips through the net, bounces “wump-ting”. The boys stare, he is not a welcomed visitor here. They are not performing for an outsider, they are playing games, their games.
Leland pivots and walks away, the chirping of the boys lightens the back of his neck, those muscles are stiff as the gum under movie theater chairs. He feels grateful to the boys.
Walking home he nips at the skin behind his lips. He thinks of his father’s teeth. The lower row a line of enamel tips, two folded in on each other, collapsed. This reminds him of the buildings in his neighborhood, yellowed and cracking, they’ll be dust soon too. He stretches his shoulders. Again he squints at the late afternoon sun this time through the chicken wire hanging off the wooden planked fence, holding him in this neighborhood.
The resistance of concrete to his thick feet, is painful, he can feel the blood in them and sidesteps to cut through the grass. Side yards are spongy here, fed by sump pumps and spotted yellow-grey from dog piss. Backyards, on the other hand, are firm and springy. Leland bobs along un-trimmed shrubs and ducks through into a yard of packed dirt and a Saturn. He glides up the wooden steps to the kitchen door, three stairs, one step, and stops. Listening. The television is on, a head of frizzy brown hair is silhouetted by the plasma glow of Kitchen HD. What is he waiting for. This is your life, just get in there, do the damn thing.
“Hey babe”.
She is a small woman with a tight skin, as if something swelling inside is straining against her littleness. Just yesterday , it seems to him, she stopped being pretty. With the tiny addition of the two short wrinkles at the corners, her mouth had become greedy; and her hair has thinned, so that he keeps thinking of her skull under it. But he keeps hoping that tomorrow she’ll be his girl again. She moves only her head and turns to fix her eyes on him, takes a pull of her Megatonic.
“Back already?”
“Yes, where are El Odioso and the Hibernion?”
“Mother has them today, did you pick up Spirits?”
“Forgot” he mumbled, emptying the contents of his pockets on the counter. “Maybe you could wander down to the Clark for once”.
She looks up from filing her nails, tears fill her slate eyes and break over puffy lower lids to drop down her cheek, pink with injury, while she looks at him and says “f-uck you butt burglar” with drunken care.
She retreats to the living room and stumbles behind the couch. She hits the ground like a heavy armful of laundry. She works her fingers around the top of the couch, pulling herself up and hears a low “Goodbye Johanna” followed by the flick of a lighter and the screen door clacking shut.
Leland slides into the hay colored Saturn and drives East toward Mrs. Brown’s. Head pulsing, memory and vitamins are all that guide him.
Parked.
The synthetic wad of car idles and he thinks of his boys inside. Chances are that they’re sleeping. It’s just after dinner and Mrs. Brown always puts them to bed whenever she can manage to calm them down but it’s usually a big enough feat just to get them to stop yelling at Schweety and Atravous, the negro boys next door. He prepares for what he’ll say to Mrs. Brown. Probably a dumb “hullo”. She’ll smile in her awful way, spiteful and aggressive. “I’m happy you’re my son-in-law. That’s what this smile is telling you that I’m happy and I don’t not like you because I can’t because I’m smiling” . The boys will explode across the room to him and cling to him and both and wipe whatever remains of their dinner on him. He won’t be able to move but he won’t have to look at Mrs. Brown’s sharp eyes.
The sticky smell of his boys washes over Leland, his mind is swimming in it, drowning. Still in the Saturn he ducks. Leaning over empty kids meal boxes in the passenger seat he gazes through windows painted with finger grease, through low branches toward Mrs. Brown’s windows. The front lights aren't on. She hasn’t seen him! He lets the Saturn creep forward and then guns it down the street. Through two stop signs, one tight right turn and he’s on the interstate. “They love their grandma, they’re fine, just fine” he chants.
Leland adjusts in his seat, sitting upright and loose. With a casual finger he flicks on the stereo then frantically swats it away from RadioDisney. Tonight there are more stars than he can remember and he wonders how they’ll look from the coast.

This is what up-all-night makes: Weird Shit

2008-02-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

Following the Second Exile of St. John Crysostom, St. John Cassian Travels to Rome: 404 BCE

Atticus, even the heart I cleaned in the heat
Beyond enormous Alexandria, where the Word
Was first given to the Greeks, Scythians, Constantines—
Light to brilliant Reason’s most intimate peoples—
My heart I paired to its whitest: even it cannot love you now.

Having passed Athens in the Aegean, then through
The water that splits Illyricum and spreads into open blue,
Carried on well by wind up between the green spike
Of Taranto and the small polished red and yellow stones
That signal Messina opposite, we now skirt Naples
And wait a day longer to see Holy Rome’s outliers.

Clever Atticus? Recently seated, now warring, now too likely
Passing a well-sunned hand in rare caress
On the bare shoulder of the Empress, Eudoxia,
As consorting you walk court gardens—“delectable,” yes John—
In the springtime of tumultuous Constantinople.
Will it be possible, after all this, to remove the nails
That tether them all? And you, Atticus, only the freshest.

Yet, even as I know Latin fair well, and have tread
Every human land the twelve walked and more,
What combination of words, strung together
Like desert plants, could help Chrysostomos, banished again:
My golden John, whose flock adored him.

Massed, they needed his controlled, winged Greek.
It seemed to dissolve the pulpit where he stood,
And all eyes then rested at his feet, waiting for John
To step down among them, touch their shoulders;
To go into their homes and eat that day’s bread and olives.
Truly, it would have been very natural.

But now, in the Eternal City,
They have learned what happened,
And are universally appalled.

Innocent I cannot help our case. The empire is divided.
Honorius, boy that he is, will do nothing; Stilicho rules in Rome.

Even now they are carrying John to Armenia, where he will surely die.
They took him on Easter’s Eve, the wafer in his hand.

But why does my heart fire at you, lowly Atticus?
I thought I had purged that.
Eutropius was a slave, and always unwise. He is dead.
Gainas understood no mystery. He too is dead.
Eudoxia, a woman jealous even of herself, is to be pitied.

Perhaps then, Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria.
He was to be condemned at John's high council.
Theophilus, the Patriarch who slaughtered monastics, turned,
And falsely accused John, the Bishop of Constantinople.
Theophilus brews illness. He is not in my hands.

There is the Tiber’s glint.

It must be that when I saw you standing where he stood,
Vested in white, draped with the black-crossed pallium,
I would have struck you: I could not understand.

TALES OF MARITAL ESCAPE: Nee, Part One

2008-02-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

It was the evening ritual now: following the preparation of a meal to be eaten in silence (only after it had grown lukewarm waiting for its second patron), Alexander would rap his ringed finger on a glass of scotch while searching for shapes and patterns in the stucco smears of stucco above the southwestern style kitchen. The caustic fumes of scotch, broken occasionally by the scent of steamed asparagus, and the faintly apparent shape of what could be a dragon on the wall were the only things that he noticed. He no longer waited for Caroline, he simply became catatonic until she would rouse him with a mumbled greeting and the scent of menthol smoke. Those two indicators of Caroline's presence came, causing the elaborate stucco fantasy to be broken and forgotten like a less-than-memorable dream.
Nearly an hour would pass between her entrance and her sitting down to eat the now frigid meal. In that time Alexander became briefly aware of his situation and why his finger made the sharp tick when it made when it met the edge of the now-empty glass. There was a time in his life where this situation, the dull numbness of domestic living with the giantess was infinitely more preferable to what he had now.
It was his eighteenth month in the refugee camp in the green zone of outer Calgary. He still couldn't quite grasp that the life he had built in Minneapolis was gone, and that the Twin Cities lay now as a pair of uneven testicles: one a sanctuary for cannibals and upscale restaraunteurs, an the other a smoldering crater. The midnight phone call still echoed in his skull, even after almost two years: "Get out, dummy! City gon' blow! Go norf!". He turned to tug his darling bride out of the bed, but the thrice-hyphenated lover had disappeared in the night. It seemed too obvious at that point: she was an informant to the K-9-Corps. Sommer-Grohens-Nee, still a traitor.
The next six months were spent in decontamination showers and trading newly minted buttons and framed photographs for food and pills in camp after camp, being routed further and further towards the reservoir, now containing more Americans that the former United States and the Republic of the New Lord combined. The former suburbs of Calgary were transformed into a world of tents, breadlines, and tire fires. Alexander was one of the luckier denizens, his skills in photoshop were useful in making propaganda flyers for the Alliance. Most of his days were spent putting human faces over the dead eyes of the dog soldiers, hiding a secret that as hidden as the sky's now greenish hue. It wasn't much of a way to live, but it was a way to be alive.
Then, she entered the propaganda Ministry’s workhouse. Towering over the malnourished day workers, dwarfing the pug-ugly guards at the doors; the Propaganda Minister came to where Alexander was chained to the iMac, grayed from its original ivory splendor.
"I offer you a way out, Mr. Nee" she whispered from unseen heights. "I will make you my husband. I will make you a Delbert." She handed him a golden band, the only thing he had seen with any sort of luster in the preceding year. He took it, and placed it tightly like a tourniquet on his finger, hoping that it would stop the bleeding at last.
He raised the glass to his mouth, and watched his bride, his captor through the distorted lens though the glass was empty.

Tonight, he thought, I escape.

See link.

2008-02-22T00:18:00.001-08:00

We've got to stop just posting links to this thing. We're better than that, aren't we?

Oh, and this isn't that funny. But, I like a few.

Adventures in Employment

2008-02-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

Driver Needed For Architect