The new year is quickly approaching, or so says Nostradamus, so I thought I would post my yearly shit list (this will be the first year) of all things that I disapprove of, however irrational my reasons. This is my blog, and I will do with it as I please. People, bodies of water, ideologies, nothing is safe from the shit list. Here it is, the official Shit List of 2006.
1) Dumb hippies. Not all hippies in general, just unintelligent ones. Ones who parrot things their intelligent hippie friends make up but don't understand the conceptual or academic background behind what they are saying. A good example of a dumb hippie is someone who says the movie The Beach is "propaganda" but upon further inquiry you begin to suspect a recent lobotomy.
2) Major League Baseball. Come on, clean up your act. People love playing baseball, make us love to watch baseball. If nothing else, at least lower the beer prices in the stadium. I shouldn't feel like I am paying a speeding ticket every time I want to drink a cold beer out of an assault-proof plastic bottle.
3) People from Finland. Despite the testimony of one young Finn, I highly doubt that all Swedes are "fags." I also do not know how to give a reasonable answer when this same Finn asks why I don't have a Southern (or in his words, American) accent...wait, I know. I DIDN'T GROW UP IN THE FUCKING SOUTH.
4) Fashion shows. Nothing will hasten the coming of the Antichrist quicker than fashion shows in Milan. I don't give a shit how cool you think you are, covering a model with a bunch of sequins and torn up bedsheets doesn't mean you have good style, it means you know how to recycle.
5) Airport security. I keep from blowing my brains out every time I have to fly by telling myself over and over that the TSA is playing one long, intricate practical joke on the travellers of America.
6) Marilyn Manson. He doesn't even deserve having his name printed on this blog, but I like to remind people how insignificant this Jack Skellington wannabe truly is.
7) Time travel. Invent it already or stop talking about it. Every year some scientist writes a long paper or magazine article about how "technically" probable it is, but then there is shit for progress except next year's article saying "steps have been made in the right direction." 2007 better be the year time travel is invented, or else.
I encourage the other bloggers to add to the shit list. If somebody pisses me off later this afternoon, they will likely be added shortly thereafter.
12/30/06
12/28/06
On Wine
Let's keep things in perspective. Wine is just a beverage. You shouldn't change your life for a beverage. You wouldn't change your life for an album. It might be Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper. It might be the best album you've ever heard and you discuss it with friends, learn its songs, analyze the shit out of it on artistic and intellectual levels, but it's still just a piece of music. The people who change their lives for a piece of music are marginals. They're not normal. Just like wine. Wine is a great beverage, but you shouldn't change your life for it. It's still just a fucking beverage. So geek out on it. But keep it in perspective.
12/26/06
Hungry Car Salesmen
If you wanna see the dark underbelly of capitalism, you don't need to go to a sweatshop in Bucharest or a brothel in Hanoi. You just have to go to an Accura dealership the day after Christmas.
I just wanted a cup of coffee and I know car dealerships have that stuff for free. I'll detail my encounters with hunger:
1) I walk in and two guys (one suited, one booted) ask if they can help me. They sure can.
2) While I'm getting coffee I make a joke about the fake creamer to a guy who turns out to work there. It also turns out he really wants to help me. I'm fine for the time being.
3) I sit in a vehicle. Some kind of SUV/Station Wagon blend designed by toddlers with playdough. I find Paradise City on the radio and honk the horn. Another guy tries to help me. We'll call him Stevie D. I tell him that the horn placement is a little fucked up. He laughs, pauses, and apologizes.
4) I go outside to spill some coffee on a sedan and look at the clouds. Stevie D follows me and wants to help again. I'm fine.
5) I come back inside to pretend to read some literature on Accuras. Stevie D tells me to wait a sec and he'll be right there to offer me the help that I've turned down twice now.
6) I try to leave and Stevie ABANDONS the customers he's sitting down selling cars to and rushes over. He asks if, before I go, there is anything at all he can do to help me. I can hear his stomach rumbling.
I just wanted a cup of coffee and I know car dealerships have that stuff for free. I'll detail my encounters with hunger:
1) I walk in and two guys (one suited, one booted) ask if they can help me. They sure can.
2) While I'm getting coffee I make a joke about the fake creamer to a guy who turns out to work there. It also turns out he really wants to help me. I'm fine for the time being.
3) I sit in a vehicle. Some kind of SUV/Station Wagon blend designed by toddlers with playdough. I find Paradise City on the radio and honk the horn. Another guy tries to help me. We'll call him Stevie D. I tell him that the horn placement is a little fucked up. He laughs, pauses, and apologizes.
4) I go outside to spill some coffee on a sedan and look at the clouds. Stevie D follows me and wants to help again. I'm fine.
5) I come back inside to pretend to read some literature on Accuras. Stevie D tells me to wait a sec and he'll be right there to offer me the help that I've turned down twice now.
6) I try to leave and Stevie ABANDONS the customers he's sitting down selling cars to and rushes over. He asks if, before I go, there is anything at all he can do to help me. I can hear his stomach rumbling.
12/24/06
an apology, a rant, a list of my own, and a surprise use of technology by me
goddamit. I love Matt Jumago, and I want to start by saying that. He is keeping the blog alive (contrary to what I commented recently) while 50% of the bloggers are only at the internet intermittently in Southeast Asia. However, he sparked a fiery fiery rage in me with his recent wine post. See, I like drinking wine, I like drinking most things in fact, but I hate wine. If that makes sense. See Matt and Drew both have been working in the wine industry in Walla Walla recently and it does strange things to people. I think wine and the industry makes people turn very inward and become insular and semi-uninteresting because more and more of what they think about becomes wine. That is like how I work at summer camp every summer and all people wanna talk about on our DAYS OFF is what is happening with their kids or whatever, it drives me crazy. With wine though it's even more ironic because wine is supposedly a drink of culture and people who are very interesting, with varied interests and what not. Now the title of this blog post is out of order for the most part because I opened with the rant. The apology is that Jumago doesn't deserve to be pooped on completely because I think he understands some of this ridiculousness which is why a closer read of the post lends itself to some hilarious humor, some lyrical miracles and overly bullshit descriptions that honestly made me laugh. At first when I see our beloved underdog blue collar blog reviewing wine, I gag, but when I see it done our way then I start to choke but get Heimliched by the gods of sanity and reason. However, I think I was at a wine tasting workshop at Whitman last year when I actually heard an "expert" ask if anyone else tasted "locker room or socks" on his wine so who knows, jesus. Here is a list of my own, 5 college beers, cuz good beer is for people with jobs.
1. Keystone Light- no thought goes into this beer, the lowest of low prices and easy to drink as it is pretty much piss colored water. Freshmen year my roommate Ben Reiber and I had no fridge so we just stacked our key-lites on the window sill in the winter with window cracked in the winter. After about a week of the beers heating up during the day and cooling down at night Ben tried one and noticed a hint of honey taste, we may have unlocked a secret.
2. Coors Light- In a world where Keystone Light won't do and you want to increase the class a little bit, go for Coors Light.
3. Bud Light- see # 2
4. PBR- If you want to get away from the sensitive northwest college frosh image and seem gritty and uncaring get a case of this and drink 19 of them.
5. Budweiser- This is a beer that is drunk with a purpose, especially outside of places where the 10 commandments are publicly displayed. Make a statement with this beer that this is America and even if you smoke bidis you can still enjoy a goddam budweiser and then drive your race car home.
6. Natural Ice- This is actually a 6th entry when I only promised 5, and that is for a reason. Where Keystone Light is the "cheap" cheap beer that is bought without a thought, you have to really be down on your luck + depressed + intentional to get into this selection. This is actually on par with the black case of Keystone, jesus.
and now...proving I can use technology on the blog and steal a photo from Adam Sachs that shows 4 monstronauts + sachs frolicking in the roots of a tree at Ta Prohm in Angkor, Cambodia.
1. Keystone Light- no thought goes into this beer, the lowest of low prices and easy to drink as it is pretty much piss colored water. Freshmen year my roommate Ben Reiber and I had no fridge so we just stacked our key-lites on the window sill in the winter with window cracked in the winter. After about a week of the beers heating up during the day and cooling down at night Ben tried one and noticed a hint of honey taste, we may have unlocked a secret.
2. Coors Light- In a world where Keystone Light won't do and you want to increase the class a little bit, go for Coors Light.
3. Bud Light- see # 2
4. PBR- If you want to get away from the sensitive northwest college frosh image and seem gritty and uncaring get a case of this and drink 19 of them.
5. Budweiser- This is a beer that is drunk with a purpose, especially outside of places where the 10 commandments are publicly displayed. Make a statement with this beer that this is America and even if you smoke bidis you can still enjoy a goddam budweiser and then drive your race car home.
6. Natural Ice- This is actually a 6th entry when I only promised 5, and that is for a reason. Where Keystone Light is the "cheap" cheap beer that is bought without a thought, you have to really be down on your luck + depressed + intentional to get into this selection. This is actually on par with the black case of Keystone, jesus.
and now...proving I can use technology on the blog and steal a photo from Adam Sachs that shows 4 monstronauts + sachs frolicking in the roots of a tree at Ta Prohm in Angkor, Cambodia.
12/20/06
My Top 5 Walla Walla Wines
So, as some readers may know, I work at a winery in Walla Walla. Because of this professional affiliation, I spend a lot of time with wine. Talking about it, reading about it, thinking about it, and drinking it. When you work with wine, a good number of your friends are likely to be into wine too, which is the case with me. I don't want to fake being an expert- I'm just a well informed consumer. Here's my Top 5 favourite wines made in Walla Walla. I'm limiting it to current vintages. I ask our readers and contributers to respond with their own lists.
In no particular order:
---Spring Valley 2004 "Mule Skinner" Merlot
This is a delicious, one hundred percent Merlot bottling from the highly respected Spring Valley estate vineyard. Rich in Merlot fruitiness, this wine can put a hard sit on a man after a bottle or two. The only thing that will get you up is the promise of more delicious Mule Skinner, or if none is left, the promise of an able mule to skin.
---Waterbrook 2005 Viognier
I'm not as partial to white wines as I am to Red, but when I reach for a White, this one is an easy pick. Pure Viognier goodness presents fresh floral and pear aromas with a smooth finish and confidence boost. I like pairing this wine with brine-aged Greek feta, poultry, and seduction.
---Reininger 2003 Carmenére
What the hell is Carmenere, one may ask. It was described to me by a friend working for Reininger as the "Lost Bordeaux" varietal. Apparently back in the day, a bunch of French monks decided that Carmenere was too delicious for the unwashed masses to imbibe, so they dressed up like Indians and uprooted every Carmenere vine in France and threw them all into the Rhine. Some centuries later, these vines washed up in Nazi Germany and because wine was at that time associated with Jewish holidays (Nazis drink only beer and tears) they were considered contraband and locked up in a bunker with Adolph Hitler. As it turns out, Hitler didn't commit suicide, but actually fled to Argentina, where he planted the Carmenere and produced several excellent bottlings of what he thought was simply a very rich Merlot, until he was killed by a meteor. This meteor brought a lot of attention to Argentina, and in addition to many other interesting things, astronomers discovered the grapes. To make a long story short, during one of his worldly adventure vacations, golden boy of Walla Walla Chuck Reininger was visiting the royal observatory of Denmark, once the home of insane person Tycho Brahe. The grounds contained a small vineyard growing the Carmenere which had been transplanted by Danish astronomers. Chuck bought the vines on sight, wrestled them from the grip of an evil enchanted Weeping Willow, and brought them to Walla Walla where he has been making tasty wine from them ever since.
---Cayuse 2003 "Widowmaker" Cab
This thick, chocolaty Cab Sauv is high in flavor and violence. Drink this until you're sick, and then go shoot a man dead. Owned by an authentic Frenchman, Cayuse produces some of the hardest to find wines in the Walla Walla. Good thing too, because if more of this shit got around, people would be making widows left and right.
---Amavi 2003 Syrah
A 100% Syrah from the Walla Walla Valley, this wine goes best with a rare steak. The rarer the better. I find that splashing Amavi Syrah on a living bovine is usually enough.
In no particular order:
---Spring Valley 2004 "Mule Skinner" Merlot
This is a delicious, one hundred percent Merlot bottling from the highly respected Spring Valley estate vineyard. Rich in Merlot fruitiness, this wine can put a hard sit on a man after a bottle or two. The only thing that will get you up is the promise of more delicious Mule Skinner, or if none is left, the promise of an able mule to skin.
---Waterbrook 2005 Viognier
I'm not as partial to white wines as I am to Red, but when I reach for a White, this one is an easy pick. Pure Viognier goodness presents fresh floral and pear aromas with a smooth finish and confidence boost. I like pairing this wine with brine-aged Greek feta, poultry, and seduction.
---Reininger 2003 Carmenére
What the hell is Carmenere, one may ask. It was described to me by a friend working for Reininger as the "Lost Bordeaux" varietal. Apparently back in the day, a bunch of French monks decided that Carmenere was too delicious for the unwashed masses to imbibe, so they dressed up like Indians and uprooted every Carmenere vine in France and threw them all into the Rhine. Some centuries later, these vines washed up in Nazi Germany and because wine was at that time associated with Jewish holidays (Nazis drink only beer and tears) they were considered contraband and locked up in a bunker with Adolph Hitler. As it turns out, Hitler didn't commit suicide, but actually fled to Argentina, where he planted the Carmenere and produced several excellent bottlings of what he thought was simply a very rich Merlot, until he was killed by a meteor. This meteor brought a lot of attention to Argentina, and in addition to many other interesting things, astronomers discovered the grapes. To make a long story short, during one of his worldly adventure vacations, golden boy of Walla Walla Chuck Reininger was visiting the royal observatory of Denmark, once the home of insane person Tycho Brahe. The grounds contained a small vineyard growing the Carmenere which had been transplanted by Danish astronomers. Chuck bought the vines on sight, wrestled them from the grip of an evil enchanted Weeping Willow, and brought them to Walla Walla where he has been making tasty wine from them ever since.
---Cayuse 2003 "Widowmaker" Cab
This thick, chocolaty Cab Sauv is high in flavor and violence. Drink this until you're sick, and then go shoot a man dead. Owned by an authentic Frenchman, Cayuse produces some of the hardest to find wines in the Walla Walla. Good thing too, because if more of this shit got around, people would be making widows left and right.
---Amavi 2003 Syrah
A 100% Syrah from the Walla Walla Valley, this wine goes best with a rare steak. The rarer the better. I find that splashing Amavi Syrah on a living bovine is usually enough.
12/18/06
Lessons from Abroad
I am maintaining an alternate travel blog during my time in Southeast Asia that is drawing a lot of my attention away from the Monstro. This is due in large part to two reasons. The first reason is the unceasing distraction that is budget world travel. When I am trying to figure out whether I am eating dried squid or dried octopus I don't really have time to contemplate clever and sarcastic blog posts that make use of obscure pop-culture references and debates over the conglomeration of mops and puppets. The second reason is because I am trying to be as thorough as possible with my travel blog so that I don't have to call family members with any sort of freqency. As a result, I sometime have to "boil down" my travel blog posts that that grandma doesn't get offended. That being said, I have learned a few things travelling abroad that I have deemed utterly "Monstro-worthy" and so I will share some of these anecdotes with you now.
In Thailand, there seems to be a correlation with the severity of dental malfuntion and the amount of alcohol consumed on a given day. For background info, click on my TravelPod blog and read the post about Professor Whiskey.
Unequivocally every dog in Thailand is a mangy-ass dog. These dogs have none of the pride or grace common to their US counterparts. They take mangy-ass shits, they have mangy-ass barks, and they look like hell. It takes a remarkable amount of self-restraint to avoid punting each and every one of these fleabags over the nearest fence. I might sound like a hateful human right now, but when you see a hairless dog with a tuft of coarse hair as a mohawk adorning its head you will be just as eager as I to teach that dog a lesson about being born looking as shameful as it does.
Children in Asia are substantially smarter than children in the United States. While kids in the US sit around and play video games, many of the street children in Cambodia are too busy mastering a second language and starting their own businesses. I had an interaction with a shrewd ten year-old book salesman of the streets of Siem Reap and he was the fiercest bargainer I have met so far. Unfortunately your chips don't mean shit if the person you are bargaining with can hoist you off the ground by the top of your skull and wring you out like a wet towel.
Despite common misconceptions, it is very easy to tell the difference between a real Thai woman and a Thai man dressed as a woman. I have heard stories and seen pictures of very convincing "ladyboys" but I have quickly come to realize that these are exceptions and not the rule. Most of the ladyboys I have seen appear to take their cross-gender game of dress-up about as seriously as I did when I was 8 years-old and put on my mom's high heels so I could hobble into the front yard and see how far I could fling them across the street. While my accuracy was dead-on, the lady boys on the streets of Bangkok seem to be missing the more subtle nuances that the pros have nailed.
Thats all for now, more to come later.
In Thailand, there seems to be a correlation with the severity of dental malfuntion and the amount of alcohol consumed on a given day. For background info, click on my TravelPod blog and read the post about Professor Whiskey.
Unequivocally every dog in Thailand is a mangy-ass dog. These dogs have none of the pride or grace common to their US counterparts. They take mangy-ass shits, they have mangy-ass barks, and they look like hell. It takes a remarkable amount of self-restraint to avoid punting each and every one of these fleabags over the nearest fence. I might sound like a hateful human right now, but when you see a hairless dog with a tuft of coarse hair as a mohawk adorning its head you will be just as eager as I to teach that dog a lesson about being born looking as shameful as it does.
Children in Asia are substantially smarter than children in the United States. While kids in the US sit around and play video games, many of the street children in Cambodia are too busy mastering a second language and starting their own businesses. I had an interaction with a shrewd ten year-old book salesman of the streets of Siem Reap and he was the fiercest bargainer I have met so far. Unfortunately your chips don't mean shit if the person you are bargaining with can hoist you off the ground by the top of your skull and wring you out like a wet towel.
Despite common misconceptions, it is very easy to tell the difference between a real Thai woman and a Thai man dressed as a woman. I have heard stories and seen pictures of very convincing "ladyboys" but I have quickly come to realize that these are exceptions and not the rule. Most of the ladyboys I have seen appear to take their cross-gender game of dress-up about as seriously as I did when I was 8 years-old and put on my mom's high heels so I could hobble into the front yard and see how far I could fling them across the street. While my accuracy was dead-on, the lady boys on the streets of Bangkok seem to be missing the more subtle nuances that the pros have nailed.
Thats all for now, more to come later.
12/16/06
12/13/06
Living with it
what, what what where did I go waking in the night with the heat of a fever or the heat of the tropics or the heat of the jungle or the heat of an icy hot pad in the second stage of that process.
12/10/06
Damn Technology!
In the last ten minutes I have been foiled by technology not once but twice.
First I try to sit down at the Nintendo for a round of Tales of Symphonia. This is the RPG I made reference to in an earlier post. I opened a beer, got my pillows comfy, and prepared to enter the mines and find the key crest that could save Presae. But upon turning on the Nintendo, the message that greeted my eyes sent horrors through my soul. The memory card is corrupted. What the fuck does that mean? Did I let it rent porno films or watch Saw II? Did I buy it beer and cigs? Did I drop the sumbitch? I didn't do a thing. The only part of the Nintendo I ever touch is the power button, but somehow in the last couple days my memory card got corrupted! So not only is the progress I've made into Symphonia gone, but all the dedicated hours of Mario, Zelda, and whatever else used to rest on that card is also fucked. Well, needless to say, I am giving up on the game. My frustration will not allow me to sit down and play through the first half of the game again.
So I got up and decided to sit down at the computer to do some writing on my long-term rock history research project. And every time I open a web page, Firefox crashes. Jesus! I'll be surprised if this post makes it. It just isn't my day. I think I'm gonna read a book or something. Just watch, all the pages will probably catch fire.
First I try to sit down at the Nintendo for a round of Tales of Symphonia. This is the RPG I made reference to in an earlier post. I opened a beer, got my pillows comfy, and prepared to enter the mines and find the key crest that could save Presae. But upon turning on the Nintendo, the message that greeted my eyes sent horrors through my soul. The memory card is corrupted. What the fuck does that mean? Did I let it rent porno films or watch Saw II? Did I buy it beer and cigs? Did I drop the sumbitch? I didn't do a thing. The only part of the Nintendo I ever touch is the power button, but somehow in the last couple days my memory card got corrupted! So not only is the progress I've made into Symphonia gone, but all the dedicated hours of Mario, Zelda, and whatever else used to rest on that card is also fucked. Well, needless to say, I am giving up on the game. My frustration will not allow me to sit down and play through the first half of the game again.
So I got up and decided to sit down at the computer to do some writing on my long-term rock history research project. And every time I open a web page, Firefox crashes. Jesus! I'll be surprised if this post makes it. It just isn't my day. I think I'm gonna read a book or something. Just watch, all the pages will probably catch fire.
12/9/06
I did it!
A couple days ago I finally did it. I ate 'till I was sick. I ate 'till I was fucking sick. And you know what? I spent the next day throwing up. It wasn't nearly as good as I had planned.
12/8/06
Cromagblog: me no like matt and drew make fun of rpg
me wish ice age on matt and drew! matt and drew no understand hurt they do when they mock my life in rpg posts on cromagblog. to them slaying the dark demon of augor to save princess of istyllicta is big big joke but to me it is very real. first of all, me friends with dark demon, he is misunderstood by blizzard and battle.net. dark demon a good man, but even good man gotta eat and when darker demon demolorilatus wished ice age on my friend dark demon of augor wish came true and no woolly mammoth to beat to death to eat so princess only logical point of gain. me no like my life to be a big joke for people to game on. me going into hiding. me not want to be commodified. me need to eat. me not care particularly for taste of squirrel or bat.
12/7/06
RPM: Role Playing Madness
Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man oh man. I got a little too eager to leave the Iselian Forest and I made an even bigger mistake than not killing all the monster rabbits for the extra XP. I didn't kill the Rabbit King to get the Helm of Fortitude. Without the Helm of Fortitude's +20 increase to my resistances to cold and hunger, there is no way I am going to be able to make it through the Purging Wastes to fight Iggryll the Frost Wyrm. The only way I can ever max out my Sword of Unknown Spinesaw is if I kill Iggryll without anybody in my party, which is already nearly impossible to do, but if I can't even make it through the Purging Wastes (and kill all the Blind Sasquatches within) then I guess I should just get rid of the SUS and just play this damn thing like a newb and go find the fucking Hammer of Gold Barb or some shit like that. Hell, I might as well restart as a level 1 ninja.
12/6/06
RPGs: Real Pathetic Guys
Since Dungeons & Dragons debuted in 1974, the popularity of RPGs (Role-Playing Games) has been growing steadily. With the recent success of online multiplayer RPGs such as Ultima, Everquest, Guild Wars, and the monster World of Warcraft, the genre has become a dominant commercial force in the videogame arena. The people who are really into RPGs are, however, really pathetic. And I'm one of them.
Now let me state my personal advocacy on the issue: I play the shit out of videogames. I love sitting down for a solid multi-hour sesh on a favorite. And RPGs... well, thanks to very early exposure to The Bloodstone, Chrono Trigger, and Kings Quest I have been hooked. Despite all my involvement in the subject matter, however, I am still able to step back and say with complete confidence that my obsession is silly.
Here's an example of a few thoughts that were going through my head yesterday evening as I played an RPG:
"I need to go back through the Iselian Forest so I can increase my grade by fighting those fucking rabbits."
"Where am I going to find that precious Black Silver?"
"Why won't my unison attack allow me to combine status depletion effects with elemental magic?"
and so forth
Are these the kind of concerns that a person my age should be faced with? In a time of international crisis and domestic unrest, should a citizen's greatest worry be over whether or not they should upgrade their Mesamune Sword? I am not going to say that there is anything at all redeemable about playing RPGs. I am not gonna tell you that it increases congnitive ability or problem solving skills or that it grows your hair back or helps you meet chicks. In fact, I can't defend my hobby at all. It's pathetic. But by god it's fun.
Now let me state my personal advocacy on the issue: I play the shit out of videogames. I love sitting down for a solid multi-hour sesh on a favorite. And RPGs... well, thanks to very early exposure to The Bloodstone, Chrono Trigger, and Kings Quest I have been hooked. Despite all my involvement in the subject matter, however, I am still able to step back and say with complete confidence that my obsession is silly.
Here's an example of a few thoughts that were going through my head yesterday evening as I played an RPG:
"I need to go back through the Iselian Forest so I can increase my grade by fighting those fucking rabbits."
"Where am I going to find that precious Black Silver?"
"Why won't my unison attack allow me to combine status depletion effects with elemental magic?"
and so forth
Are these the kind of concerns that a person my age should be faced with? In a time of international crisis and domestic unrest, should a citizen's greatest worry be over whether or not they should upgrade their Mesamune Sword? I am not going to say that there is anything at all redeemable about playing RPGs. I am not gonna tell you that it increases congnitive ability or problem solving skills or that it grows your hair back or helps you meet chicks. In fact, I can't defend my hobby at all. It's pathetic. But by god it's fun.
12/3/06
banks and hospitals suck: bitching and moaning
we've gotten to a point in our lives where the institutions we trust for our most important things, money and health in no particular order, are complete piles of steaming shit. even worse is that we are completely complicit in all of this as we have been conditioned to do nothing and accept the status quo. I recently had the pleasure of switching banks and the fact that a bank called "bANK OF AMERICA" has a system where one state, like WA, and another, like CA, cannot communicate is utter bullshit. Also, you cannot just walk into a bank and demand that they give you all of your money, there are limits on how much cash you can withdraw, determined by the bank, even though the money in there is YOUR hard earned money. Then when you switch banks you are in limbo for a few days when shit is processing that you can't have access to ANY of your money except what you've stowed in the trusty old shoebox in your closet. Oh, and hospitals suck...balls, and oppress and impoverish people.
11/30/06
Phishing Down By The River
A couple of days ago I was milling around my apartment, marveling in the amount of space I have since the Intrepid Traveler left. I had one of my Phish concert DVDs on and was listening happily to the feel-good jams. I went to change some laundry and as I was coming up the stairs, with only the bass frequencies piercing the walls, I heard something very familiar.
Bum Bum Bam Bam Bam Dum! Just like that except imagine I'm playing it on my bass and it's G, G, D, D, D, A! I couldn't believe it. Phish was covering Neil Young's Down By The River off his '69 Crazy Horse album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Now, this song kicks serious ass. I used to be in a band called Gods of Rock, an outfit dedicated to playing rock with divine presence, and we covered the shit out of that song. Ten, fifteen minute long versions of Down By The River. Also, for about a week, I was in this other band that covered it as well. We were supposed to be a party-rock cover band, but the guitar player wanted us to play his original compositions, so I quit the day before a gig. Luckily they found a more ambitious tall guy who can play four strings. But here it was again! That killer riff!
"DOWN BY THE RIVER!" I was singing as I came into the room. But something was amiss. My voice was harmonizing even less pleasantly that usual. It wasn't Down By The River at all, but an original Phish song off their 2000 release Farmhouse. The song, which I'd never listening to all that closely before, is called Bug and if Phish doesn't think they're riffing off Neil, then they're lying to themselves.
So there's a lesson for all you wanna-be rockers out there. You figure it out for yourselves.
Bum Bum Bam Bam Bam Dum! Just like that except imagine I'm playing it on my bass and it's G, G, D, D, D, A! I couldn't believe it. Phish was covering Neil Young's Down By The River off his '69 Crazy Horse album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Now, this song kicks serious ass. I used to be in a band called Gods of Rock, an outfit dedicated to playing rock with divine presence, and we covered the shit out of that song. Ten, fifteen minute long versions of Down By The River. Also, for about a week, I was in this other band that covered it as well. We were supposed to be a party-rock cover band, but the guitar player wanted us to play his original compositions, so I quit the day before a gig. Luckily they found a more ambitious tall guy who can play four strings. But here it was again! That killer riff!
"DOWN BY THE RIVER!" I was singing as I came into the room. But something was amiss. My voice was harmonizing even less pleasantly that usual. It wasn't Down By The River at all, but an original Phish song off their 2000 release Farmhouse. The song, which I'd never listening to all that closely before, is called Bug and if Phish doesn't think they're riffing off Neil, then they're lying to themselves.
So there's a lesson for all you wanna-be rockers out there. You figure it out for yourselves.
11/27/06
A Guide to AIM
So I have been somewhat annoyed with the chat medium lately. Not really with the medium itself, but with how people have been using it. Maybe I am just becoming a member of the old guard; I grew up using AIM. I have had the same screenname for ten years. TEN YEARS! I have been chatting under the alias "Toro412" longer than I have been a self-aware human being. Regardless, there are a few things that I feel need to be said about the chat medium, so I am going to say them, and I am going to use the blog medium. This is going to be a rant.
Stop saying "peace" when you leave unless you really mean it. I am sick of all these people I chat with who are all "I gotta go eat a bowl of ravioli, peace" when in reality they support putting up a wall between Mexico and the U.S. You can't want to build a WALL between us and anybody and then say "peace" when you are having a casual conversation with your peers. Nut up and say "war" and support your beliefs, stop pussy-footing around subject matter just because you're not at your big pro-war rally wearing your "Go Bush" cheesehead hat. If you say "peace" mean it or I will punch you in the face.
If you are going to put up an away message, please for the sake of baby Jesus do not use song lyrics that you heard on the radio. When Corey Taylor writes lyrics for Stone Sour (formerly of Slipknot renown) he is not being deep, he is being accessible. His lyrics can mean anything and that's why he is "so hot right now." He rights lyrics to make thirteen year-old girls think that somebody truly understands them...and that somebody used to wear a Hellraiser mask while he sang about his feelings.
Stop saying "peace" when you leave unless you really mean it. I am sick of all these people I chat with who are all "I gotta go eat a bowl of ravioli, peace" when in reality they support putting up a wall between Mexico and the U.S. You can't want to build a WALL between us and anybody and then say "peace" when you are having a casual conversation with your peers. Nut up and say "war" and support your beliefs, stop pussy-footing around subject matter just because you're not at your big pro-war rally wearing your "Go Bush" cheesehead hat. If you say "peace" mean it or I will punch you in the face.
If you are going to put up an away message, please for the sake of baby Jesus do not use song lyrics that you heard on the radio. When Corey Taylor writes lyrics for Stone Sour (formerly of Slipknot renown) he is not being deep, he is being accessible. His lyrics can mean anything and that's why he is "so hot right now." He rights lyrics to make thirteen year-old girls think that somebody truly understands them...and that somebody used to wear a Hellraiser mask while he sang about his feelings.
11/26/06
The Predicament of Facebook
I do not decieve myself when I think about why I like to use the peer-networking site Facebook. The reason this bothers mention is because a lot of people on Facebook think they actually use the site for its descriptive purpose; they think they use it because it connects them with their friends. The dark truth behind Facebook is that it is not constructed around "friendship" based relationships at all, or perhaps a more progressively minded individual would say that Facebook and sites like it are redefining the word of friendship, but I think that is giving up far too much credit to the creators of said sites.
I don't use Facebook because I like keeping up to date on my friends' lives. In fact, I rarely check my friends' profiles and the truth is I don't care that a guy I went to high school with just read Gulliver's Travels and it changed his fucking life. These are legitimate, true friends I am talking about. I would attend these peoples' weddings, I would invite them to BBQs, I would bail them out of a fight. But I seriously don't care about half of the stuff people put up on their profiles. But I still fill my profile with shit I am confident nobody else I knows cares about either. My roommate Matt doesn't have to read my Facebook profile to know that I have a newfangled obsession with the band TV on the Radio, he just has to walk into my bedroom whenever I am playing music. Why do I bother? Why do I list seventeen of my favorite bands if nobody is going to read it? I take more time judging whether or not a band should truly be qualified as a "favorite" or not than all of my friends will spend reading the list in its entirety.
The reason I do this is to expand my social capital. I jump like a crazed baboon anytime I see that I have a new friend waiting in the ranks to join my "elite" list of 329 friends. I can't even name half of the people on that list, but I will add even the most casual of acquaintances in a heartbeat, and I will PORE over their interests with a fine-toothed comb. I just became " Facebook friends" with a guy named Manny with whom I had (at most) five minutes of solid conversation with. Five minutes. I learned a little bit about the guy, but if he called me and asked to borrow two hundred bucks I would remove my phone number from my Facebook profile. This is what Facebook has created in the new social landscape of career-bound twentysomethings. We meet, date, hookup, work, and compete with hundreds of casual strangers, and all off a sudden this qualifies for immediate social connection. Manny has at his fingertips the single most powerful (and terrifying) use for Facebook; Manny can construct my life's narrative however he pleases and there isn't shit I can do about it. I can add clever quotes or funny ones, I can post pictures, I can say that I like to eat cheese and drink wine, but none of that really matters. What matters is how Manny percieves the information I provide, and there is no fucking way I can shape the perceptions of 300+ people that I know on varying degrees, especially when several of them I haven't seen since I had a bowl cut.
So I like to construct narratives. I like to decide if your religious views hold true to the pictures I see posted with you chugging your beers. I like to bathe in your hypocrisy, but on the lighter side, I also like to glimpse at the little unique qualities about people that come through. A wall post really doesn't say anything, "Did you see the Broncos game?" coming from my buddy Garrett is nowhere as interesting as seeing that he posted it at 5.12am, undoubtedly sitting in his boxers. Don't get me wrong, the real life comes through, but Facebook is making it so that you have to dig a hell of a lot deeper.
I don't use Facebook because I like keeping up to date on my friends' lives. In fact, I rarely check my friends' profiles and the truth is I don't care that a guy I went to high school with just read Gulliver's Travels and it changed his fucking life. These are legitimate, true friends I am talking about. I would attend these peoples' weddings, I would invite them to BBQs, I would bail them out of a fight. But I seriously don't care about half of the stuff people put up on their profiles. But I still fill my profile with shit I am confident nobody else I knows cares about either. My roommate Matt doesn't have to read my Facebook profile to know that I have a newfangled obsession with the band TV on the Radio, he just has to walk into my bedroom whenever I am playing music. Why do I bother? Why do I list seventeen of my favorite bands if nobody is going to read it? I take more time judging whether or not a band should truly be qualified as a "favorite" or not than all of my friends will spend reading the list in its entirety.
The reason I do this is to expand my social capital. I jump like a crazed baboon anytime I see that I have a new friend waiting in the ranks to join my "elite" list of 329 friends. I can't even name half of the people on that list, but I will add even the most casual of acquaintances in a heartbeat, and I will PORE over their interests with a fine-toothed comb. I just became " Facebook friends" with a guy named Manny with whom I had (at most) five minutes of solid conversation with. Five minutes. I learned a little bit about the guy, but if he called me and asked to borrow two hundred bucks I would remove my phone number from my Facebook profile. This is what Facebook has created in the new social landscape of career-bound twentysomethings. We meet, date, hookup, work, and compete with hundreds of casual strangers, and all off a sudden this qualifies for immediate social connection. Manny has at his fingertips the single most powerful (and terrifying) use for Facebook; Manny can construct my life's narrative however he pleases and there isn't shit I can do about it. I can add clever quotes or funny ones, I can post pictures, I can say that I like to eat cheese and drink wine, but none of that really matters. What matters is how Manny percieves the information I provide, and there is no fucking way I can shape the perceptions of 300+ people that I know on varying degrees, especially when several of them I haven't seen since I had a bowl cut.
So I like to construct narratives. I like to decide if your religious views hold true to the pictures I see posted with you chugging your beers. I like to bathe in your hypocrisy, but on the lighter side, I also like to glimpse at the little unique qualities about people that come through. A wall post really doesn't say anything, "Did you see the Broncos game?" coming from my buddy Garrett is nowhere as interesting as seeing that he posted it at 5.12am, undoubtedly sitting in his boxers. Don't get me wrong, the real life comes through, but Facebook is making it so that you have to dig a hell of a lot deeper.
Largely Irrational Fear
This is an interesting article relating to something that I think about a lot, which is largely irrational fear. We tend to be afraid of the big, hollywood-blockbuster style catastrophic events but ignore all of the little things we actually have control over.
11/24/06
The CromagueBlogue
Friends, as the sage and prophet Ba' Diluh' said, the times they are a'changing. Not long ago I was just arriving at work when I realized I'd left my club back at the cave. I turned around and began the two week journey from the hunting lands back to my habitable environs. When I got there, my mate seemed startled and asked what I was doing. I said I forgot my club. She said that she didn't expect to see me for a few months at least. And then she laid into me about where are the fresh kills?!? I told her to stop her bitching and brushed past her into the cave and on the floor of the fire-pit room was a loin-cloth that definitely wasn't mine. And she doesn't wear loin-clothes. Who is he? I demanded of her. How long has it been going on? She didn't answer, so I took my club and left. A couple years ago, that kind of shit didn't happen.
11/22/06
cromablog test beta
me use phone mash numbers lady with hot robot voice talk to me, me never try to fight urges so me have phone sex with her, she keeps saying please hang up and try again, me not need to hang up and try again, me work the first time. me different than others me no think about consequences but me more practical than even pragmatic americans who pride on that trait cuz me do whatever me wants whenever me wants, eat, poop, sleep, me more in tune with body and body's needs than most new age peoples, me know what me wants and me wants to eat meat and me knows me family has dog, sister, fish pond all of which could provide meat, me hungry, me tired, me going to sleep me have no opinion on sunsets.
On Relationships
Cromagblog beta-testing post:
Today I walking down street when I see coming other direction an old ex-girlfriend, I think her name Becca. Becca seem to have done quite well for herself, having nice clothes and more important very nice boyfriend. This initially make me rather jealous, because I think maybe I no longer adequate as a man. Maybe I no longer able to attract females at breakneck pace of old days, maybe it time to hang up hat. This thinking make me take pause because I shocked at my own reaction to situation. I realize I getting old and more docile in later years of 23. Soon I be old man and no longer hunt or chase women, I only sit around house and paint. My father die when he was ripe old age of 33, and I determined to not go out any sooner than that old rotten pile of sour cream. At this point Becca is solid quarter mile down block, so I turn around and chase. At first she not notice and then she see me and smile and wave. Her boyfriend also see me but he see look on my face and tries to take a karate stance like in movies. This make me laugh because karate do not work against club. Club makes nice handshake with new boyfriend, they exchange business cards and pleasantries. He lying on ground asking club for cell phone number and I grab Becca but she has look on her face like she know this coming. She have look on face like she feel sad for me. This make me even madder because woman have outsmarted me again, and me feel ashamed because my behavior so easily predictable. I hang my head and grab club and kick boyfriend and walk further down street alone. I get nice cafe mochachino to help soul feel better, but it not work so I smash car. Car is owner's car so I smash owner. I feel little bit better at end of day, but apartment still one bedroom apartment and bed still twin bed, only room for one.
Today I walking down street when I see coming other direction an old ex-girlfriend, I think her name Becca. Becca seem to have done quite well for herself, having nice clothes and more important very nice boyfriend. This initially make me rather jealous, because I think maybe I no longer adequate as a man. Maybe I no longer able to attract females at breakneck pace of old days, maybe it time to hang up hat. This thinking make me take pause because I shocked at my own reaction to situation. I realize I getting old and more docile in later years of 23. Soon I be old man and no longer hunt or chase women, I only sit around house and paint. My father die when he was ripe old age of 33, and I determined to not go out any sooner than that old rotten pile of sour cream. At this point Becca is solid quarter mile down block, so I turn around and chase. At first she not notice and then she see me and smile and wave. Her boyfriend also see me but he see look on my face and tries to take a karate stance like in movies. This make me laugh because karate do not work against club. Club makes nice handshake with new boyfriend, they exchange business cards and pleasantries. He lying on ground asking club for cell phone number and I grab Becca but she has look on her face like she know this coming. She have look on face like she feel sad for me. This make me even madder because woman have outsmarted me again, and me feel ashamed because my behavior so easily predictable. I hang my head and grab club and kick boyfriend and walk further down street alone. I get nice cafe mochachino to help soul feel better, but it not work so I smash car. Car is owner's car so I smash owner. I feel little bit better at end of day, but apartment still one bedroom apartment and bed still twin bed, only room for one.
11/21/06
borat babel
so I have seen some movies recently, two of them being "Borat" and "Babel" which I will elaborate on a bit. On the surface these are two of the most different movies out there. Borat, for starters, is the brainchild of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen previously better known for "Da Ali G Show." "Borat" is just about the rowdiest shit I have ever seen in my life. I went opening night in Emeryville which is a good crowd to see a movie in a packed house, lots of people dressed up in character, more like a sports game than a quiet viewing. Anyways, unlike most "funny" movies, borat presents comedy in the form of incredibly out of control awkward and uncomfortable situations that at times leave you fearing for Baron Cohen's safety and leave you awestruck at the size of his testes. The laughter though isn't the kind of gut pounding funny, it is more the kind of laughter where you are so shocked and awed that you know you have to react somehow, you just don't know exactly how so you revert to the lowest, safest common denominator of laughing. All of Borat's interactions are so awkward and uncomfortable that I eventually found myself feeling at first very nervous for everything he did and then just ultimately helpless for his victims and the situations as they unfolded.
"Babel" on the other hand is a devastatingly dark and beautiful film by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, the often mispelled director of other devastingly dark and beautiful films like "Amorres Perros" and "21 Grams" which I think I saw with a number of ye fuckres in WW. This movie was a real fucking thinker which made it even better that I got stoned out of my mind right before seeing it. The plot itself is rather basic, some chaos butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and causes Drew to orgasm in Idaho theory shit, but for some reason that is a gold mine of a topic area to make you think about ideas like interconnectedness, causal shit and all that hoo-hah goodness. About 2/3 of the way through the movie, which I think I aptly described to a friend afterwards as "bruising my soul but the colors of the bruise were hella pretty," I realized as I watched terrible event after terrible event go down in a seriously pre-destined first semester core sorta way I realized I was experiencing the same sort of helpless feeling as I did in Borat. Well that's about it I guess, hella words to say borat=babel because of helpless feeling, god bless language.
so you might notice at the beginning of this there are hella links like in a real blog and then I fuckin stopped that shit real quick, well A) it's because my Safari interface doesn't let you link without typing in the code and B) I am not a real blogger, I am so fake, but my shit woulda been hella funny and gotten more ridiculous, like with links for "Africa" and "Drew" that were mildly humorous attempts at visual metaphor. breath.
"Babel" on the other hand is a devastatingly dark and beautiful film by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, the often mispelled director of other devastingly dark and beautiful films like "Amorres Perros" and "21 Grams" which I think I saw with a number of ye fuckres in WW. This movie was a real fucking thinker which made it even better that I got stoned out of my mind right before seeing it. The plot itself is rather basic, some chaos butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and causes Drew to orgasm in Idaho theory shit, but for some reason that is a gold mine of a topic area to make you think about ideas like interconnectedness, causal shit and all that hoo-hah goodness. About 2/3 of the way through the movie, which I think I aptly described to a friend afterwards as "bruising my soul but the colors of the bruise were hella pretty," I realized as I watched terrible event after terrible event go down in a seriously pre-destined first semester core sorta way I realized I was experiencing the same sort of helpless feeling as I did in Borat. Well that's about it I guess, hella words to say borat=babel because of helpless feeling, god bless language.
so you might notice at the beginning of this there are hella links like in a real blog and then I fuckin stopped that shit real quick, well A) it's because my Safari interface doesn't let you link without typing in the code and B) I am not a real blogger, I am so fake, but my shit woulda been hella funny and gotten more ridiculous, like with links for "Africa" and "Drew" that were mildly humorous attempts at visual metaphor. breath.
11/20/06
Anyone up for a blogging anachronism?
I want to start a new fictional blog called Cromagblog that is written from the first-person perspective of a caveman (Cromagnon man for the anthropological dorks in the crowd.) I think I can pulls this off because I have a good imagination and sometimes I think that I am a caveman. Sometimes I get the urge to just eat a cat. Sometimes I see a guy with his girlfriend and I think "If I kill him, she will be my girlfriend." Even though my educated mind tells me not to do these things, I still think them, and maybe Cromagblog can be a nice indulgence of my more animalistic tendencies. Plus I think Aaron Mandel would be an excellent contributing writer. Perhaps he could have his own columns on body hair and shitting in the nature. Cromagblog could be just what nobody is looking for, but we could have some nice graphics of cavemen adorning the front page so when visitors come in they will think "the content of this blog is absolute bullshit, but the layout is nice." Most people don't think cavemen and graphic design mix, but I guess they just haven't seen how a mastodon skull can really tie a room together.
Open Letter to the U.S. Government
Dear U.S. Government (those in charge of jets);
I solemnly swear that if you give me a fighter jet I promise to uphold all the rights of America by kicking major ass using said fighter jet. I would prefer something like an A-10 Warthog so that I don't get shot down easily (I hear they have armor) but really anything will do. I don't want to go looking a gift horse in the mouth. But if said "gift horse" happens to threaten the homeland, I will blow the entire horse farm to the moon, and if those surviving horses happen to start a moon colony that gets all righteous about the U.S. NOT owning space (which is bullshit, we own space) then I will retrofit my newly betrothed A-10 and I will make it fly into outer space and I will bomb the surviving horse farm colony all the way to Mars, and the whole ordeal will start over again because everyone knows we also own Mars.
Reading back through the opening of this letter, I do believe I just threatened you (U.S. Government; those in charge of jets) that if you yourself threaten the homeland then I will blow you to the moon and subsequently Mars. Since you are the gift horse, right? Did you even pick up on that? Probably not. You're probably just an intern and you don't even know where the jets are. You probably don't even know what an A-10 is (do I know what an A-10 is?) You probably have a better idea of how to get me a McGonnagal's flying broom than a fighter jet. Did you graduate from Georgetown? You'd better hope so, because if you graduated from William and Mary you had better hope to God I don't get that A-10, because if that school steps out of line it will be the first gift horse to get looked in the mouth with a missile.
I am digressing from my initial point which is that I want a jet and I want you to give it to me. I promise to act whenever prompted (at my own convenience) to uphold my own personal whims with said jet. If those whims happen to be homeland defense, so be it, but I will also take money bribes to fly over high school football and lacrosse games. For a nominally larger fee, I will also blow the lid off of any gymnasium and do a fly-over of volleyball games and pep rallies. I will also blow the lid off any government cover-ups free of charge, but that will be both a metaphorical "lid-blown-off" as well as finding the base of the cover up and blowing off its lid, so that all the plotters inside will run around like scared ants and I will be flying overhead in my government-issue jet screaming politely: "Run you little ants, run you little scheming ants!" Sometimes I might do that to Congress, but I am not a terrorist, because you gave me the jet. Don't ever forget that...you created me!
Thanks for the jet,
Drew
I solemnly swear that if you give me a fighter jet I promise to uphold all the rights of America by kicking major ass using said fighter jet. I would prefer something like an A-10 Warthog so that I don't get shot down easily (I hear they have armor) but really anything will do. I don't want to go looking a gift horse in the mouth. But if said "gift horse" happens to threaten the homeland, I will blow the entire horse farm to the moon, and if those surviving horses happen to start a moon colony that gets all righteous about the U.S. NOT owning space (which is bullshit, we own space) then I will retrofit my newly betrothed A-10 and I will make it fly into outer space and I will bomb the surviving horse farm colony all the way to Mars, and the whole ordeal will start over again because everyone knows we also own Mars.
Reading back through the opening of this letter, I do believe I just threatened you (U.S. Government; those in charge of jets) that if you yourself threaten the homeland then I will blow you to the moon and subsequently Mars. Since you are the gift horse, right? Did you even pick up on that? Probably not. You're probably just an intern and you don't even know where the jets are. You probably don't even know what an A-10 is (do I know what an A-10 is?) You probably have a better idea of how to get me a McGonnagal's flying broom than a fighter jet. Did you graduate from Georgetown? You'd better hope so, because if you graduated from William and Mary you had better hope to God I don't get that A-10, because if that school steps out of line it will be the first gift horse to get looked in the mouth with a missile.
I am digressing from my initial point which is that I want a jet and I want you to give it to me. I promise to act whenever prompted (at my own convenience) to uphold my own personal whims with said jet. If those whims happen to be homeland defense, so be it, but I will also take money bribes to fly over high school football and lacrosse games. For a nominally larger fee, I will also blow the lid off of any gymnasium and do a fly-over of volleyball games and pep rallies. I will also blow the lid off any government cover-ups free of charge, but that will be both a metaphorical "lid-blown-off" as well as finding the base of the cover up and blowing off its lid, so that all the plotters inside will run around like scared ants and I will be flying overhead in my government-issue jet screaming politely: "Run you little ants, run you little scheming ants!" Sometimes I might do that to Congress, but I am not a terrorist, because you gave me the jet. Don't ever forget that...you created me!
Thanks for the jet,
Drew
11/19/06
local news is priceless
from the 10pm local news here (paraphrased): "a man who woke up from a coma a few days ago has gone missing from the hospital where he was staying. He has a large medical scare on his head and is thought to be barefoot and confused."
11/18/06
High fashion...?
A fashion company titled simply Etro has got the brass balls to try and sell eyepatches as a fashion statement. What's next? Designer peg legs? Crutches? Hell, why not just slap a supermodel with fully functioning legs into a $10,000 wheelchair? You'll see them rolling up and down Rodeo Blvd. in no time, and high fashion will have successfully marginalized not only the poor and ugly but also the disabled. I love fashion.
Mr. Whistles.
I have realized today that you can't truly love something unless you hate a sliver of it, and for the sake of your love overlook that sliver. My love is football, my sliver is football fans. I attended Boise State's utter drubbing of Utah State today, and I had to endure the fan sitting behind me doing his high-pitched whistle into my ear every other second of the game. It seemed that this overly excited fellow found it necessary to show his support for even the smallest of victories by the home team. If a player managed to replace his shoe after losing it on the play, Mr. Whistles decided to give mad props and cheer the player's remarkable field vision for locating the missing shoe as well as an astounding dexterity by replacing the shoe with only one hand. I was tempted to let the Holy Spirit act through me and turn around and lay hands on the man, but I decided against it. I decided that perhaps Mr. Whistles' life sucked, and football was only thing worth living for. Maybe Mr. Whistles' gregarious exterior shown at tailgate parties was just a facade hiding his inner turmoil as middle life slowly destroyed what little soul was left from his youth. Maybe Mr. Whistles attends football games religiously because he has in fact lost God, or worse, God has looked upon Mr. Whistles and said "I forsake you." Perhaps football is the small thread keeping Mr. Whistles attached to sanity and Mr. Whistles, being who he is, can spin and twirl at the end of sanity like a small spider whistling his ass off at the smallest of occurrences on the football field because were he not to whistle he would no longer be named Mr. Whistles, and if he knew not who he was then the thread would break and he would tumble in the abyss.
Or perhaps Mr. Whistles is a jackass used car salesman who can't get it up and still thinks gold medallions are fashionable.
Or perhaps Mr. Whistles is a jackass used car salesman who can't get it up and still thinks gold medallions are fashionable.
11/14/06
honestly fuck this
i have been trying to write something on the blog for over a week and I cannot fucking do it. How fuckin emo sissy motherfuckin bullshit is blog writers block, somebody shoot me in the fucking face with a bullet full of goddam Dengue Fever. Here is shit I would like to soon blog about:
a comparison of movies I've seen recently (Borat, Babel, The Departed, mainly the first two due to unforseen similarities)
how much banks and hospitals suck, especially ones I frequent
where we are in life right now
suck a dick my brain, sincerely the pissed off brain, fight on bloggernauts, into the sphere, I am the smooth palmed messiah, side effects include rotten ass fingernails.
Aaron
a comparison of movies I've seen recently (Borat, Babel, The Departed, mainly the first two due to unforseen similarities)
how much banks and hospitals suck, especially ones I frequent
where we are in life right now
suck a dick my brain, sincerely the pissed off brain, fight on bloggernauts, into the sphere, I am the smooth palmed messiah, side effects include rotten ass fingernails.
Aaron
11/10/06
Smooth Palmed Messiah
Look at your hands. The palm part. See how there are wrinkles? Well, those wrinkles have been there since you were in fetus mode. The way your hands were clawed up all the way back in your mom's womb/test-tube makes for the wrinkles you have now.
I have a vision, friends, of a smooth palmed messiah. People talk about positive eugenics, like making babies bulletproof and cancer proof and stain resistant and stuff, but hear me out. I want science to go in there and open a kid's hands up so when he or she is born, they will have smooth palms.
This person will be pampered unlike anyone else. You know how Chinese emporers used to grow their fingernails long to show that they didn't have to do plebian shit like shovel dirt and open drawers? Well, smooth palmed messiah is gonna have to get top-notch treatment too so that their hands never have to fold and form wrinkles.
By the time smooth palmed messiah reaches adulthood, the nature of their smooth palms will be so fantastic that people will instantly go into zealous states of religiosity in his or her presence. Smooth palmed messiah will be able to stop wars by simply raising a hand. A beautifully smooth palmed hand.
Await the coming of smooth palmed messiah.
I have a vision, friends, of a smooth palmed messiah. People talk about positive eugenics, like making babies bulletproof and cancer proof and stain resistant and stuff, but hear me out. I want science to go in there and open a kid's hands up so when he or she is born, they will have smooth palms.
This person will be pampered unlike anyone else. You know how Chinese emporers used to grow their fingernails long to show that they didn't have to do plebian shit like shovel dirt and open drawers? Well, smooth palmed messiah is gonna have to get top-notch treatment too so that their hands never have to fold and form wrinkles.
By the time smooth palmed messiah reaches adulthood, the nature of their smooth palms will be so fantastic that people will instantly go into zealous states of religiosity in his or her presence. Smooth palmed messiah will be able to stop wars by simply raising a hand. A beautifully smooth palmed hand.
Await the coming of smooth palmed messiah.
11/9/06
Board Game Heaven
Board games remind me of log cabins. Log cabins used to be legitimate forms of housing. You would cut an oxen-sized swath through the great American wilderness and when winter started breathing down your neck (back in the day you knew winter was coming because one of your kids died) you would chop down a bunch of trees, build a log cabin, and live in it. Your whole family would live in it. One room. One room means sex in front of the kids. You need kids to work the fields, so you had to get used to having sex in front of your own children. Nowadays, log cabins are just a gimmick. You might have a house in the woods, and it might have logs attached to the outside, but it sure as hell is not a log cabin. People only stay in log cabins nowadays for the irony of it, like "look at us, its gusty and we don't have television. We're like the settlers." Board games have a similar history. They used to be the only form of gaming entertainment available. You played Monopoly or you built a puzzle or you watched your parents have sex. That was it. Nowadays people play board games as some sort of half-assed attempt at getting back to "the roots" or whatever. Families will play board games on family night in order to bond, like they will go out and stay in a log cabin for a few days. Then, just like log cabins, after playing a board game for a while you realize that it sucks. Even a fun game, like Settlers of Catan, sucks after a while. I haven't played that game in months, and I am never like "I wish I was playing Settlers of Catan right now." Even at work, where I want to die from boredom, I don't want to play Settlers. Board games are boring, and that's the bottom line.
11/6/06
RE: My Biopic
If you've read the contributor profiles to your left, you may have seen I set out 6 months ago to find some sexy, sexy gold. It's no Captain Bart's treasure, but I don't have to worry about those ferrari payments any longer.
My hand overfloweth.
My hand overfloweth.
11/5/06
What constitutes news?
Tonight during Sunday Night Football there was a local news spot that went something like this:
- "Local farmer "Uncle" Ben Turkington awoke Sunday morning to see three of his steers injured. He blames local pit bulls, but the Sheriff's department have no witnesses, and no proof that it was the pit bulls."
Thanks, KNDV news. I was really worried about Uncle Ben's steers. I mean, his steers do a lot for the community. They sit there, being steers, and hopefully someday they will produce sausage and beef. The pit bulls, on the other hand, do nothing but run amok around town kidnapping children and stealing the television sets of elderly. There are rumors that the pit bulls are also racists, because it is rumored that they are specifically targeting the elderly. The pit bulls accuse the elderly race of abusing social services and leeching millions of dollars out of the health care system. The pit bulls have not made any official statements, but their leaders did release a short, poorly-focused film of what experts say is the leader of the pit bull gang, Sparks. Sparks is known throughout several local neighborhoods for, quote "shitting in yards." Prior to this incident the pit bulls transmitted a message of non-violent social change, but tensions have been high between the bulls and the steers, with tensions hitting their peak when the pit bulls made several negative statements regarding the steers noticeable lack of reproductive organs.
- "Local farmer "Uncle" Ben Turkington awoke Sunday morning to see three of his steers injured. He blames local pit bulls, but the Sheriff's department have no witnesses, and no proof that it was the pit bulls."
Thanks, KNDV news. I was really worried about Uncle Ben's steers. I mean, his steers do a lot for the community. They sit there, being steers, and hopefully someday they will produce sausage and beef. The pit bulls, on the other hand, do nothing but run amok around town kidnapping children and stealing the television sets of elderly. There are rumors that the pit bulls are also racists, because it is rumored that they are specifically targeting the elderly. The pit bulls accuse the elderly race of abusing social services and leeching millions of dollars out of the health care system. The pit bulls have not made any official statements, but their leaders did release a short, poorly-focused film of what experts say is the leader of the pit bull gang, Sparks. Sparks is known throughout several local neighborhoods for, quote "shitting in yards." Prior to this incident the pit bulls transmitted a message of non-violent social change, but tensions have been high between the bulls and the steers, with tensions hitting their peak when the pit bulls made several negative statements regarding the steers noticeable lack of reproductive organs.
11/4/06
Modern Medicine
Today I did something new, I got a drive-in flu shot. I went to the parking garage of the hospital near my house, followed the sign that said "proceed to the 5th floor for the flu" and didn't even have to get out of my car. Now that's convenience!
11/1/06
The Unexplained.
Throughout ones life there are various experiences that will lead you to believe in the paranormal. The following is a few of my observations that lead me to believe that there are "others" among us.
-Every time I turn on the water to take a shower, the nozzle is always aimed outside of the shower as far as possible, causing me to make a catastrophic decision: do I wet my clean towel sopping up the floor or do I keep my towel dry and give a hearty aqueous "fuck you" to my neighbors downstairs as the collecting water slowly drips onto their duvet cover? The ghosts obviously find my naked moral dilemmas hilarious.
-Every time I like a girl, it always turns out that she is actually a man. I am convinced this has to do with lycanthropy. Lycanthropy, for those of you uneducated in the ancient tales, is the condition exhibited by humans who turn into horrendous combinations of man and beast during certain times of the day or month. Werewolves are a prime example of lycanthropes. I think that when I begin hitting on these "women" they are in fact women, but after I have had a few beers the moon emerges from the clouds and their adam's apple practically punches me in the face.
-Every time I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and the moon is visible, I glance out the window to see a pale hairless man sitting atop a nearby house. He is always staring directly at the moon with his glowing red eyeballs. He will slowly turn his head, clockwise, until his chin is above his nose and then he will fix my gaze until I can bring my screaming consciousness back into my body and hurry past the window to try and get what remaining urine I have in my bladder into the toilet without becoming so cripplingly terrified that I pull my own teeth in horror. I call him the moon man.
-Every time I turn on the water to take a shower, the nozzle is always aimed outside of the shower as far as possible, causing me to make a catastrophic decision: do I wet my clean towel sopping up the floor or do I keep my towel dry and give a hearty aqueous "fuck you" to my neighbors downstairs as the collecting water slowly drips onto their duvet cover? The ghosts obviously find my naked moral dilemmas hilarious.
-Every time I like a girl, it always turns out that she is actually a man. I am convinced this has to do with lycanthropy. Lycanthropy, for those of you uneducated in the ancient tales, is the condition exhibited by humans who turn into horrendous combinations of man and beast during certain times of the day or month. Werewolves are a prime example of lycanthropes. I think that when I begin hitting on these "women" they are in fact women, but after I have had a few beers the moon emerges from the clouds and their adam's apple practically punches me in the face.
-Every time I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and the moon is visible, I glance out the window to see a pale hairless man sitting atop a nearby house. He is always staring directly at the moon with his glowing red eyeballs. He will slowly turn his head, clockwise, until his chin is above his nose and then he will fix my gaze until I can bring my screaming consciousness back into my body and hurry past the window to try and get what remaining urine I have in my bladder into the toilet without becoming so cripplingly terrified that I pull my own teeth in horror. I call him the moon man.
10/31/06
The tale of Jack Lantern.
Many people consider Halloween just another commercial holiday that is all about showing some cleavage and putting razors in apples. Halloween is really about celebrating the myth of Jack Lantern. The autumn before the harsh winter that devastated George Washington's armies during the great revolution was abound with crops and the villagers rejoiced. The greatest landowner in all of northern Connecticut was Mr. Jack Lantern, who's parents migrated from south Wales two generations earlier to humble beginnings but through hard work Jack's grandparents and parents left his with a rather large estate. Since Mr. Lantern owned the most land, he also owned the most crops. The people of the surrounding villages waited eagerly for the end of harvest feast where they would come from miles around to share their bounty and be merry together. Mr. Lantern, however, was a greedy man and decided not to attend. His crops, as a result, were to be absent from the celebration as well. The villagers were very unhappy. For many centuries, since the beginning of time, these people had shared their harvests, long before the indians they had run off the land. The villagers decided that Mr. Lantern was to be persuaded to share his harvests, for it was likely that many would starve and possibly die if Jack Lantern let his harvests rot in the barns over the winter.
As it happens, Jack Lantern had predicted just such a reaction. A man with a weakness for the Devil's libation, Jack had spent the several hours before sunset preparing himself to fend off the villagers with copious amounts of corn mash whiskey and a rather large stockpile of muskets. When the villagers approached the house, Jack climbed to the highest point of his rather large estate and began to make a show of himself. As the angry villagers screamed and yelled, Jack cursed back at them, the whole time drinking his mash whiskey. Anyone familiar with mash whiskey knows that it is not lacking in alcoholic content, and so when Jack Lantern decided that he would have a smoke of his pipe before he began to drunkenly murder the townsfolk trespassing on his land, the villagers jointly grimaced. As Jack heartily puffed on the pipe, the match flared and Jack's belly full of corn mash ignited into flames. Jack was immolating from the inside, and as he stumbled around in agony with the villagers looking on in horror, he tripped and fell, neatly severing off his head on a nearby gargoyle. The head, burning from within, rolled across the yard and neatly stopped in front of the barn, the glow from Jack's eyeballs lighting the sundry crops that were contained within. The villagers rejoiced and marched old Jack's head around town, and it burned and burned all throughout the feast, and all were merry and glad. Ever since that day, we carve pumpkins and light them with a candle from within so that we always remember the day that Jack Lantern got drunk and climbed on his roof.
As it happens, Jack Lantern had predicted just such a reaction. A man with a weakness for the Devil's libation, Jack had spent the several hours before sunset preparing himself to fend off the villagers with copious amounts of corn mash whiskey and a rather large stockpile of muskets. When the villagers approached the house, Jack climbed to the highest point of his rather large estate and began to make a show of himself. As the angry villagers screamed and yelled, Jack cursed back at them, the whole time drinking his mash whiskey. Anyone familiar with mash whiskey knows that it is not lacking in alcoholic content, and so when Jack Lantern decided that he would have a smoke of his pipe before he began to drunkenly murder the townsfolk trespassing on his land, the villagers jointly grimaced. As Jack heartily puffed on the pipe, the match flared and Jack's belly full of corn mash ignited into flames. Jack was immolating from the inside, and as he stumbled around in agony with the villagers looking on in horror, he tripped and fell, neatly severing off his head on a nearby gargoyle. The head, burning from within, rolled across the yard and neatly stopped in front of the barn, the glow from Jack's eyeballs lighting the sundry crops that were contained within. The villagers rejoiced and marched old Jack's head around town, and it burned and burned all throughout the feast, and all were merry and glad. Ever since that day, we carve pumpkins and light them with a candle from within so that we always remember the day that Jack Lantern got drunk and climbed on his roof.
Greedy Bastards
Happy Halloween.
Walk up and down main street with your kids in costumes. Or not in costumes. It doesn't really matter. You'll get candy either way. If the kid is in a costume, they have this sense of entitlement. Like they're owed candy for their effort. Whereas if they don't have a costume on, you feel sorry for them 'cuz maybe they couldn't afford one or whatever, so some candy (or maybe a Monopoly gameboard) would probably brighten their day.
Trick-or-treating on main street is easy because all the local business are handing that shit out. Working the tasting room of a major winery is a trip though because just about every other parent is like "Uh, are these the trick-or-treats for me?" and points at the wine. Yeah, like I'm gonna give you a bottle of wine because you dressed up like a nine to five slap-dick.
Also, what's the deal with older kids trick-or-treating? At what age does Halloween go from being scary/candy to being an expression of sexuality? Whores and/or crack whores abound. And they're turning tricks for fucking candy. I have a liberal-arts urge here to go into something about how Americans don't want to own their sexuality, so they express it through costumes and put-ons, but I also have an urge to dress like a slutty pirate. Apparently this holiday has connections back to pagan stuff that the stuffy Christians were not okay with. And that makes sense.
Walk up and down main street with your kids in costumes. Or not in costumes. It doesn't really matter. You'll get candy either way. If the kid is in a costume, they have this sense of entitlement. Like they're owed candy for their effort. Whereas if they don't have a costume on, you feel sorry for them 'cuz maybe they couldn't afford one or whatever, so some candy (or maybe a Monopoly gameboard) would probably brighten their day.
Trick-or-treating on main street is easy because all the local business are handing that shit out. Working the tasting room of a major winery is a trip though because just about every other parent is like "Uh, are these the trick-or-treats for me?" and points at the wine. Yeah, like I'm gonna give you a bottle of wine because you dressed up like a nine to five slap-dick.
Also, what's the deal with older kids trick-or-treating? At what age does Halloween go from being scary/candy to being an expression of sexuality? Whores and/or crack whores abound. And they're turning tricks for fucking candy. I have a liberal-arts urge here to go into something about how Americans don't want to own their sexuality, so they express it through costumes and put-ons, but I also have an urge to dress like a slutty pirate. Apparently this holiday has connections back to pagan stuff that the stuffy Christians were not okay with. And that makes sense.
10/29/06
The wizard has used magiks to rise the sun an hour sooner!
I woke up this morning to my alarm because I have to work on a day of rest, and when I peeked at my cell phone I discovered the glory that is daylight savings time. At least, the Fall Back part of daylight savings time. Spring Ahead sucks. What shall you do with your extra hour? I sat in bed like a carp stranded on the pavement after a flood. I also ate a piece of cold pizza, the best breakfast ever discovered by mankind.
For those internet geeks out there, Firefox 2 came out a few days ago, and I updated to make myself feel cool, even though I have NO CLUE what is going on with Laguna Beach this season.
For those internet geeks out there, Firefox 2 came out a few days ago, and I updated to make myself feel cool, even though I have NO CLUE what is going on with Laguna Beach this season.
10/27/06
Tales from the other side of the hallway.
Perhaps some of you will be unable to relate to the simple musings of a working man such as myself, but if a man hates his job it is his god-given right to complain about it until the reaper comes for him. In this case the reaper would be in the form of a several thousand gallon tank of wine suddenly snapping its stainless steel supports and rolling across a concrete floor slick with stagnant hosewater like the giant stone ball boobytrap from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My particular form of bitching about my labor-intensive wage job is to complain about my working hours. I never get enough sleep. Do I stay up too late? Sure, I'm a young man and I don't have any other time to catch up on browsing eBay for a $1.99 used copy of Beverly Hills Cop 3 and measuring my penis length with a neon yellow translucent ruler. The trick is to use metric. My point is more often than not my bitching has no culprit other than myself, so my white-hot Latin temper has no target other than myself, but my ice-cold Latin ego cools it right off, so I end up feeling very good about myself. However, last night was a different story. I am laying soundly in bed with the heaters churning out a toasty 80+ degree sleeping sauna when I am awoken by the small runt of a boy that lives across the hall with his sister and aunt (his actual relation to these women is unclear, but these are the titles I have given them so that their interactions at least make some sort of sense) yelling for his aunt to "give him his Monopoly game." It is 2:30am and this "family" has been fighting all night, sometimes shaking the house. A friend Chris commented after a particularly loud shudder: "that sounds like someone getting thrown against a wall." I thought it was someone getting hit with an oversized plastic baseball bat, but I have bad hearing. The runt is met with no luck; his aunt does not give him his precious Monopoly. Instead she threatens to call the cops. Waking up at the end of your neighbors' domestic abuse situation only to hear the conclusion:
"Give me my Monopoly game"
"No, go away or I'll call the cops."
Makes your groggy mind try to wrap itself around some form of reality, but it can't. there is no context I can imagine that would merit someone being so adamant about someone else NOT having Monopoly that they would threaten to involve the police department. What's more is that the other person took that as a legitimate threat and walked away. Monopoly is a popular game, but give me a break.
"Give me my Monopoly game"
"No, go away or I'll call the cops."
Makes your groggy mind try to wrap itself around some form of reality, but it can't. there is no context I can imagine that would merit someone being so adamant about someone else NOT having Monopoly that they would threaten to involve the police department. What's more is that the other person took that as a legitimate threat and walked away. Monopoly is a popular game, but give me a break.
10/26/06
Whatever happened to robotic avengers?
I remember back in the day when the television was literally overrun by walking robotic artilleries whooping ass on all kinds of evil monsters and space aliens. Do your remember Voltron? Transformers? Power Rangers? Mobile Suit Gundam? Big Guy and Rusty? Even if you don't remember the details, I'm sure your parents can relate to you at least one instance when you were barely tall enough to get into a chair but you were throwing kicks and punches in front of the television screen as Optimus Prime decided that the dumptruck Decepticon needed a one-way ticket to the scrapyard (robot graveyard.)
I was never truly fulfilled as a tv watching youngster until I discovered the robot shows. I was painfully dissatsfied with Sesame Street, my first television experience to my recollection. The show was filled with implausible creatures and fantastical events! The lowercase "b" cannot sing the blues!
I was never truly fulfilled as a tv watching youngster until I discovered the robot shows. I was painfully dissatsfied with Sesame Street, my first television experience to my recollection. The show was filled with implausible creatures and fantastical events! The lowercase "b" cannot sing the blues!
10/23/06
Sea Turtles Bring Peace to Middle East
There are some endangered sea turtles that call Lebanon their home, and somewhere in the midst of all our relgious and political squabbling we forgot to ask the turtles what they really wanted. Did we ask the turtles if we could drop phosphorous bombs all over the Hamas rebels? No. The sea turtles wouldn't want anything to do with bombs, because bombs look like the mortal enemy of the sea turtle, the bowling ball. I am sure that if Israel just realized that there were baby sea turtles, INNOCENT baby sea turtles dying every day so that some silly thousand-year long war could get settled that they would re-think a little bit; perhaps it would make them take pause, and contemplate on the sea turtle. What is a sea turtle? What are its traits? What are its markings and its territorial behaviors? Do sea turtles have the same faith as land turtles? If not, should the sea turtles preemptively strike at the land turtles just in case the land turtles decide they want the beach that the sea turtles use to lay eggs? These are the types of questions that leaders in the Middle East need to be thinking about. Thinking about the nature of these turtles. They are defensive creatures, they have shells and talk like Southern California beach-bums. These turtles wouldn't harm a fly except for the Lebanese fly, the main diet of the sea turtle. These turtles are thought to be blue, sometimes green, both colors that are important in old English heraldry. Blue stands for brave, and green stands for "of virile seed." So really, these are brave turtles, and virile turtles (they lay 1000 eggs) so perhaps we need to rethink war. Perhaps we need to focus on the important things in life. Perhaps we need to watch more boxing matches and football games, perhaps we need to play more Halo and practice shooting our firearms and just get our minds off of war for a while, because that is what the turtles would want. At least, that is what the turtles make you think the turtles want, due to their mind contol powers.
Drive-By Truckers
I've been exploring new music lately and come across a band of note. For those like me who mistakenly thought that modern rock music is a wasteland of indie noise-makers and nu-metal chowderheads, there is hope. The Drive-By Truckers are a hardrocking country outfit with as much significance as beer and pizza. Meaning that while it ain't gonna change your life, you love the hell out of it.
Sounding like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers filtered through the alternative and punk rock of the last couple decades, they are everything you could want from a rock outfit. Three guitar playing vocalists, all of whom with chops to spare, and a kickass rhythm section offering up driving anthemic rockers.
I recommend one of their most recent records, The Dirty South, which is half hard-rock and half accoustic balladry, as a prime example of their sound. Their rock-geek credentials are confirmed by their epic Southern Rock Opera, a two disc album telling the story of Skynyrd in the only form appropriate.
I went to Hot Poop (a local record store) today to pick up another of their albums and the owner slipped me a bonus LP of material. The contained cover of Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone is played with the passion of musicians who understand that rock & roll has deep roots, but that the tree it's yielded has a lot of room left to grow.
Sounding like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers filtered through the alternative and punk rock of the last couple decades, they are everything you could want from a rock outfit. Three guitar playing vocalists, all of whom with chops to spare, and a kickass rhythm section offering up driving anthemic rockers.
I recommend one of their most recent records, The Dirty South, which is half hard-rock and half accoustic balladry, as a prime example of their sound. Their rock-geek credentials are confirmed by their epic Southern Rock Opera, a two disc album telling the story of Skynyrd in the only form appropriate.
I went to Hot Poop (a local record store) today to pick up another of their albums and the owner slipped me a bonus LP of material. The contained cover of Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone is played with the passion of musicians who understand that rock & roll has deep roots, but that the tree it's yielded has a lot of room left to grow.
10/21/06
Wow.
This ranks as one of the most amazing video game experiences I have ever had. You can play it for five minutes or you can play it for an hour. This is truly remarkable.
Mental image.
Let's all play a game. It will be like the PBS show with the afro/sideburns guy telling you to paint "playful little trees" all over your picture. I'll tell you playful little images, and you pop them into your playful little head and let them swirl around until a nice, thick shake comes out.
I am sitting on the porch tonight, which is not an unusual occurence. If the weather is nice I like to plant myself in the self-proclaimed "observation tower" and watch the general populace of Walla Walla stroll by as I sit reclined in my plastic lawn chair like Lex Luthor sitting in his high-rise watching the ants of Metropolis scurry by, plotting how to kill his nemesis Superman. The only difference is that I don't want to kill anybody, I just want to watch them walk around and hopefully amuse myself along the way. A particularly playful game I like to play is ascribing context to the small snippet of each person's life that I see walking by. A man jogging at night with his dog? He must be blowing off steam after a fight with his girlfriend. She wanted to stay in, he wanted to go to the bar with some buddies or whatever.
Tonight I saw a peach of a passerby. A young man, probably no older than 25, walked hurriedly past the apartment with a determined look in his eye and a four-pack of some fruity alcoholic beverage, likely procured from the beer, hotdog and pornography store on the corner, the Apex. Now, what do YOU think a man of that age was doing sprinting away from a corner store with a four-pack of wine coolers? That's not enough for party...
I am sitting on the porch tonight, which is not an unusual occurence. If the weather is nice I like to plant myself in the self-proclaimed "observation tower" and watch the general populace of Walla Walla stroll by as I sit reclined in my plastic lawn chair like Lex Luthor sitting in his high-rise watching the ants of Metropolis scurry by, plotting how to kill his nemesis Superman. The only difference is that I don't want to kill anybody, I just want to watch them walk around and hopefully amuse myself along the way. A particularly playful game I like to play is ascribing context to the small snippet of each person's life that I see walking by. A man jogging at night with his dog? He must be blowing off steam after a fight with his girlfriend. She wanted to stay in, he wanted to go to the bar with some buddies or whatever.
Tonight I saw a peach of a passerby. A young man, probably no older than 25, walked hurriedly past the apartment with a determined look in his eye and a four-pack of some fruity alcoholic beverage, likely procured from the beer, hotdog and pornography store on the corner, the Apex. Now, what do YOU think a man of that age was doing sprinting away from a corner store with a four-pack of wine coolers? That's not enough for party...
10/19/06
Chapel of Joy.
I heard a radio advertisement today for a church. Not just any church either, it was for the glorious Chapel of Joy. When I picture a Chapel of Joy, I imagine something of a mix between the castle of King Kandy from Candyland and the horrific creations of the Japanese animators of movies like Spirited Away. I turns out that the Chapel of Joy is remarkably un-specatular, solely due to information provided in the radio commercial itself. When it comes time to finally tell the radio faithful where the Chapel of Joy is, the commercial says its "Right behind the beatiful temple of our Mormon friends." If you were giving someone directions, it isn't very helpful to say "my house is the black house behind the black house, you can't miss it." If your house is blue, then sweet. You can use the black house as a geographical "land-mark" to help your drug dealer easily locate your place of leisure and entertainment. So, using that "logic" that I just invented, it wouldn't be very helpful to the millionaire with money burning a hole in his pocket and a heart full of God that can only bet let loose at the Chapel of Heaven if the directions were "go to the beautiful temple behind the beautiful temple." What IS behind the Mormon temple in Pasco? A burned-out warehouse...612 Wharf Avenue to be exact.
The thing is, figuring out that the Chapel of Joy wasn't appealing to they eye wasn't even the best part of the commercial. The BESTEST part of the commercial was when the voice-over guy focused on how much FUN people had at the Chapel of Joy. One guy screams "we adobt villages in Africa...just for fun!!" Then they start proving it, goddamn it. They put up wells and libraries. Then they "let loose the fun" and sit back and simply "observe" this African village that they have made into a self-sustaining brainwashed zombie camp. I don't like the idea of relgious conservatives making a fucking ant farm out of a Zulu village...but I just can't get those cupcake-topped towers of the Chapel of Joy out of my head. I have to join.
The thing is, figuring out that the Chapel of Joy wasn't appealing to they eye wasn't even the best part of the commercial. The BESTEST part of the commercial was when the voice-over guy focused on how much FUN people had at the Chapel of Joy. One guy screams "we adobt villages in Africa...just for fun!!" Then they start proving it, goddamn it. They put up wells and libraries. Then they "let loose the fun" and sit back and simply "observe" this African village that they have made into a self-sustaining brainwashed zombie camp. I don't like the idea of relgious conservatives making a fucking ant farm out of a Zulu village...but I just can't get those cupcake-topped towers of the Chapel of Joy out of my head. I have to join.
10/18/06
Reverse Psychology.
Tonight I was going to blog about Marilyn Manson; specifically the post was going to prove that Marilyn Manson doesn't matter anymore despite his delusions that he "invented the thunder and the rain." Then I realized, what better way to thoroughly PROVE that Marilyn Manson does not matter than to actually exclude him from any mention? This blog doesn't have a huge following; 20,000 hits is common for most mid-sized websites in one day, and we have had that amount in 2 years. This just compounds the effectivness of my proof. If a small jerk-off blog in the back corner of the internet multiverse doesn't deem Manson important enough to mention even if only to demean him, then the man really must not matter. Aaron is referencing humans that are yet to fucking exist but Marilyn Manson would have to cut a man a check before he got even the briefest fucking mention on this blog of highest quality and esteem.
Matt is addicted to the internet.
I spotted Matt Jumago caught in the crippling grip of his internet addiction for the world to see in this BBC news article.
My Mud
They weren't kidding when they said adolescent boys are missing most of their frontal lobe. Any freshman's attention span is probably about 5 minutes--and this is not a joke. After 5 minutes, I'm talking for my own benefit.
Nevertheless, daily I go about my business shaping their minds and their study habits. It's a lot like sculpting with wet mud. Not clay, but the stuff you find in your lawn after a good soaking. Upperclassmen think they know it all, and you have to hit them repeatedly with a hammer to smooth out the dents in their personalities. Not freshmen...they're mud.
Mud which I shape today and every day, only to see it melted down into a pile of goop tomorrow. The weekends are even worse...you'd think they went on summer break. But I keep casting that mud in hopes that one day it will stick.
From the infernals of hell, this is Dan reporting. Back to you Drew.
Nevertheless, daily I go about my business shaping their minds and their study habits. It's a lot like sculpting with wet mud. Not clay, but the stuff you find in your lawn after a good soaking. Upperclassmen think they know it all, and you have to hit them repeatedly with a hammer to smooth out the dents in their personalities. Not freshmen...they're mud.
Mud which I shape today and every day, only to see it melted down into a pile of goop tomorrow. The weekends are even worse...you'd think they went on summer break. But I keep casting that mud in hopes that one day it will stick.
From the infernals of hell, this is Dan reporting. Back to you Drew.
10/17/06
The world is too ridiculous on this and most every day
Hi. It's October 16, 2006 and I am switching very temporary pre-traveling-to-Asia jobs so I am not doing shit today except laundry, dishes and plotting to go see "The Last King of Scotland" which is actually about Uganda. Anyways, I have been reading a lot of news and come to realize that tons of ridiculous shit is going down. First of all Mike Tyson wants to fight women which I guess, knowing him, isn't that weird at all. Secondly, how far Wesley Snipes has fallen, O fair hero of my youth in Passenger 57 there is just something really disconcerting for people that play action heroes getting an arrest warrant issued for not paying taxes but I guess real life knocks on all our doors so why not that of Blade himself. Thirdly, and by far my favorite of the day is the news that my progeny are going to be awesome and this article is truly hilarious if read fully, the description of certain men getting bigger penises and certain women getting more pert breasts (whatever the fuck that means I'm just tryin to stare at them grandma titties that you can mop a fuckin floor with) while the rest of poor humanity shrivel down and lose our chins. I mean seriously, are people paid to project 10,000 years into the future like this? I'll just go ahead and predict that we're all gonna kill ourselves or be killed by Kim Jong Il before any of these mutations matter. Why not live in the present more and work to figure out where I should eat dinner tonight.
10/16/06
Journal or Joke?
Is the blog a journal? Is the blog a joke? Sometimes I can't tell. Sometimes our contributors spill their hearts for all to see. Sometimes we make personal revelations and sometimes we make fun of old people with Alzheimers. We're like a fortune cookie of thought and holy revelation, at least in the sense that if you add a sexual subtext to any of our posts they either become funnier or more intellectually significant. Take your pick, we will be there to blow your mind with our tiny strips of paper. I pull them out of my mouth, Mandel pulls his out of where you can guess, Matt pulls his out of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter, and Dan pulls his out of the depths of hell infernal.
Origin of Bro
I have a theory that the abbreviation 'bro' did not enter the general nomenclature until the 80s when Super Mario Bros. was released and popularized the term for the youth at the time. Nobody bothered to question the absence of Luigi. The term stuck.
10/15/06
Obsessive?
I just found out I can blog from my phone, so get ready bitches. We are going mobile, 24/7.
Whatever happened to blue whales?
I remember when I was a kid blue whales were a big deal. The endagered species list was smartly used as an educational tool for children, and as a result voting parents had their small children obsessing over animals that ended up being protected by governments the world over. Maybe Al Gore should learn a lesson from the endangered species people and instead of releasing a masturbatory movie in theaters to scare the shit out of people he should have been trying to educate kids on the topic. I can just imagine the inner turmoil of a parent going to the booth to vote against taking steps to eliminate global warming if their kid at home had "Save the Atmosphere" posters all over their walls and little miniature stuffed earths strewn about their bunkbeds. Parents are around their kids too much to not be influenced by the stuff they are obsessed with. My babysitter knew the names of all the Transformers, and she never sat down to watch the show. If kids are plopped in front of the PlanetKids tv show and the program is barking about saving the ozone layer nonstop, some of that is going to seep in through Dad's ear canal while he's having his morning coffee and before you know it he'll be defending global warming prevention policy around the water cooler at work.
I made an innacurate assumption upon researching my initial question "What happened to blue whales?" that because I hadn't heard about them they were doing okay. It turns out they are still endangered, but nobody is fucking with them so they are now happily going about the ocean being the largest creatures ever to live on the face of the earth. Probably ever in the universe. Think about that. Blue Whale = Largest creature EVER in the UNIVERSE. My new favorite animal is the blue whale. Listen to their calls.
I made an innacurate assumption upon researching my initial question "What happened to blue whales?" that because I hadn't heard about them they were doing okay. It turns out they are still endangered, but nobody is fucking with them so they are now happily going about the ocean being the largest creatures ever to live on the face of the earth. Probably ever in the universe. Think about that. Blue Whale = Largest creature EVER in the UNIVERSE. My new favorite animal is the blue whale. Listen to their calls.
10/13/06
20,000 and going strong
I logged on to the blog today and noticed that we are nearing 20,000 views of the page. Now granted probably at least half of those are from Drew, Dan, Jumago or I continuously looking to see if anyone commented on what we've posted, I still want to congratulate the web masses on wasting a lot of their cumulative time reading the drivel we produce. My next topic will be a deep, semi-academic look into the mind-blowing world of Borat Sugdiyev.
get tame
so i have had like 3 decent ideas bouncing around for blogging about and dan promises me he has something good coming too. Anyways in the meantime.
A thought:
you know what is fucked up?
when a dude is pissing and he loses track of the task at hand. Now I know what you are all thinking, dude (me, let's be honest) pees all over the place not called the toilet. WRONG. This story has a shocking anatomical twist. The dude drifts into thought mode and starts thinking about Jennifer Garner and gets an erection and sorta stops peeing but pees everywhere and can't do shit about it except re-trace his thoughts and try to reverse them to naked grandma's or something.
Damn, this did end up being about pissing everywhere.
A thought:
you know what is fucked up?
when a dude is pissing and he loses track of the task at hand. Now I know what you are all thinking, dude (me, let's be honest) pees all over the place not called the toilet. WRONG. This story has a shocking anatomical twist. The dude drifts into thought mode and starts thinking about Jennifer Garner and gets an erection and sorta stops peeing but pees everywhere and can't do shit about it except re-trace his thoughts and try to reverse them to naked grandma's or something.
Damn, this did end up being about pissing everywhere.
10/11/06
Webcomic for Dean
This is a webcomic I made for my friend Dean Phillips-Page. It reflects a lot on his life currently, plus one of the characters in the comic actually looks like Dean, which makes it all the more rediculous since I found the picture I used for the comic using Google Images. Click on the picture for a closer look.
Pick your favorite.
Halloween. The only holiday that allows children to threaten adults with trickery if sweets aren't delivered into pumpkin-shaped plastic bins or pillow cases. Every once in a while you'll see a couple of punk-asses walking around in streetclothes trying to get candy; a couple of teenagers who are too cool for costumes but not too cool for candy. Go smoke a cigarette behind the church or some shit you little bastards. Go get a handjob from your girlfriend, go cook me up a goddamn hamburger at McDonalds. Get out of my face with your candy request. If you even think about smashing my mailbox I will see you in church on Sunday and I will stab you a few times in the back with a syringe. Don't believe me? Well, lets just say that old Ms. Greenwood didn't "faint" in church last week, she decided that she was going to stiff me out of my banana bread at the neighborhood bake sale. Watch your ass you little shits, I am on the fucking prowl.
I've got some nerve damage in my left hand I think. It's numb all the time, like it's asleep. I was worried I was having a heart attack, but then heart attacks don't last for days on end I don't think. I was trying to construct an idea for a Halloween costume based on the truths about my current physical appearance, and "nerve damage in left arm" means I can dress up as Bob Dole. All I need is a cheap suit and a belly full of gin. Obviously my arm is not very useful in creating a costume. I have a buzzed head too, which means any costume involving a uniform is immediately out the door. Looking like a Hitler Youth at a Halloween party would hurt my neighborhood rep.
Any ideas? I need a costume, and I don't have any money. Don't tell me to dress like a hobo, because that's just lazy.
I've got some nerve damage in my left hand I think. It's numb all the time, like it's asleep. I was worried I was having a heart attack, but then heart attacks don't last for days on end I don't think. I was trying to construct an idea for a Halloween costume based on the truths about my current physical appearance, and "nerve damage in left arm" means I can dress up as Bob Dole. All I need is a cheap suit and a belly full of gin. Obviously my arm is not very useful in creating a costume. I have a buzzed head too, which means any costume involving a uniform is immediately out the door. Looking like a Hitler Youth at a Halloween party would hurt my neighborhood rep.
Any ideas? I need a costume, and I don't have any money. Don't tell me to dress like a hobo, because that's just lazy.
10/10/06
Excuse my fucking absence.
Dear Masses,
I sit here in my dirty bedroom, covered in dried-out wine drinking a sketchy tasting bottle of my winery's manufature that may or may not have gone bad, but the booze tastes sweet on the tongue, and that is all a man can ask. It seems kinda dark in here with one lightbulb perched above my oversized map of Southeast Asia, but it could also be the fact that I didn't get off work until after sunset, and I was awake to see Helios march his goddamn chariot over the eastern horizon this morning. While Bergevin Lane Vineyards may make a quality bottle of wine, my cross-eyed morning haze is always rudely stripped away by possibly the nasties coffee I have ever tasted, but I drink it all the same because boss makes it and boss likes his coffee. Don't diss boss coffee, drink boss coffee and smile.
I sit here in my dirty bedroom, covered in dried-out wine drinking a sketchy tasting bottle of my winery's manufature that may or may not have gone bad, but the booze tastes sweet on the tongue, and that is all a man can ask. It seems kinda dark in here with one lightbulb perched above my oversized map of Southeast Asia, but it could also be the fact that I didn't get off work until after sunset, and I was awake to see Helios march his goddamn chariot over the eastern horizon this morning. While Bergevin Lane Vineyards may make a quality bottle of wine, my cross-eyed morning haze is always rudely stripped away by possibly the nasties coffee I have ever tasted, but I drink it all the same because boss makes it and boss likes his coffee. Don't diss boss coffee, drink boss coffee and smile.
10/7/06
Profiles in Altzheimers: Molly
This is part of my continuing series of essays on residents of the memory care community at which I work. Names have been changed.
This morning during sing-along, I was startled to hear what I thought was a flourescent light tube burning out. I looked around and realized it was actually Molly, harmonizing a flat blah'th above me. None of the residents are particularly good singers, and neither am I for that matter, but when she joined in, I noticed. The reason that it was so unusual to hear Molly singing is because Molly doesn't normally partipate in any of our activities. She prefers to get people's attention.
"Marcy! Mark! Grandma!" she'll call across the room at you. Everyone is either Marcy, Mark, or Grandma to Molly. At least at first. After about a month at the facility, I've noticed Molly has added a few new names. Now she'll call people Grandpa, Greg, or Phillip. No one working there goes by any of those names.
Once you respond to Molly, usually with a friendly "Hi Molly, my name isn't Phillip, it's Matt", she'll ask you to hold her hand. This is endearingly sweet, even though it happens roughly thirty times a day. Then she'll say one of two things. "Oh, you've got a warm hand" or "Your hand's not very warm, is it?" I have yet to find any correlation between the actual temperature of my hands and Molly's judgement. I think it may be some kind of fortune telling thing. Maybe on days when my hand is warm more times than it isn't, I should approach old problems with new solutions or something. Or maybe on days when my hand is more often cold, I should watch out for death's icy grip.
The other thing Molly will do is ask other residents if she can go home. Now, understand that everyone at the facility has some form of dementia. She asked one fellow if she could go home and he said yeah, sure she can go home. She asked him which way home is, and he said "It's three blocks east and then straight to hell."
Another time, she asked a woman if she could go home. The woman replied "You don't want to go home, you're just scared of the saurus: don't lose your pods! You can go home. Me, I was just running around last night with my ski-helper, springing keys around with my five hands. Then silence." Molly usually dismisses whatever response people give to her questions. According to the facility's nurse, Molly just wants attention. If I were her, I would worry about the saurus.
Later this afternoon, after Molly sang for the first time, we were playing a group game and she called for my attention. I said "Molly, just a minute, I'm busy." She called to me again and another resident told her "He's busy, hold your horses." Then Molly called the resident an asshole.
This morning during sing-along, I was startled to hear what I thought was a flourescent light tube burning out. I looked around and realized it was actually Molly, harmonizing a flat blah'th above me. None of the residents are particularly good singers, and neither am I for that matter, but when she joined in, I noticed. The reason that it was so unusual to hear Molly singing is because Molly doesn't normally partipate in any of our activities. She prefers to get people's attention.
"Marcy! Mark! Grandma!" she'll call across the room at you. Everyone is either Marcy, Mark, or Grandma to Molly. At least at first. After about a month at the facility, I've noticed Molly has added a few new names. Now she'll call people Grandpa, Greg, or Phillip. No one working there goes by any of those names.
Once you respond to Molly, usually with a friendly "Hi Molly, my name isn't Phillip, it's Matt", she'll ask you to hold her hand. This is endearingly sweet, even though it happens roughly thirty times a day. Then she'll say one of two things. "Oh, you've got a warm hand" or "Your hand's not very warm, is it?" I have yet to find any correlation between the actual temperature of my hands and Molly's judgement. I think it may be some kind of fortune telling thing. Maybe on days when my hand is warm more times than it isn't, I should approach old problems with new solutions or something. Or maybe on days when my hand is more often cold, I should watch out for death's icy grip.
The other thing Molly will do is ask other residents if she can go home. Now, understand that everyone at the facility has some form of dementia. She asked one fellow if she could go home and he said yeah, sure she can go home. She asked him which way home is, and he said "It's three blocks east and then straight to hell."
Another time, she asked a woman if she could go home. The woman replied "You don't want to go home, you're just scared of the saurus: don't lose your pods! You can go home. Me, I was just running around last night with my ski-helper, springing keys around with my five hands. Then silence." Molly usually dismisses whatever response people give to her questions. According to the facility's nurse, Molly just wants attention. If I were her, I would worry about the saurus.
Later this afternoon, after Molly sang for the first time, we were playing a group game and she called for my attention. I said "Molly, just a minute, I'm busy." She called to me again and another resident told her "He's busy, hold your horses." Then Molly called the resident an asshole.
Since My Day...
The Catholic High School Mixer
Wielding only a flash light and a yellow shirt that read "Staff," I was the reluctant guardian of 1500 high school kids ages 15-17 at the Back to School Mixer.
I arrived onsite to a throng of segregated girls and boys. This was a night unlike others. My high school is an all-male Catholic high school, and its mixers, for whatever reason, draw more girls than all the frat houses (from our college days of yore) combined. The two opposite sexes entered the school gym in two opposite sides, the boys in the back, the girls by way of the front. There were easily more people in attendance outside than went to my college. I walked past several hundred girls keeping my eyes on the prize (the door) and ignoring the combination of their perfumes (only someone who's dead wears that much perfume). I had an orange piece of paper folded in my pocket--instructions on my responsibilities that night. Here's how they were actually broken down:
Phase 1
Make a presence in the gym as teenagers enter. I crossed my arms behind my back and assumed an army at-attention stance. Meanwhile, teachers were searching girls' belongings and seizing water bottles, containers of perfume, and hairspray. Apparently in mixers' past, girls had smuggled in alcohol by means of these innocuous bottles. About 25% of the girls would walk in, take off an outer layer to reveal spaghetti straps, and be immediately grabbed by the Dean and reminded clothing wasn't optional.
The next hour was pretty tame as the gym filled with kids. Not surprisingly, the sexes were still segregated--girls dancing with girls, boys pretending not to watch. The girls' clothing left little to the imagination and the boys were varying degrees of gangsta or I-Just-Got-Out-of-Bed. Despite their apparel, that girls would grind with one another (before being broken up by yours truly), or that the boys were doing their best impressions of hyphy, it was during this first blooming hour that I saw a true innocence.
Without a frontal lobe for impulse control, their poor little brains grappled with the event unfolding. MTV says, "loud music, poorly lit arena, bodies, sweat--let's get it on!" While the event organizers (good Catholic folk, and then me) were saying, "Leave room for Jesus!" I was entertained that these horny kids were so scared and oblivious as to how to deal with their opposites. The boys, dressed to kill, would find any excuse NOT to interact with the girls. This included strutting up to me or other teachers prefecting and chatting it up. We've all done this at a party--spot the one person you at least know and attach yourself to them. But in this case, their latching onto the authority figures they usually detest for assigning too much Spanish homework!
Things eventually picked up.
Phase Two
I supervised the volunteer kids who were pouring water for the sweaty party-goers. Nothing going, except that even when it's just water, kids will hold it like it's a beer, and slam the table like they're ordering bourbon.
Phase Three
Now I'm patrolling outside in what is essentially a dog-run that the kids can escape to from the heat of inside (the walls are sweating by now). As my colleagues make loops through the crowd trying to break up as much "freaking" as possible, I was outside in the cold. There are different ways to remind kids they're not living up to God's expectations, and I've alluded to one of them already (Leave room for Jesus), but the one we use is "Imagine I was her father." Can you see that working coming from me? I think that's why I was outside...
Mind you, it's asphalt and concrete out here, but the unlit area still encourages the kids to make out. Lying on the asphalt...leaning against a concrete wall...making out. My job was mostly to ruin the fun. It's incredibly awkward to break up a tongue party, but I just remembered what grandma said about rattlesnakes: "They're feeling more awkward than you are." I let my flashlight do most of the talking, and it worked. These kids are so terrified mommy and daddy might be called, they'll listen to gentle reminders of Christian living from a flashlight.
Phase Four
After the kids were all gone, we opened up a classroom and drank beer for a few hours. Nothing like getting shitty with some old mentors!
Wielding only a flash light and a yellow shirt that read "Staff," I was the reluctant guardian of 1500 high school kids ages 15-17 at the Back to School Mixer.
I arrived onsite to a throng of segregated girls and boys. This was a night unlike others. My high school is an all-male Catholic high school, and its mixers, for whatever reason, draw more girls than all the frat houses (from our college days of yore) combined. The two opposite sexes entered the school gym in two opposite sides, the boys in the back, the girls by way of the front. There were easily more people in attendance outside than went to my college. I walked past several hundred girls keeping my eyes on the prize (the door) and ignoring the combination of their perfumes (only someone who's dead wears that much perfume). I had an orange piece of paper folded in my pocket--instructions on my responsibilities that night. Here's how they were actually broken down:
Phase 1
Make a presence in the gym as teenagers enter. I crossed my arms behind my back and assumed an army at-attention stance. Meanwhile, teachers were searching girls' belongings and seizing water bottles, containers of perfume, and hairspray. Apparently in mixers' past, girls had smuggled in alcohol by means of these innocuous bottles. About 25% of the girls would walk in, take off an outer layer to reveal spaghetti straps, and be immediately grabbed by the Dean and reminded clothing wasn't optional.
The next hour was pretty tame as the gym filled with kids. Not surprisingly, the sexes were still segregated--girls dancing with girls, boys pretending not to watch. The girls' clothing left little to the imagination and the boys were varying degrees of gangsta or I-Just-Got-Out-of-Bed. Despite their apparel, that girls would grind with one another (before being broken up by yours truly), or that the boys were doing their best impressions of hyphy, it was during this first blooming hour that I saw a true innocence.
Without a frontal lobe for impulse control, their poor little brains grappled with the event unfolding. MTV says, "loud music, poorly lit arena, bodies, sweat--let's get it on!" While the event organizers (good Catholic folk, and then me) were saying, "Leave room for Jesus!" I was entertained that these horny kids were so scared and oblivious as to how to deal with their opposites. The boys, dressed to kill, would find any excuse NOT to interact with the girls. This included strutting up to me or other teachers prefecting and chatting it up. We've all done this at a party--spot the one person you at least know and attach yourself to them. But in this case, their latching onto the authority figures they usually detest for assigning too much Spanish homework!
Things eventually picked up.
Phase Two
I supervised the volunteer kids who were pouring water for the sweaty party-goers. Nothing going, except that even when it's just water, kids will hold it like it's a beer, and slam the table like they're ordering bourbon.
Phase Three
Now I'm patrolling outside in what is essentially a dog-run that the kids can escape to from the heat of inside (the walls are sweating by now). As my colleagues make loops through the crowd trying to break up as much "freaking" as possible, I was outside in the cold. There are different ways to remind kids they're not living up to God's expectations, and I've alluded to one of them already (Leave room for Jesus), but the one we use is "Imagine I was her father." Can you see that working coming from me? I think that's why I was outside...
Mind you, it's asphalt and concrete out here, but the unlit area still encourages the kids to make out. Lying on the asphalt...leaning against a concrete wall...making out. My job was mostly to ruin the fun. It's incredibly awkward to break up a tongue party, but I just remembered what grandma said about rattlesnakes: "They're feeling more awkward than you are." I let my flashlight do most of the talking, and it worked. These kids are so terrified mommy and daddy might be called, they'll listen to gentle reminders of Christian living from a flashlight.
Phase Four
After the kids were all gone, we opened up a classroom and drank beer for a few hours. Nothing like getting shitty with some old mentors!
10/4/06
Hey Ma, Look at Me Now!
This is a line Alanis Morsette removed before releasing her hit song, "Ironic." It proved too cumbersome for her song of faux disgruntled frustration.
Here's a joke known well by all aspiring English majors: What are you going to do with that, teach? And then there's a laugh at the expense of the English major. I was never upset that my degree had the stereotype of tracking its graduates into teaching positions--it was the idea that teaching was somehow...unworthy of respect.
Well, now I'm a teacher. And I recognize the same lack of respect from my students. We're a nation of do-it-yourself'ers who ought not to rely on the tutelage of an older sage--because it's not what you know, but who you know.
But irony is sweet. I just got back from Kaiser after a brand new operation (they gave me a second liver) which cost me $15 because of my health plan. On my way home, I saw a familiar face--a friend from college--a poli/sci major! He was waving a sign that had something to do with Mondo Burrito's Grand Re-Opening...I couldn't really see, he was waving it too erratically.
I waved to him, and as my car splashed muddy water in his face I could see it in his eyes...the recognition of what I knew all along: That age old lesson...only slightly more dangerous than giving a Mafia Don some lip (or the prison guard union a salary cut), is making fun of a teacher.
I was the magister, and he--unwittingly--was my pupil.
Here's a joke known well by all aspiring English majors: What are you going to do with that, teach? And then there's a laugh at the expense of the English major. I was never upset that my degree had the stereotype of tracking its graduates into teaching positions--it was the idea that teaching was somehow...unworthy of respect.
Well, now I'm a teacher. And I recognize the same lack of respect from my students. We're a nation of do-it-yourself'ers who ought not to rely on the tutelage of an older sage--because it's not what you know, but who you know.
But irony is sweet. I just got back from Kaiser after a brand new operation (they gave me a second liver) which cost me $15 because of my health plan. On my way home, I saw a familiar face--a friend from college--a poli/sci major! He was waving a sign that had something to do with Mondo Burrito's Grand Re-Opening...I couldn't really see, he was waving it too erratically.
I waved to him, and as my car splashed muddy water in his face I could see it in his eyes...the recognition of what I knew all along: That age old lesson...only slightly more dangerous than giving a Mafia Don some lip (or the prison guard union a salary cut), is making fun of a teacher.
I was the magister, and he--unwittingly--was my pupil.
Idiot Rock
Once upon a time a bunch of guys were in a basement and they had no girlfriends. These guys were also on a wrestling team and drove pickup trucks. They have about ten half-gallons of vodka to drink and they wanted to party, but there was no music to party to. This is the situation that spawned the genre I like to call idiot rock.
"Big Balls" - AC/DC (1981)
This is one of those gimmicky songs written for idiots. The lead singer of AC/DC, I don't know his name because he isn't important, sings about how big his balls are, and how big the balls are of the people around him. This is a good song for getting pumped up for lifting weights or going to the bar and not picking up chicks. One who likes to think they are smart about music might make the argument that "big balls" could refer to courage or bravery, since one of the lines in the song is "she's got big balls" and hopefully the dude isn't referring to a transvestite, though knowing the shenanigans of bands in the 80's he may very well be. Even if it does refer to courage, it isn't really a big step up. An idiot rock song like this one either 1) makes dudes chug beers because they like to imagine they have a huge sack of nuts or 2) makes dudes chug beers because the song makes them feel like someday they might be brave enough to ask out a girl in real life.
"Bawitdaba" - Kid Rock (1999)
Kid Rock tried to gain rock legitimacy by speaking gibberish and having a sickly looking midget run around on stage and piss his pants. Instead all Kid Rock did was make dating strippers seem like something that you could get away with and still manage to scrape respect out of your peers. I think in the music video Kid Rock had dirt bikes doing jumps over him while he sang the song. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good neon green Fox Racing jersey as much as the next guy, but the Kid Rock is singing about trailer parks while fucking DIRT BIKES fly overhead. There is nothing inherently idiotic about dirt, bikes, trailers, parks, kids, or rocks, but when you put all those things together and try to write music you get a bunch of guys blasting that shit on their stereo and trying out WWF moves on each other in the back yard talking about how sweet it is going to be when they are old enough to enlist.
"Any Song Ever Written By" - Def Leppard (Oblivion)
Def Leppard is the epitome of idiot rock. A band that forms out of the desire to be sweet like other bands. A band formed up by obsessive roadies and alcoholics who like to punch holes in the wall when they get riled up because it "makes them feel like they are alive." Def Leppard seriously got their name from the lead singer thinking about how he could make a band name on par with, in his opinion, the "sickest" band name ever, Led Zeppelin. So what you have here is a bunch of morons writing songs that didn't hit record charts at all but instead went straight to the mixtape that plays on the only strip club in Omaha, Nebraska open on Christmas Eve.
These are my opinions, and I am unwilling to hear a serious opinion against my humorous opinions. I will not entertain a fan of any of these bands or songs trying to have a serious debate. If you want to make fun of AC/DC with me, that's cool, because the lead singer needs to quit already, he's like 65.
"Big Balls" - AC/DC (1981)
This is one of those gimmicky songs written for idiots. The lead singer of AC/DC, I don't know his name because he isn't important, sings about how big his balls are, and how big the balls are of the people around him. This is a good song for getting pumped up for lifting weights or going to the bar and not picking up chicks. One who likes to think they are smart about music might make the argument that "big balls" could refer to courage or bravery, since one of the lines in the song is "she's got big balls" and hopefully the dude isn't referring to a transvestite, though knowing the shenanigans of bands in the 80's he may very well be. Even if it does refer to courage, it isn't really a big step up. An idiot rock song like this one either 1) makes dudes chug beers because they like to imagine they have a huge sack of nuts or 2) makes dudes chug beers because the song makes them feel like someday they might be brave enough to ask out a girl in real life.
"Bawitdaba" - Kid Rock (1999)
Kid Rock tried to gain rock legitimacy by speaking gibberish and having a sickly looking midget run around on stage and piss his pants. Instead all Kid Rock did was make dating strippers seem like something that you could get away with and still manage to scrape respect out of your peers. I think in the music video Kid Rock had dirt bikes doing jumps over him while he sang the song. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good neon green Fox Racing jersey as much as the next guy, but the Kid Rock is singing about trailer parks while fucking DIRT BIKES fly overhead. There is nothing inherently idiotic about dirt, bikes, trailers, parks, kids, or rocks, but when you put all those things together and try to write music you get a bunch of guys blasting that shit on their stereo and trying out WWF moves on each other in the back yard talking about how sweet it is going to be when they are old enough to enlist.
"Any Song Ever Written By" - Def Leppard (Oblivion)
Def Leppard is the epitome of idiot rock. A band that forms out of the desire to be sweet like other bands. A band formed up by obsessive roadies and alcoholics who like to punch holes in the wall when they get riled up because it "makes them feel like they are alive." Def Leppard seriously got their name from the lead singer thinking about how he could make a band name on par with, in his opinion, the "sickest" band name ever, Led Zeppelin. So what you have here is a bunch of morons writing songs that didn't hit record charts at all but instead went straight to the mixtape that plays on the only strip club in Omaha, Nebraska open on Christmas Eve.
These are my opinions, and I am unwilling to hear a serious opinion against my humorous opinions. I will not entertain a fan of any of these bands or songs trying to have a serious debate. If you want to make fun of AC/DC with me, that's cool, because the lead singer needs to quit already, he's like 65.
10/2/06
Bratwurst tacos anyone?
I never figured Walla Walla to be a cultural melting pot. I eagerly await the annual Walla Walla Sausage Festival every year and I eat my fill of bratwurst, wienersnitzel, and all the other bavarian meat amalgamations that have ever been squeezed into animal intestine. On that same token, I am a regular of the local taco trucks that serve up all kinds of authentic mexican food...sometimes too authentic. I have never ventured to try the burritos filled with cow tongue that many of the trucks offer, but I have seen several patrons of the taco trucks eagerly eat that shit up like the Sunday comics character Cathy gobbles up chocolate cake after a long day of trying on dresses.
While the quick ethnic food in Walla Walla is not very diverse, you can always get your hands on a tasty sweet onion-filled taco from one of the many taco trucks or you can swing by Walla Walla Onion World on the main drag downtown and get a sweet onion sausage. The Irish can cook a potato a million ways, and the people here in Walla Walla can make a sweet onion work in just about anything. I guess it was just a matter of time before someone in the community decided that tacos and sausages make a good combo, and the cultures that inspired these foods incidentally know how to party, so you might as well combine the two and throw a sick Oktoberfiesta.
While the quick ethnic food in Walla Walla is not very diverse, you can always get your hands on a tasty sweet onion-filled taco from one of the many taco trucks or you can swing by Walla Walla Onion World on the main drag downtown and get a sweet onion sausage. The Irish can cook a potato a million ways, and the people here in Walla Walla can make a sweet onion work in just about anything. I guess it was just a matter of time before someone in the community decided that tacos and sausages make a good combo, and the cultures that inspired these foods incidentally know how to party, so you might as well combine the two and throw a sick Oktoberfiesta.
10/1/06
Bombs Away!
Here is another addition to my "whatever the context, this photo suggests darkness" photography series. I found this in a local wine bar called Vintage Cellars. It is a picture of two guys taking some drinks in the cockpit of an aircraft. I would hope that these guys aren't about to fly an airplane, but one can only assume that if they had the liberty to bring alcoholic beverages into the cockpit of aircraft there probably isn't somebody from the TSA breathing down their neck. Let's just hope this isn't a maiden voyage.
9/28/06
FUCK logic
what is poetry but a hit to the head, what is the point of sleeping in a bed
I can place words all across a page and you can look at them with your eyes and find yourself in a daze
now this trance you're in isn't over to begin and you might chuckle and you might grin
but the real one, the one to win is the observation that the magic ni this shit which sets things brainbound afloat
is the ability of words to find themselves in a sensical order with the light touch of their crafter.
I can place words all across a page and you can look at them with your eyes and find yourself in a daze
now this trance you're in isn't over to begin and you might chuckle and you might grin
but the real one, the one to win is the observation that the magic ni this shit which sets things brainbound afloat
is the ability of words to find themselves in a sensical order with the light touch of their crafter.
9/27/06
Stickers aren't always fun and games.
I drove past a Ford Expedition parked in front of the hospital on my way home from work today and I had to ride my bike back and take a picture of the stickers on the rear window:
Any way you choose to analyze it, the noticable absence of mom's avatar paints a dark picture indeed. Did mom and dad get in a fight, and dad ran out and scraped her effigy from the back of the SUV? Did mom go to heaven, and her sticker's absence represents her eternal spirit? Who knows, but any family who keeps a tally mark of survivors is pretty messed up in my book.
Any way you choose to analyze it, the noticable absence of mom's avatar paints a dark picture indeed. Did mom and dad get in a fight, and dad ran out and scraped her effigy from the back of the SUV? Did mom go to heaven, and her sticker's absence represents her eternal spirit? Who knows, but any family who keeps a tally mark of survivors is pretty messed up in my book.
Books to steal after the bombs drop.
While at work I was thinking about what books would be beneficial as well as entertaining after the Apocalypse is triggered by crazies. You'd want to avoid books about people who attempt survival and go nuts, like Lord of the Flies, but you would want books about people surviving harsh conditions and still managing to find happiness and love, like Little House on the Prarie. Avoid books directly about a post-apocalyptic world because they will be of little value. Most credible authors that have written on the topic have no clue about what the world would really be like, case and point is the fact that no book about the post-apocalypse has stressed horses, or even mentioned horses for all that I know. Also, no post-apocalyptic literature is intended as a "how-to" guide, and none of those authors took into account the maniac zombies that will be created by the fallout.
9/26/06
Shit, I got plans, Apocalypse
Even though I'll be above the age of a college freshmen when the apocalypse hits I'll take the opportunity that the world is ending to take advantage of all the hot girls on earth lowering their standards and do some real freaky shit, picture included for visual learners.
Nah, for real though I'm sticking with Olmstead, that dude is so equipped to exist through the apocalpyse and into the post-apocalypse, dude always has a leathermen and hella handily crafted things nearby.
shit Monstro blog, four posts en un dia! que loco!
Nah, for real though I'm sticking with Olmstead, that dude is so equipped to exist through the apocalpyse and into the post-apocalypse, dude always has a leathermen and hella handily crafted things nearby.
shit Monstro blog, four posts en un dia! que loco!
Post-Apocalypse, Post-Apocashmypsypse
My strategy is all about horses. Cars will soon become obsolete because fuel will become rare within a few months of the apocalypse. What will happen then? Man will still need transportation, and communication will be the key to survival, as it has always been. Go to a ranch that raises a lot of horses immediately after nukes hit the major capitals of the world! Your dominance of transport and communication will immediately reap large benefits.
The Post-Apocalypse: Your Ideas!
The most depressing thing about the apocalypse is that when it happens, we'll have very little time to appreciate it. I don't just mean in the sense that we'll all be dead. I think that many people will likely survive the apocalypse; they will therefore be living in the post-apocalypse and this is a state that will last much longer than its cause. The apocalypse will be much like an orgasm, in that a lot of effort and planning is put into its pursuit, and while it may be powerful, its fallout, both literally and figuratively, will stay with you much longer.
I can't begin to detail my plans for Post-Apocalypse survival. I've already been published in Whitman College's newspaper on the subject and have engaged in several multi-hour conversations with compatriots on the subject. That is why this post is a little different. I am opening the subject up to you all, the readers. I want people to reply to this post with their own favorite post-apocalypse strategies.
An example: Trade off electronic equipment of all sorts. In the first days of the post-apocalypse, fools will think that getting your TV for a wheelbarrow full of canned food is a steal, but a couple weeks down the road once the power has been turned off and generators are running low on gas, you'll be outlasting a rainstorm under your wheelbarrow, chowing down on cold spam while that jerk-off up the road is wet and pissed because he's never gonna know how Lost turns out. Dumb sunovabitch doesn't realize that they've just been making that shit up as they go.
I can't begin to detail my plans for Post-Apocalypse survival. I've already been published in Whitman College's newspaper on the subject and have engaged in several multi-hour conversations with compatriots on the subject. That is why this post is a little different. I am opening the subject up to you all, the readers. I want people to reply to this post with their own favorite post-apocalypse strategies.
An example: Trade off electronic equipment of all sorts. In the first days of the post-apocalypse, fools will think that getting your TV for a wheelbarrow full of canned food is a steal, but a couple weeks down the road once the power has been turned off and generators are running low on gas, you'll be outlasting a rainstorm under your wheelbarrow, chowing down on cold spam while that jerk-off up the road is wet and pissed because he's never gonna know how Lost turns out. Dumb sunovabitch doesn't realize that they've just been making that shit up as they go.
A Troubling State of Things
So my father drives a 1983 Toyota Tercel, it is gold and very old. In fact I think he takes pride in the fact that he has had the car longer than he has had me, and probalby taken better care of the vehicle. That being said it is a certifiable piece of shit and when/if he ever decides to sell it, it will probably fetch no more than $500 to some guy like Clark or Garrett who can use the parts to help build whatever spaceship they are cooking up. Anyways, I should take the advice every professor I've ever had gives me and get to the point. My dad's car is a gold box, a piece of crap, and it has been broken into three times. The only thing of value in the whole car is the radio and all three times that is all that's been taken. The first time was about 10 years ago, then once a few years ago, then again last week. I think thieves target my dad's car because a) the radio isn't built into a fortress-like dashboard and b) there is clearly no hi-tech alarm system. I guess in a weird way when you pay more for a car or drive a really nice car you are sorta lowering your risk of it getting fucked with. The other hilarious but sad thing is that last week when my dad wanted to get the smashed-in window and radio fixed he looked up something sensible in the yellow pages and called and they were like "where are you RIGHT NOW?" and he told them and they were here within 15 minutes with a pane of glass and a new radio and this led both of us to make the observation that it is a sad and troubling state of things in society when there is the equivalent of a door to door fast food business for fixing broken into cars immediately and on the spot because clearly this has become a very sustainable and profitable industry. And of course they are probably in cahoots with the thieves.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)