Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

Yesterday, I was humming along, listening to tunes while I was working (yes, actually working). I have all my music on an external hard drive because my old desktop hard drive isn’t quite big enough for it all. All of a sudden, the music stops, iTunes locks up, and the hard drive starts making a clicking noise.

Ruh-row. Houston, we have a problem.

I restarted and re-connected and ran diagnostics and swore oaths, all to no avail. My drive of less than a year appears to have bitten the digital bullet.

This is precisely why I will never fully embrace the digital age. I am definitely an electronics geek, and I love being able to have all my music on a device smaller than the calculators I used in high school science class. But still, it’s frightening how gigabytes of data can just go poof because Gigabyt, the Norse god of data storage, wakes up on the wrong side of Asgard one morning and takes it out on you. I want the soothing reassurance of having rows of CDs and books and game boxes on my shelves, knowing they are there for me if I have a digital meltdown.

I luckily have said music collection on my iPod, and most of the other stuff on the hard drive is on other hard drives or flash drives or CDs or those IBM data cards with the holes in them. I just hate the backup pyramid scheme we have to go through. I need to back up my hard drive and then back up that back up and before I know it, I’m in a hall of mirrors where I see myself stretching out in 20 directions toward infinity, not knowing which image is the original one.

So today’s list goes back to my pre-home office days of using my actual iPod instead iTunes to do the Random 11. Hopefully the iPod won’t go belly up before I can get a replacement hard drive and download the hack I need to move files from the iPod to said hard drive, because Apple omitted that convenient feature at the behest of the RIAA to combat piracy, which would be fine if we lived in the Unicornverse where everything was perfect and your hard drive never died a sudden, horrible death.

1) “More Than This,” Roxy Music. So 80s in its sound, yet it still sounds timeless because of Bryan Ferry’s voice.

2) “Oxford Comma,” Vampire Weekend. Features not only a grammatically themed title, it uses the word “diction” in the lyrics. This debut album was one of the best summer CDs I’ve bought in a while. I really like the video, very Wes Anderson.

3) “The Wizard,” Black Sabbath. VH1 Classic, my new go-to channel for all things music, ran a pretty entertaining series of documentaries on heavy metal called, of course, Heavy. The series showed Sabbath in their prime, including Ozzy being Ozzy. Watching that footage, it’s hard to believe that he went from singing about sorcerers and black magic and iron men to pitching cell phones for Samsung. That has to be weirder than some of the acid flashbacks he’s had.

4) “Lazy Susan,” Oakley Hall. I saw them open for Calexico a couple years ago, and they were just very unremarkable. They were enthusiastic, they put a lot of energy into their show, and they weren’t bad. It’s just that you could hear better versions of this heavy Americana music from a lot of other bands. It’s like the ingredients are there but something goes wrong in the baking.

5) “Go! Go! Go!” The Blasters. See, then you have a group like The Blasters. Their 80s take on rockabilly wasn’t that much different than the original rockabilly, but they managed to turn up the energy and tweak it just enough to be really good, even if it wasn’t very original. Such a fine line between stupid and clever.

6) “Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand,” The Who. Too much flower power for my taste here. It reminds me of “Listen to the Flower People.” And, of course, here I am ripping off two jokes from another movie to use as my own. Ah, hypocrisy. It’s a shame they can’t make a combustion engine that runs on that, because we could make a car that could drive to moon and back on one tank.

7) “2007, The Year Punk Broke (My Heart),” Los Campesinos! A recent Song of the Day entry at Three Bulls. A record that just oozes charisma, like that person in high school who was so nice and fun, she could navigate multiple cliques and be friends with various groups of people who would normally despise each other.

8) “Tenderness,” General Public. Speaking of high school...This was one of those songs I wouldn’t let myself like when I was a little metal head (see also: Duran, Duran) because, you know, I was 15 and a fucking idiot about not wanting to seem soft. But it’s truly a great single. It doesn’t have the timelessness of something like Roxy Music. Instead, it’s like a little gem locked in a time capsule, making you happy you found it because it’s truly of its time.

9) “Optimistic,” Radiohead. I like Kid A, the polarizing Radiohead album, a lot. It was the first album of theirs that I ever heard all the way through, and I loved it for being so cold and robotic—unusual for a man who hates Pink Floyd for the same reasons. Like I said, I’m a hypocrite. In fact, “Optimistic” is the least enjoyable song for me because it’s like Radiohead chickened out and threw in something that sounded like an Ok Computer b-side, so the fans wouldn’t completely flip out.

10) “Catch Me Now I’m Falling,” The Kinks. Old Kinks songs that talk about how fucked up things were in the late 70s really are perfect for our current economic climate. Which is unfortunate for us.

11) “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” Jay-Z. I can’t help but think of Chappelle’s Show because of a sketch where he keeps yelling for someone to “turn my headphones up” while recording his new rap song. This one still gets the booty muscles grooving, though.

Have a good weekend, and hug your digital media tonight, while you still can.

The Skanktity of Marriage

In a very large and expensive-looking kitchen, DICK, a 50-ish man, sits at the table, reading the paper. His wife, FAITH, about 20 years his junior, sets the table.

DICK
It’ll be nice to have all the kids home for Thanksgiving, don’t you think, hon?

FAITH
It’ll be better when Consuela shows up with the turkey and gets all this cooking done. I swear, supervising the help is so stressful.

DICK (grabbing her hand)
Don’t you worry your pretty blonde head, sweetheart. You manage the help much better than my other wives did.

They give each other air kisses without actually kissing. Dick turns back to the paper.

DICK
I can’t believe these homosexuals are getting so upset about this Prop 8 stuff. Thank God we voted against it.

FAITH
I know. Marriage is sacred. If they started getting married, it’s like all marriages would be meaningless.

DICK
Exactly. And I don’t want our marriage to be meaningless.

There’s a knock at the back door. At the same time, the kitchen phone rings.

FAITH (walking to the back door)
I’ll get the door. It’s probably Consuela.

DICK (answering the phone)
Thanks, hon. (into the phone) Hello?

Faith opens the door. A strapping young man, DIEGO, stands in the doorway.

FAITH (startled)
Diego? (harshly whispering) What the hell are you doing here?

DIEGO
Mira, I cannot be away from you, señora. Te amo, Mrs. Faith.

DICK (looking over his shoulder as he whispers into the phone)
Barbara, why are you calling me on my home phone? What if Faith picked up? (pauses) Well, I sure as hell care if she finds out about us.

He sees Diego in the doorway. He waves.

DIEGO (waving back as he whispers to Faith)
Mira, run away with me. We can get married.

FAITH (speaking loudly)
Why, Diego, I thought I told you the pool didn’t need to be cleaned today. (To Dick) Who is that, honey?

DICK
Um, Bob Johnson. Boring work stuff. You know that Bob, never takes a day off.

They both give each other cute smiles, wrinkling their noses at each other, before turning back to their conversations.

DICK (into the phone)
Of course I care for you, Barbara. But I told you when we started this affair that I care about my marriage.

FAITH (to Diego)
Are you out of your fucking mind? Run away with you? To where, the pool house?

DICK (loudly)
Look, Bob, you’re going to have to work this out on your own. I have to go now. You have a Happy Thanksgiving.

As he hangs up the phone, a woman's voice yells through the receiver:

BARBARA (yelling through the phone)
Go to hell you son of a—

FAITH (loudly)
Now, Diego, I don’t need you to come back until Monday. Just remember, you come to work on the days Dick goes to work, comprende? You have a nice Thanksgiving.

Faith closes the door as Diego protests. She locks it and turns to Dick. They smile and cross the room to embrace.

DICK
I love you.

FAITH
I love you, too.

A young man, CHASE, enters. His face is stubbly, his clothes wrinkled, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a couple of days. On his arm is CANDY, a tan, thin woman with a giant chest and a bad red-haired dye-job. Dick and Faith turn to see him.

DICK
Chase!

CHASE
Hi, dad. Hi, Faith.

FAITH
Who’s this?

CHASE
Candy, this is my dad and my stepmom. (to Dick and Faith) Dad, Faith, this is Candy...my wife!

FAITH
What? You were only in Vegas for two days?

CHASE
I know it’s crazy.

CANDY (chewing gum as she talks)
What can I say? I saw him while I was dancing and when he slipped a dollar into my....

CHASE (interrupting)
I saw Candy at her, um, place of employment, and after watching her in action, I fell for her. Over the next 22 hours, I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

CANDY
It was fate.

CHASE
Yeah, we didn’t know if we should do this, so we let the roulette wheel decide. I told Candy to pick a number...

CANDY
I picked red 21 ’cause I’m 21 and my hair’s, you know, red.

FAITH (aside)
Yeah, the bottle is red.

CHASE
And red 21 came up! We drove through the wedding chapel and here we are!

DICK (waits a beat with his arms crossed sternly before breaking into a smile)
Congratulations, son! (He hugs Chase.)

FAITH
Dick, don’t you think this is a little sudden?

DICK
Nonsense. That’s what they said about us, honey bunny, and look how happy we are. Welcome to the family, Candy.

CANDY
Thanks...Dad! (They hug.)

Another young woman, HOPE, walks into the kitchen.

FAITH
Hope!

HOPE
Hi Mom. Hi Dick. Hi Chase. Hi...woman with Chase.

CHASE
Candy, this is my stepsister, Hope. Hope, this is my wife!

HOPE
Get out! I’m getting married too!

FAITH (excited)
You are?

DICK (concerned)
Who’s the guy?

HOPE (reaches into her purse)
You mean, who’s the daddy? (She pulls out a pregnancy test.)

FAITH
You’re pregnant, too!

HOPE
Yep. And he’s a lawyer!

Faith and Hope shriek in happiness and hug.

DICK
I don’t know, Hope, is this a good idea?

FAITH
It’s fine, honey. It just like what happened with my first marriage.

DICK (relaxing)
You’re right. And you're doing the right thing by getting married. (He hugs Hope.)

Someone slams into the back door. Dick walks over and unlocks it. CHAZ, Chase’s older brother, enters.

CHAZ
Hi Dad, hi everyone.

The family gives Chase a series of half-hearted hellos. They don’t appear happy to see him.

CHAZ
I hope you don’t mind, but I brought someone with me.

DANIEL enters.

CHAZ
This is Daniel. My...husband.

DANIEL
Spouse, dear, we said we weren’t going to conform to these sexist hetero naming conventions. (To the family) Happy Thanksgiving!

The family stares with their jaws open.

DICK
Your husband?!

DANIEL
Spouse.

CHAZ
Yes, we just got back from Massachusetts.

The family erupts in a series of protests.

HOPE
Oh my god, could you show less reverence for marriage?

CHASE
Yeah, you’re making a mockery of it.

FAITH
And it’s so immoral.

DICK
Chaz, how could you? I told you not to bring your...friends...here, and you bring your...whatever he is? I will not have the institution of marriage insulted under my own roof during Thanksgiving.

Chaz gets upset. He turns to Daniel.

CHAZ
I told you they wouldn’t understand. Come on, Daniel, I think Denny’s is open.

DANIEL
Wow, they really are just like you said.

They depart.

FAITH
So appalling. Thank goodness California isn’t Massachusetts.

DICK
I know, and I’m sorry all of you had to see that. Let’s gather ’round and say a prayer, so that God will show Chaz the path to good, wholesome, committed love.

They gather around the table and bow their heads in prayer. The phone rings.

FAITH
I’ll get it.

Dick leaps from the table.

DICK
No!

Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we reacting to the stock market?

Special extra volatility edition!

15) Sell! Sell!

14) Buy! Buy!

13) Fuck! Fuck!

12) Turning stock options into a papier mâché noose.

11) Telling the kids they won’t be going to Harvard.

10) Telling the kids they’ll be paying their own way for community college.

9) Converting to lesbianism and making Suze Orman our sugar mama.

8) Using 401k statements as rolling papers.

7) Officially un-retiring by turning in Wal-Mart employment application.

6) Conducting insider trading so we’ll get arrested and have some place to live until the market rebounds.

5) Exchanging stocks for more stable commodities like anthrax, mustard gas, and weapons-grade uranium.

4) Popping Wall Street into the DVD player and masturbating to our wildest free market fantasies.

3) Taking down our Alan Greenspan Fathead.

2) Switching client dinners from steak tartar and coke to McRibs and crack.

1) Rubbing Henry Paulson’s head for good luck.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What anti-piracy measures are we establishing?

Special extra plunder edition!

12) Profiling all eye-patch wearers.

11) Posting “No booty in hull” stickers on ships.

10) Switching their rum with Folger’s Crystals.

9) Requiring all peg legs to have tracking devices.

8) Sending Johnny Depp undercover.

7) Requiring background checks on anyone spending more than $10,000 in doubloons.

6) Threatening to send all captured pirates to Dick Cheney’s Locker.

5) Putting "The Club" on ship wheels.

4) Setting up sting operations at Mediterranean Long John Silver’s restaurants.

3) Suing anyone who ever imitates the speech of, dresses like, reads books about, or watches movies with pirates, thereby endorsing and conspiring to commit piracy (this solution sponsored by the Recording Industry Association of America).

2) Starting neighbaaarrrhood watch programs in the harbors.*

1) Waterboarding suspected parrots.

*Obligatory aaarrr joke posted in compliance with the Pirate Comedy Act of 2002.

Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

I swear this isn’t going to become Circle Jerk at the Weather Channel (although that would spice up meteorology a bit), but I have a bit more to say about the climate here at the End of the World.

Yesterday, we had something called a “snow squall.” I have never been in a “snow squall” before. Take all the fun of a driving, howling, swirling rain storm, and—at no additional charge—add the fun of snow. That’s what it was like all day yesterday. I cleared some snow last night and the weather was so ridiculous, it seemed fake, like I was on a Hollywood set where they blow fake flakes with an industrial wind turbine.

I’ve decided that I really don’t want to run into any more weather that I’ve never experienced before. I think I’ve seen all the good stuff at this point. Whatever type of weather still out there waiting for me is the bad kind. Because, while you can only dress up a nice day so many ways, shit weather takes many, many forms.

This morning, as I cleared the remaining snow from the driveway, the clouds finally parted and bright blue sky and warm yellow light beamed down. It hit me: now I understand why people worship the sun.

But now I’m warm and inside and enjoying the following....

1) “Rollers Show,” Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe completely skewers The Bay City Rollers and the sugar pop they represented by making a sugar pop song with a razor blade hidden inside of it. Pop music needs more songs like this.

2) “Yours and Mine,” Calexico. A calm blue ocean in the middle of a blinding white snow squall.

3) “Hitsville U.K.,” The Clash. They are in my top five bands, and The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, and London Calling are three of the best albums I own. But I just can’t get into Sandinista. It’s one of those albums I appreciate—they showed more range an ambition on one album than most bands do in an entire career—but I don’t really enjoy it.

4) “I Walk Away,” Crowded House. I started listening to NPR’s All Songs Considered podcasts, including a debate on whether the 80s actually sucked for music. The panel—three guys I’d never heard of and the awesome Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney—generally landed on the “suck” square. And while there was a lot of awful, awful, music, a decade that produced Crowded House cannot be considered a loss. The first album is just chock full of poppy goodness like this tune. Couldn't find the Crowded House version, but the Split Enz one is equally good.

5) “Mr. Brightside,” The Killers. I fucking love this song, from the 1980s influence larceny to The O.C. lyrics to the melodramatic vocals. It takes real talent to take those ingredients and make a song as good and catchy as this.

6) “Mirror in the Bathroom,” The English Beat. One of the most underrated albums of the maligned Eighties. The sound here takes an already killer song and pushes it into the stratosphere. The way the rhythm section slithers around in the background, the Ginsu-sharp guitar, the reverbed sax that feels like it’s right on your tail yet shrouded by fog—just a great, great song.

7) “Praise You,” Fatboy Slim. I used to play around with a computer program called Acid. It’s a music program that allows you to take samples and create your own compositions. I was pretty addicted to it for a while, and I probably made about three dozen “songs” or so. I had one...ONE...out of all those that didn’t completely suck. I either had parts that didn’t go together, or made stuff that sounded completely generic. I couldn’t really infuse those pieces with any personality. So I am kind of amazed when someone like Fatboy Slim can make a pretty flawless, original song out of other people’s parts, and make it sound completely cohesive not just from start to finish, but with the other songs on the album.

8) “Hollywood Babylon,” The Misfits. What once seemed intimidating now sounds like Rob Zombie’s house band.

9) “Don’t Let Him Go,” REO Speedwagon. What is it about arena rock that warms my heart so? My favorite REO song, probably because it is so arena: thumping beat, cornball synth solo, flashy guitar solos, and big dumb chorus. It deserves the goofy YouTube video that I linked to.

10) “I’d Do Anything for You,” The Mr. T Experience. With a real producer and real publicity, these guys would have been huge. The best lovelorn lyrics ever produced by a punk band.

11) “Baba O’Riley,” The Who. It’s been played to death, yet it cannot be killed. Good enough to make me forget all about snow squalls.

Have a good, and hopefully warm, weekend.

The CJSD Winter Survival Guide

Above: artist's representation of the worst November day ever.

Snow, ice, hypothermia, frozen pipes, frostbite, falling through the ice, slipped vertebrae from shoveling, impaling from falling icicles...these are all the exciting signs that winter is here! Unlike those other wussy seasons, winter is the only one you have to prepare for. And, with a little forethought and planning, you can turn those cold temperatures and the hot bile in your gut into a positive experience for everyone! Here are a few tips to put the "wonderful" in "winter wonderland."

• Colder temperatures means it’s time to change your clothing. But it does not give you a license to be unfashionable. Bulky, insulating coats are a big no-no. Stick with thinner, more slimming jackets. Don’t worry—your body will shiver to compensate for the heat loss.

• Avoid hats, as these often look unflattering and do a real number on your hair. Whatever you do, do not wear earmuffs, no matter what the wind chill is. Do you want to be warm or do you want to look good? Remember, that burning frostbite on your ears means you’re in style!

• Since you’re often locked indoors during the winter, plan a series of activities to help pass the time and keep your spirits up. Host your own Ingmar Bergman film festival. Dig out all your old Cure albums. Or take your favorite novel, like The Shining, and type your favorite line over and over again, all day long. The winter months will just fly by for you and your family.

• Winter is always easier if you’re excited about Christmas. So get through the winter by making the 25th of January, February, and March Christmas too. Take your mind off the weather by shopping for presents non-stop for four months. Be sure to use the other eight months of the year to restore your crippled credit rating.

• Create your own winter support network. Call all of your family friends and ask them if it is cold and snowing where they live. If they say no, say, “Well fuck you anyway, you warm-weather-loving bastard. I hope you get skin cancer by the pool.” Soon you’ll be in contact only with people sympathetic to your plight.

• Children love snow and will often beg to go out and play in it. Gently remind them that it’s cold out and unsafe. If they whine, let them know that the reason it is snowing in the first place is because their disobedience makes Baby Jesus cry and that his tears freeze because God is giving them the cold shoulder.

• Saving on heating is easy if you plan ahead. First, stock up on plenty of alcohol, preferably any type of brown liquor. Then turn your thermostat off and begin drinking. Stop when you feel warm or everything goes black. The amount you save in heating costs should pay for most of your liquor bills.

• Commuting in the winter is difficult and hazardous. Reduce your commute time by luring your boss into a sexual or racial harassment suit, then offer to settle out of court for enough money to last until you start a new job in April.

• Prevent your pipes from freezing by replacing your water supply with anti-freeze. This step is easier to follow if you replace your drinking water with liquor as indicated above, and shower in protective clothing.

• Snow eventually melts, so shoveling is really unnecessary if you are patient.

• Winter storms can cause power outages that leave you without any means of entertaining yourself. Invest in a portable generator so you can still access your “special” pictures on your computer or power your “personal massager.”

• Wind chill can make cold temperatures into real killers. Try to reduce winter winds by offering a sacrifice to the wind god of your choice. Remember: the more evolved the sacrifice is, the more likely your prayers will be heard.

• If you plan to travel with a group through an isolated, snowy mountain pass or in a charted flight, try to lose as much weight as possible before the journey. In fact, give your fellow travelers as many caloric sweets as possible. A little deprivation today could pay a life-saving, stomach-filling dividend tomorrow.

• When confronted with a cold so bitter, it freezes your very soul, look around you. If you see the three-headed figure of Satan devouring Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot, you are actually in the Ninth Circle of Hell and the above strategies will not necessarily apply.

• If all else fails, migrate south. The more Spanish you hear, the closer you are to warmth.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Why are we refusing to bail out the auto industry?

Special extra cargo space for the cash edition!

12) Failure to make cup holders large enough for Super Big Gulp.

11) Union’s insistence on doughnuts-for-life program.

10) Republican Congressmen could give a fuck about your problems.

9) This is not your father's auto industry lobby.

8) Need to focus on promoting the Chinese auto industry so China can keep lending us money to bail out our auto industry.

7) Auto side won't negotiate around the clock without getting time-and-a-half.

6) Industry leaders were scheduled to meet with Congress, but their cars broke down on the way.

5) Fuel prices finally igniting American interest in the Yugo.

4) Refuse to follow Japanese auto manufactures’ example and offer a happy ending after government bailout.

3) Still seeking compensation for atrocities inflicted through John Mellencamp abuse.

2) $25 billion only fills up an eighth of the industry’s tank.

1) Don't want to throw more money into a lemon.

Friday Brandom 11

It's one more Brandom than 10!

I saw a disturbing bit of news this week. It’s not the economy or the Obama transition or Sarah Palin buying as much TV time as possible to prove she’s not an idiot (good luck with all that). It was this:

Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” has become the first digital back-catalog song to sell more than two million digital downloads.

Now, as I have mentioned when they have popped up on Fridays, I have a soft spot for Journey. If “Don’t Stop Believing” comes on the radio or in my iTunes, you can bet I’m going full-throttle karaoke. They are cheesy, sure, but who doesn’t love a grilled cheese sandwich (except maybe some lactose-intolerant readers)?

However, as much as I love a grilled cheese sandwich, I know it’s also not filet mignon (vegetarian readers, insert whatever is the filet mignon of non-meat). There are some notable artists missing from the digital domain, but still, there are a lot of great tunes out there to add to one’s collection, and yet this is what the people clamored for. Now I understand a little bit better how Barabbas went free.

What really confuses me is that, given the gazoodles of records Journey sold, two million people decided to rush out and pay to download “Don’t Stop Believing.” I am sure that 95 percent of the people who did this already had a copy of this song in their domiciles, either on a cassette rumbling around under the car seats, stuck behind the CDs they publicly display, in the box of stuff from the ex- including the mix tape you made to let him/her know you were going to forgive her/him for cheating just one more time. Not that I would encourage anyone to steal music, but let’s face it, if you’re going to give your money to artists, give it to some who need it.

Here's the true kicker: I literally just realized, as I came to the end of this rant, that the copy of “Don’t Stop Believing” on my hard drive was legally downloaded from iTunes. I am not making this up. I can even tell you where my copy of Journey’s Greatest Hits is: in my graveyard of cassettes (aka one of those big, black, vinyl cassette carriers) in the attic. I will now punch myself in the balls.


1) “The Loudest Sound,” The Cure. I caught a bit of a recent concert on TV last week. Robert Smith looks as if he took all his sorrows, baked them into a large and very caloric pie, and ate it all in one sitting. But beyond that, the man is in need of a serious makeover. I loves me some Cure, but it’s difficult for me to watch someone who looks older then me trying to look like he did when I first started listening to him. It would be like me walking around in tight-rolled white cargo pants, a neon green Gotcha T-shirt, and an acid-washed jean jacket with the collar turned up. Funny, but for all the wrong reasons.

2) “Blindman’s Bend,” Dave Dobbyn. A New Zealand musical legend I would never have known about were it not for the legendary husband of this New Zealand literary legend. Dobbyn is a terrific singer-songwriter, someone who, had he been born here or in the UK, would have been huge. Worth seeking out. In fact, there's no YouTube of this song, but here's the excellent “Loyal.”

Seriously, I had this song on a mix CD from my friend TMiddy called “Kiwi Music,” which included a very awesome bit of cover art of a Kiwi. The mix tape/CD is really an art that’s becoming lost in the digital age, so I cherish when I get a great one from someone.

3) “Pacific Theme,” Broken Social Scene. A little bit like Steely Dan’s rhythm section playing with New Order’s Bernard Sumner on guitar. And that’s before the horns kick in.

4) “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd St.?” Bruce Springsteen. I moved to New York when TLB and I got married. She was already working in magazine publishing, and I decided to try and get into publishing myself. My very first day in Manhattan, after a day of interviews, I was walking back to the Port Authority with TLB after she finished work (we were living with a friend in Jersey while we got settled). I saw these two old, haggard guys arguing, right in the middle of the sidewalk on Seventh Avenue as we got near 42nd Street. One had a handful of money, and as we got closer, I heard him say to the other old guy, in an accent that sounded like Poppie from Seinfeld, “Oh yeah, well I fucked your mother!” The other man, without saying a word, hauled off and delivered an uppercut that lifted the money man off both his feet. It was like one of those exaggerated, slo-mo movie knockouts. The guy who was punched fell on his back and hit this head against the pavement so hard, I felt it in my feet.

And that was my first day in New York.

5) “Dudley,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I don’t like these guys (or, more specifically, guys and a gal) as much as I thought I would, mostly because I think they try to hard to sound hard by cocking up their melodic sensibilities with noise. Here they succesfully let their pop flag fly, with a nice vocal and some understated but energetic guitar playing.

6) “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” The Beatles. The most polarizing Beatles tune after “Revolution 9?” Personally, I’ve always thought it was one of the silly-yet-good entries in the Beatles canon, like “Yellow Submarine” or “Octopus’s Garden.” But over the years I’ve read or heard lots of people rant about this song, especially big Beatles fans who find it a fluffy piece of dung.

7) “Picture Book,” The Kinks. While commercials using classic rock songs can often been cringeworthy, I dug the Hewlett-Packard commercial that used this one. And hey, Ray Davies deserves all the money he can get, much more so than anyone from Journey.

8) “Hungry Like the Wolf,” Duran Duran. “Rio” is by far my favorite song of theirs, but damn if I don’t like this one. It’s a great song that manages to personify the good side of Eighties pop without overdosing on the bad stuff. Oh, and they new how to make videos then!

9) “Space and Time,” The Verve. Urban Hymns is in my top ten of 90s albums, and this is one of the best songs off it. The guitars wash over you while Richard Ashcroft’s voice finds a sweet spot between crooning and droning the complements the music perfectly.

10) “Even the Losers,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Classic singalong material. Petty has that great voice to imitate, with that nasally twang. Years ago, I read an interview with him about the difficulties musicians have remaining faithful to their spouses on the road. He said something like, “Yeah, it’s not that hard if you don’t fuck a lot of women.” Good point. It also helps if you look like Tom Petty.

11) “Dark Center of the Universe,” Modest Mouse. For all the hope and change floating around the airwaves—and I’m one of the people who voted that way—this song has captured my mood a little better these days. It’s angry and kind of chaotic, but catchy enough that I want to play it again and tap my foot along. Because even though the people I voted for won, they’ve been handed the keys to Delta House after the Deltas lived there for four years—with all the vandalism and destruction, but without any of the fun and humor. I’m glad they have the house, but pissed and, frankly, depressed, about how much shit they have to clean up. It helps if you have a song you can hum that doesn’t diminish the anger that keeps you going.

Have an awesome weekend. And thanks to Rotten McDonald and my own ham-fisted typing for inspiring this week's title change. I'm not sure if I'll keep it, but it made me laugh a little.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What executive orders will we be rescinding?

10) Dropping “g’s” From Words Ending in “ing” so as Make the Executive Branch Sound More Neighborly and Such.

9) Preserving Stem Cells as Caviar for the Vice President’s Office.

8) Enabling the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Relocate Disaster Victims by Catapult.

7) Requiring Transportation Security Administration to Perform Full Body Cavity Searches on Anyone Who Looks a Little Dark.

6) Mandating That All Books Must Have Cliffs Notes or a Movie Adaptation That Bypasses Actual Reading.

5) Allowing the Drilling of Baby Seals for Oil.

4) Permitting National Security Agency Employees to Interrupt Phone Calls to Ask People to Speak More Clearly.

3) Renaming the Phrase “Global Warming” in All Government Documents to “Freedom Heat.”

2) Altering American Foreign Policy to Comply With the “Suck It” Doctrine.

1) Establishing Federally Protected Status for Caucasian Males.

The Candy Man

A CJSD Analog Short


It all started with the damn candy.

Last year, Loretta didn’t buy enough. I told her to get a few bags worth, what with all the yuppies and their kids moving into the neighborhood now. “Make sure you get enough,” I told her. So what did she do? She bought two bags of those little Snickers bars. Two. “‘That should be plenty,’” she told me. Hmph. We ran out by 8:30 and the next morning, who’s outside scraping dried egg yolks off the Plymouth? Not Loretta, let me tell you.

So this year, I tell her to make sure we had enough candy. Specifically, I said, “Buy enough goddamned candy to feed a Vietnamese village.” Now you see, I was exaggerating in order to make a point. But Loretta, she’s not so good at picking up on little subtleties and what not. She comes home from the Super Shopper with enough candy to feed the entire Viet Cong. Jawbreakers, Milky Ways, Milk Duds...and three bags of Candy Corn. Fifty bucks worth of candy. I imagine my face was red as an apple. But when I look at Loretta and she’s smiling and proud of herself for getting so much candy like I asked her, well, I can’t really yell at her now, can I?

Halloween night comes around, and the inside of my porch looks like Willy Wonka’s factory. There’s candy everywhere. And I’m throwing handfuls of the stuff in the kids’ bags, not even waiting for them to ask for it. They’re saying “...treat” and I’m already onto the next kid. But we had a lot less kids coming around on account of last year’s incident with Mr. Johnson’s popcorn balls. So even though I’m like the Santa Claus of Halloween, I’ve got more than half of the candy left at the end of the night.

Luckily Loretta’s like a pack rat and saves every damn bit of paper that she can. Normally I yell at her for keeping all that junk, but this time, she’s got the receipt for the candy. I figure I’ll just take it back to the store, end of problem.

I throw all the stuff in the back of the Chuck Wagon—that’s my nickname for my cargo van—and drive off to the Super Saver. I come to the customer counter and talk to this kid. I tell him what happened and show him the receipt.

“I’m sorry, sir, but there are no returns on Halloween candy,” he says.

“But I didn’t open it, and I’ve got my receipt right here,” I tell him.

“Yes, I understood you the first time,” he says, “but the store policy is that there are no returns on Halloween candy.” And he says it in this real condescending voice, too, like I’m an idiot or something.

“Look here,” I tell him, “I heard you the first time, too, okay? And I want you to hear this...I want to speak to the manager.”

“I am the manager,” he says.

Manager! This kids looks like he’s not ready to start shaving yet. Well, to make a long story short, I use some language I normally save for poker night with the guys and wind up being escorted out of the store—candy still in hand. Super Shopper. More like the Super Sucker.

I’m driving in the van, just mad as a tick. I know rules are rules, but when a customer comes in with perfectly good merchandise and a receipt, that should be the end of the story, right? You got a receipt and unopened candy, you should get your money back. This isn’t Russia. I’m turning all this over in my head and trying to figure out what to do with all the candy when I damn near hit some kid who comes flying out of nowhere. He’s chasing after a football his friend threw into the street. I slam on the breaks and honk the horn and roll down my window, ready to give this kid a lecture on looking both ways, when it dawns on me: kids...candy.

“Hey, little boy,” I say to him out of the window. “You want some candy.”

The kid just looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “Hey,” I say, louder, “You want some candy? I’ve got some for you.”

His little friend—the little quarterback—comes over and grabs his arm. He says something to him I can’t hear and they just take off running. “Wait,” I yell out to them, but they take off faster than Loretta’s waistline did after she turned 30.

I get back home and decide I’ve had enough hooplah over a bunch of stupid candy for one day. I leave it out in the van and go inside.



Next day, Loretta gives me a grocery list and a bunch of Super Shopper coupons from the Sunday paper. I don’t want to tell her that I’m banned from the one over on Hawthorne, so I take the coupons, hop in the van and drive to the one way the hell over on Jackson Street. They’re having a sale on winter salt, so I figure I might as well load up and get a fifty pound bag. But while I’m throwing it in the van, I’m not paying attention and almost throw it on top of the candy. I catch myself and twist my damn back just like I did the last day at the plant. It wrenches up like a vice grip, enough that I had to ask some girl bagger to help me get it in the van.

On my way back home, I see a bunch of kids playing in a yard. They look happy and normal, not like the two dim bulbs I saw the day before. I pull up to the curb and roll down the window. “Hey kids,” I say, friendly as I can be. “How would you like some candy.”

“You’ve got candy?” they ask, excited.

“Whole bunch of it,” I tell them.

“Oh, please mister, can we have some of your candy? Please please please.” Cute kids, they are. And normal.

“Sure thing,” I tell them. I get ready to get out, and my back locks up. “Say, why don’t you guys come around and get it out of the van yourself?” I tell them.

They smile and giggle and run around to the back. They get door open when I hear this scream. I look out the window and see this woman running toward the van. “Kyle! Joseph! Get away from there! NOW!” I mean, she’s acting like the kids are getting into a burning building.

“Ma’am, they’re fine, they’re just getting some candy out of my van.”

“You leave them alone!” she screams, her voice dropping to this growl. And she comes around the side and yanks the kids away from the van. They start crying and whining about the candy, but she just pulls them to the house, looking back at me and giving me the evil eye. And not only did the kids not take any of the God-forsaken candy, but they left the door wide open. I get out and lurch over to the side door and slam it shut. For the second night in a row, I’m sitting at home with a bunch of candy I don’t need.



Now, I know what you’re thinking: why don’t I just keep the candy? Well, it’s Loretta. With her blood sugar and obsessive compulsive disorder, it’d be Easter Sunday in the hospital all over again. In fact, I told her I already returned it so she wouldn’t go snooping around in the Chuck Wagon.

So why don’t I just throw it out? Let me tell you what’s wrong with this country, other than baby-faced store managers who get to tell you what you can and can't return: throwing stuff out when it’s perfectly good. That’s not how my dad raised me. My mother once made meat loaf that was packed with onions. My father, rest his soul, he loved onions. “Honey,” he’d tell my mother, “you never put enough onions in the meat loaf.” So one night she puts two whole onions in the meat loaf, just so my father will stop talking about there not being enough onions. It was a wonder that she could even bake it. I know he hated every bite, but he’d rather swallow every mouthful of onion-soaked meat than throw it out. I hate onions, so I pushed the plate away. What’d my father do? He stuck that plate in the refrigerator. For the next three nights, he’d go in the refrigerator and set that cold, slimy plate of meat loaf in front of me. I didn’t get any other dinner except that, “You finish what your mother made you, boy,” he said each night. I don’t know how I did it, but I choked it down. And even though I went up to my room and called him every name in the book, I learned a big lesson that night. So that’s why I couldn’t just throw that candy away.



I get up the next morning and Loretta’s got another list for me. She’s out of yarn and needs me to go to Needle in a Haystack. I hate having to go there—I’m always the only man in the place. But she can’t drive on account of her deformed big toe, so I have to go.

Unfortunately, Loretta’s a little behind on her laundry, so all I have to wear are my “fat pants.” I had a bit of weight problem after the accident at the plant, and finally lost it by going on that shake diet. I put them on and they practically fall off. I grab my one good belt, but while I’m tightening it, the damn buckle hole rips. I tell you another thing wrong with this country, they don’t make belts like they used to. My father had one belt that lasted him 47 years. I can’t get one to last 17. I could wait for my pants, except you don’t want to come between Loretta and her yarn. I figure what the hey, I’m just running out for some thread.

In the van, I pass by three of the cutest little girls you ever did see. Triplets, all dressed alike, laughing and jumping in a big pile of leaves. It’s like a sign, like God’s telling me, “give these girls your candy.”

I pull over to the curb and get out of the van, holding my pants up with one hand. “Hey girls, how are you?” I ask them.

“Fine,” they say, all together like a choir.

“Do you girls like candy?” I ask.

“Candy?!” they yell. “You have candy?”

“A whole lot of it,” I say. I open up the back and pull out two fistfuls of bags. I toss them to the girls and they’re squealing, “candy, candy, CANDY!” I get all the candy out except for two bags that are just out of my reach. The little girls are hopping up and down around me, and just as I get the last bags in my hands, I feel a bit of a breeze. That’s when I hear the siren. I turn around and see two cops. I hold up the two last candy bags just before my fat pants fall to my knees.

So that’s how I wound up here. Try to do something nice and look where it gets me. No good deed goes unpunished, my dad used to say. I’ll tell you, that’s what’s really wrong with this country. And whoo boy, you’re lucky you didn’t have to hear Loretta when I told her I was in the pokey. It’s gonna be a long ride home. As soon as someone can drive her over here, of course.

Friday Randon 11

I started this blog in 2005 for two reasons. One was to have an outlet for the ideas for short humorous pieces that I had. Outside of The New Yorker or McSweeny’s, there really aren’t many places to publish short humor. A blog seemed like the perfect format, and it would keep me from bombarding The Lovely Becky with what she calls “my act.”

The other reason was George W. Bush. I began the Shrub presidency with disappointment and ambivalence at how the election went down, but I also accepted it. We live in a democracy, and sometimes the other side wins, and I resigned myself to four years of Fool Rule.

By the time the 2004 election rolled around, I had become a different political beast. I hated this administration. Iraq, the manipulation that led to the war, detainee torture, the deregulation of just about everything that needed to be regulated, the regulation of just about everything that needed to remain private...well, you know the song. Most of all, though, I hated the goddamned smugness. There’s a quality to the Bush Administration, a quality exhibited by nearly every member that had anything to do with national policy, that they were in charge and if you didn’t like it, you could (as Cheney would say) go fuck yourself. They acted like democracy was this big burden and that things would be so much easier if they could just disband the Congress and suspend elections until the War on Terra was over.

That anger fueled the majority of things I’ve written in the last three years. The desire to shove a satirical pie in that smirking face got my creative juices going. I have to hand it to the Chimp, he provided a lot of great material. And Sarah Palin looked more than capable of picking up that mantle.

Of course, I voted for Obama, and I am excited that he won. But it certainly changes the game for me in terms of the blog. Not that I can’t make fun of Democrats. It’s a little harder, sure, but Biden alone will probably provide some good material. And watching the GOP eat its own tail is amusing and should continue to provide fodder.

So, I plan to still write and post and lambast. I have entirely too many issues to let one positive election erase my muse. I just am not completely sure what’s going to come out from this point. I think I’m going to enjoy finding that out.

Enough of my yackin', time for some tunes.

1) “Freak Scene,” Dinosaur Jr. I tell you what was a freak scene: watching Anderson Cooper talking to a hologram on election night. I am a pretty big tech nerd, but even I wasn’t quite ready for that. Although the possibilities are interesting.

2) “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” Wilco. Jeff Tweedy made a nice appearance on Colbert a couple weeks ago, at which point TLB reminded me of how she got to see Uncle Tupelo in their prime when she was in college. Why? Because she knows it tortures me because I never saw them. That’s really the secret to a happy marriage—being able to annoy your spouse without actually angering them. That and hot lovin’. If you have those two things, you’ll cruise to at least the silver anniversary.

3) “Waterfall,” The Stone Roses. Their debut album is one of those albums that I went from liking to loving to taking with me on a desert island.

4) “Time Bomb,” Rancid. One of my favorite 90s albums. There are plenty of old classic albums that I love from start to finish. Once CDs started expanding the length of albums from 30-45 minutes to 60-80, even my favorite CDs usually had a track or two that would get the skip treatment. ...And Out Come the Wolves is one of the rare ones that gets played from start to finish.

5) “Happyman,” Less Than Jake. Another entry from the 90s ska punk revival, although not as classic as Rancid. I still enjoy the occasional revved up ska tune, but ska punk is like swing dancing, one of those sub-trends from the 90s that somehow seems more outdated than the synth-pop of the 80s that all the kids are copying these days.

6) “Heroes,” David Bowie. This rivals “Ziggy Stardust” as my favorite Bowie track. When he switches from the controlled singing to the shouted vocals, it sends a little tingle up my spine every time.

7) “Landslide (Live),” Fleetwood Mac. Oh Jesus, it’s getting dusty in here. Talk amongst yourselves for a moment.

8) “Fling,” Built to Spill. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’d been playing a lot of Built to Spill, especially There’s Nothing Wrong With Love. Maybe it’s because they’re from another snowy hinterland (Idaho) that it resonates so much with me lately. There’s a combination of beauty and isolation that reflects what I see outside of my office window on a daily basis.

9) “Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus),” Drive-By Truckers. The GOP anthem. From the awesomely titled Pizza Deliverance.

10) “Little Fluffy Clouds,” The Orb. I think this was used in a commercial once. Hey, remember raves? Yeah, the people who went to them don’t either. Also, while this double-album is a monumental bit of electronica, it is every bit as pretentious as Yes ever dreamed of being.

11) “Big Bad Moon,” Joe Satriani. After eight years of monkey-faced, self-aggrandizing, Constitution humping, anti-democratic, hypocritical dickheadery, you know what we need? A little shredding. And no one shreds like Joe Satriani.

Hidden Bonus Track:
“Homeland Security,” Lewis Black. I had to laugh when this came on as I was wrapping the list up. I know for a fact Lewis won’t have a problem adjusting his act for a Democratic administration.

Have a great weekend.

Wow

As much as I expected what happened to happened, it's still hard to believe it actually happened. My biggest hope is that the people I entrusted with this country's future will govern like a party that just kicked the other one to the curb.

Sadly, my comedy dream of Senator Al Franken seems to be coming to an end. This led to the following conversation last night:

Me: Looks like Al Franken is just barely losing. Oh well, I'm not really sure he would have been a good Senator. It would be like if I was running for the Senate.

The Lovely Becky: Yeah, exactly. No offense, sweetie.

Me: None taken. I would last about three days on the campaign trail. Some reporter would ask me, "Mr. Brando, what do you think about your opponent's accusations?" and I would say something like, "I think he should gargle my balls," and then it would all be over.

Speaking of The Lovely Becky, she has some serious election day cute over at her place.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What propositions are we voting for?

Prop. U2: Prohibits Bono from buggin’ ya without your consent.

Prop. EH-69: Mandates that all e-Harmony customers list their kinks.

Prop. PR-6: Establishes more stringent whininess emissions requirements for all Project Runway contestants.

Prop. OU812: Requires waterboarding with Cabo Wabo tequilla for any musician guilty of excessive punning on album titles (aka the REO Speedwagon You Can't Tune a Piano but You Can Tuna Fish law)*

Prop. 81: Permits placing of tape over Chad Johnson’s mouth (aka The Ocho Cinco law).

Prop.401K: Allows people to crash at the houses of the fund managers who lost all their retirement savings.

Prop. 50-PS: Closes numerous loopholes that allow people to leave their lovers.

Prop. 300: Makes it a misdemeanor to masturbate to war porn in public theaters.

Prop. 12-BSG: Requires all multiply-born children to be tested for Cylon heritage.

Prop. 2009: Removes George W. Bush from office and places him a public dunking tank until the proposition is repealed.


*Hat tip to Churlita for suggesting this the last time.

Piemold Election Solutions

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CAMPAIGN MANAGER
So, unless we find another 105 electoral votes, we don’t have a prayer.

FEMALE RUNNING MATE (clapping)
Oh, hey, we always have prayer! Look: “Dear Jesus, please let us win instead of that awful socialist Muslim.”

OLD MAN
Prayer’s not going to make those levers magically pull themselves, sweet cheeks. We need a miracle.

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Friday Random 11

It’s Halloween. Do you know where your costume is?

I wasn’t much in the Halloween spirit this week—Libby’s too young to really trick or treat, and I don’t need to eat eight pounds of fun-size Snickers. That changed when we watched an excellent episode of Paranormal State this week. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Paranormal State is like The Real World meets Poltergeist. Find out what happens when the dead stop being polite and start being real scary. It’s cheesy, but really good cheese, like the kind they sell over by the deli department instead of in the cheese case. There's also just enough freaky stuff to keep me hooked week after did-you-hear-something week.

Anyway, they had a special hour-long episode this week involving a woman possessed by a demon. The episode progressed in standard fashion: the girl was experiencing weird, violent episodes, including writing on her flesh. The Paranormal State team suspected demonic activity, so they called in a priest. An Episcopal priest.

“Way to bring a knife to a gun fight,” I said to TLB.

They performed the exorcism and the woman eventually seemed fine. Except, at the end when they show an update of how a client is doing, it said she had another possession episode a couple weeks later.

Well, duh! The lesson, kids, is when you suspect you have the black soul of one of Lucifer’s minions nestled between your heart and what’s left of the Taco Bell meal you ate, call a Catholic priest. Because if there's one thing Catholic priests know, it's how to use their hands to expunge inner demons.

1) “Sara’s Angel,” Steve Earle. A nice bit of old-timey instrumental work that wouldn’t sound out of place during a montage from O Brother, Where Art Thou? Even funnier considering the GOP Republican candidate likely believes she has an angel watching over her.

Which brings up a conversation I had a while ago with my oldest friend. He was on the fence about who to vote for: he’s one of those economic/foreign policy conservatives who’s also pretty liberal on social policy. I suspect he was probably leaning toward McCain until the Palin announcement. We talked about her, and we discussed how we really don’t want Tribulation believers near nukes. (BTW, welcome to a special religious bigotry edition of the Random 11!) It’s not hard for me to picture Palin believing, as Bush does, that God speaks to her, and that her meteoric rise is part of God’s plan. And then, should the awful happen and she assume the presidency, that God “tells” her to start a war that ends with nukes going off. Although, since I’ve been playing Fallout 3 this week, I at least feel more prepared if that does happens.

2) “Thick as Thieves,” The Jam. I believe this was the theme song at the last AIG sales meeting.

3) “Are We the Waiting,” Green Day. It’s odd how dated I find American Idiot. I loved it in 2004. It was perfect for the election that year, and one of the first major-label albums to take a direct shot at the political chicanery gripping the country. However, it sounds completely out of step with this election. Maybe it’s because things feel like they are finally going to change, at least a little. Dare I say it: I have a little bit of hope during an election season.

4) “Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire),” AC/DC. I’ll bet Joe the Plumber likes him some AC/DC. This song has a line I’ve always loved: I’ve got patches on the patches of my old blue jeans / Well they used to be blue, when they used to be new, when they used to be clean. Bon Scott wasn’t all sex and Satanism, ladies and gentlemen.

One funny AC/DC tidbit: I heard a song from their new album, Black Ice, on the radio the other day. When the song ended, the DJ came on and said, “That’s a track from AC/DC’s new album, Black Ice, and one of four songs on the album with the word ‘rock’ in the title.” No hint of irony in his voice, as if it should be no surprise that AC/DC would have an album featuring four songs with “rock” in the title. I cracked up. In fact, I wish they had put “rock” in the title of every song on the album.

5) “Blues Before and After,” The Smithereens. I was in college when they were in their heyday, driving a beat-up Datsun (!) that looked like it had survived a Sarah Palin apocalypse. This is the car that, the first time I drove it, the glass on the passenger side mirror fell off as I pulled away from the curb. It also broke down the day I had to take the GRE. It was, in short, a metallic pile of dog shit. But, it had the most kicking set of factory speakers ever. Big, booming speakers that probably were responsible for shaking loose all the moving parts on the car.

I loved when The Smithereens would come on the radio when I was in that car. I worked as a pizza delivery guy at the time, so I was in my car a lot, and I would crank this song and every other Smithereens song I heard. So, despite that car giving me about 18 months of pure grief, I enjoyed driving it because of those speakers and the kind of music that got played on the radio. Sadly, no video for this rocking tune on the YouTubes.

Funny ending: this was the easiest car I ever sold. My father and I dropped it off at a vacant lot where a lot of people put their cars up for sale. My dad put a sign up in the window: $500 OBO. Why walk? We went home to have lunch, and we had a call within 30 minutes. We went back to the lot and sold it to a woman for $427—she literally gave us every dollar she had on her. So I guess every burned-out clutch has a silver lining.

6) “One Little Victory,” Rush. My favorite music moment of the last ten years was the first time I heard this song. I’ve obviously been completely unabashed in my Rush fandom. At the start of the 2000s, though, that fandom had waned quite a bit. The band had been rather hit-or-miss during the 90s, and on top of that, the double-tragedy suffered by drummer Neil Peart (losing his only daughter in a car accident and his wife to cancer within one year) made it seem like they were probably done. Finally, after a five-year gap, they released Vapor Trails. I heard this song on my way home one night and felt completely kicked in the ass (in the good way). I know it’s geeky to be that much of a fan, but I was so happy to see them not only back, but rocking like every song on their album should have "rock" in the title.

7) “My Dirty Life and Times,” Warren Zevon. I am a death baby. I’m somebody that will need to go quickly and obliviously, because if I have time to think about it, it’s not going to be pretty. At the same time, I have always loved the artistic epitaph—the work where the artist knows he or she is producing the last thing they will ever produce. Zevon’s The Wind is one of those, a sad yet uplifting album of a man knowing he’s going to soon, so he wants to make one final lasting impression.

8) “A Nigga Witta Gun,” Dr. Dre. The new Chris Rock HBO special was just okay, but he had a very funny routine about listening to rap songs with his white friend. He talked about how, if the white friends were with him, they always skipped over the n-word in rap songs, mumbling something or just saying nothing. Yet he knows when they are by themselves, they not only sing it, they shout it. Like a smart man once said, it’s funny cause it’s true. Also: funny cat video set to this song.

9) “Don’t Steal Our Sun,” The Thrills. No kidding. It snowed her Monday, enough to put a pretty decent dusting on the surrounding rooftops for a few hours. I went into season-affective disorder mode (also known as “being a baby”). Well, lo and behold, it was almost 60 here yesterday, warm enough that we took Libby for a walk after work for the first time in probably a month. So I’m hanging onto that sun as long as I can. This is also a great, great song.

10) “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” The Pretenders. Bouncy. Seriously, it’s impossible for me to not tap a toe or finger to this song. This also gives me a chance to link to the pretty sweet MTV video site. You can find lots of actual--gasp!--videos on it.

11) “Royal Gregory,” Holy Fuck. What better group to lead into an election weekend where a young black senator looks poised to beat an established white war veteran for the presidency than one named “Holy Fuck”?

And it’s catchy, too.

Happy Halloween, and get out and vote if you haven’t already. Although I know it’s tempting to abstain from the process in the hope that not voting will kill P-Diddy.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What robo calls are we receiving?

10) I’m Joe Biden, and I’d like to take just a few hours of your time....

9) This is former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. I’m not calling to endorse anyone, I’m just wondering if I can crash on your couch.

8) I’m John McCain, and I’m here to tell you that I’m...I’m...sorry, my memory isn’t what it used to be...where are my goddamned glasses so I can read this script?

7) Hello, I’m William Shatner. Did you know that you can now cast your vote on Priceline.com—with no poll taxes?

6) This is Cindy McCain. Please stay on the line while one of my servants tells you why John McCain is the best choice for average Americans.

5) [Handel’s “Messiah” plays] Good day, this is Barack Obama.

4) Shalom, my friends. I’m Joe Lieberman. I urge you to get out and vote for a real mensch, John McCain, and for Sarah Palin—what a shiksa!

3) This is the Coalition for Undecided Voters. We’re calling to tell you that we have no idea why we’re calling you.

2) Good evening. This is the Republican Party. We’re going to tell you why Barack Obama will destroy America. If you hang up before we’re finished, you acknowledge that you are a terrorist and will be placed on a watchlist.

1) Hi ya, this is Sarah Palin...no, don’t hang up, it’s actually me. They wanted to give me something useful to do before the election. So, how’s it goin’?

Are you a real American?

Sarah Palin recently discussed how happy she is to speak in front of real Americans. But what makes a real American? Take these handy quiz to find out how you rate.

(with acknowledgement to The Daily Show for inspiration)

1.Your relationship status:
a) single
b) married
c) divorced but remarried to person I met at a sanctity of marriage rally

2. How would you describe your home town?
a) full of culture and diversity
b) full of little pink houses
c) free of blacks

3. Your car is:
a) a hybrid with a Darwin fish on the back
b) an SUV with a yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon
c) a monster truck in the shape of a bald eagle

4. Do you own a firearm?
a) no
b) yes
c) that’s “firearms”

5. Drug of choice:
a) coke
b) meth
c) Jesus

6. What’s on your TiVo?
a) Project Runway
b) 24
c) anything with Kirk Cameron

7. What’s the last thing you killed?
a) a mimosa
b) a moose
c) a Muslim

8. Where do you get your news from?
a) CNN
b) Fox News
c) The Bible

9. How often have you been to Wal-Mart?
a) less than once a month
b) more than once a week
c) taking this quiz from the Wal-Mart breakroom

10. Welfare:
a) is necessary to help provide food and shelter to the poor
b) is necessary to provide help to my investments and tax shelters
c) would be better spent building churches

11. What are your feelings on evolution?
a) It’s a fact, supported by mountains of evidence.
b) Humans have evolved an ability to ignore mountains of evidence when politically expedient.
c) I throw feces when someone suggests I came from a monkey.

12. What are your feelings on homosexuality?
a) Homosexuals deserve all the rights of heterosexuals.
b) Homosexual marriage should not be allowed.
c) Homosexuality should be outlawed so that I’m not tempted.

13. When it comes to illegal immigration, you:
a) support amnesty
b) support strict enforcement of our immigration laws
c) support the construction of minefields along the Mexican border

14. How do you feel about universal health care?
a) The government should make it easy for everyone to get affordable health care.
b) The wealthy should be allowed to harvest the organs of the uninsured.
c) We already have universal health care: prayer.

16. Muslims:
a) should not be harassed because of their religion
b) should not be surprised that they are harassed because of their religion
c) should avoid harassment by changing their religion to Christianity

17. When it comes to Iraq, we should:
a) withdraw as soon as we can
b) keep our troops there until Iraq is independent
c) keep our troops there until they trigger the End Times

18. When it comes to offshore drilling, we should:
a) protect the environment and not drill
b) create thousands of new jobs producing hazmat suits for wildlife
c) drill like daddy’s home from the still and full of ’shine

19. Freedom:
a) means being able to disagree
b) isn’t free
c) is for people who share my beliefs and/or skin tone

20. Who would you consider the greatest president?
a) Franklin Roosevelt
b) Ronald Reagan
c) Sarah Palin


SCORING:
a) 3 points
b) 2 points
c) 1 point

20-30 points—Red Wood
You love America so much, you get aroused saying the Pledge of Allegiance. You like your portions big, your truck bigger, and your border fence the biggest. Jesus is not only your co-pilot, he’s your spotter, re-loader, and bombardier.

31-40 points—White Flour
The ingredients are there, but you need some fire to make them rise up. Try a little less compassion and a little more kick assin’. Trade those Dockers for some camo and skip soccer practice to take the kids hunting.

41-60 points—Blew Stater
You stir up treason like you stir milk into your latte. You want our government to take from the rich and give to the poor, instead of acting like a Christian nation and preserving tax cuts. You put your trust into science and fancy thinking, when all the thinking you need was done 2000 years ago. We’ll never preserve our freedom if we let people like you do what you want.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Which other Americans are we spotlighting in our campaign speeches?

10) Melvin the Underemployed Man Whore.

9) Vito the Completely Legitimate Businessman.

8) Russell the Beneficiary of Affirmative Action Who Now Hates Affirmative Action.

7) Mary the Fully-Armed, Pro-Life Soccer Mom.

6) Akbar the Cabbie Who Shares the Same Name as Akbar the Terrorist.

5) Lisa the Accidental Internet Porn Star Thanks to Her Asshole Ex-Boyfriend.

4) Cookie the Anti-Immigration Rodeo Clown.

3) Yvette the Eavesdropping National Security Agency Operator.

2) Frankie the Guy Who Can Eat His Weight in Ham and Now Needs Health Insurance.

1) Joe the Fictional Political Talking Point.

Friday Random 11

Why do I get sucked into those VH1 Greatest Whatever shows? TLB and I wound up watching the Greatest Songs of the 80s before the last debate—which, aside from some fun conversation, was really a waste of time. They drag out the same sub-Kathy Griffin celebrities—it’s bad when your celebrity coup is Barenaked Ladies. Said celebs repeat the same inane stuff: “I totally moonwalked in my bedroom to ‘Billie Jean’!” or “Night Ranger is totally underrated.” Nothing interesting like, “I couldn’t play Culture Club without totally touching myself” or “I totally tried to hang myself while watching the video for ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ but the rope totally broke, and then I looked up and saw George Michael’s ‘Choose Life’ shirt and I totally wanted to live.”

Yet there I sit, a rat in front of the food dispenser, sucking it all in while thinking things like, “T’Pau was totally ranked too high” and “‘99 Luftballoons’ is totally better when you can’t understand the lyrics.” I’m either too easy or VH1 has made a pact with Satan to cast a spell over me that makes it impossible for me to change the channel. I’m totally guessing it’s the latter.

On to the tunes....

1) “A Gallon of Gas,” The Kinks. Here’s how fucked up gas prices are: I got an e-mail, sent to everyone in my company’s office, that there were stations near the office selling gas at $2.89 a gallon. The double-indemnity is that Marquette has the highest gas prices in the state of Michigan. So my inbox is getting e-mails that have nothing to do with me and taunting me at the same time.

2) “Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation,” AC/DC. Funny that the first two songs are gritty 70s throwbacks, considering that it feels like 1978. Energy problems, Russians invading territory of sovereign nations, inflation, malaise...really, we just need a hostage crisis to complete the ensemble.

3) “Fashion,” David Bowie. The most annoying season of Project Runway finished this week. I’ve been watching the show for a few years now, and certainly the combination of fashion and reality show would attract a cadre of cobag personalities. This year, though, was ridiculous. I hated everyone on the show at various points of the season. They were either bland or bitchy most of the time. On top of that, they really weren’t the greatest designers, unlike the talented groups of the last two years. The one thing I was looking forward to was the reunion show, since most of the entertainment for me came from watching the contestants savage each other in their little confessional interview spots. I couldn’t wait for all these whiny emus to be in one room, watching clips of them verbally stab each other in the back. So what did Bravo do? Not give us a reunion show. And yes, I’m more upset about this than the current economic situation. That’s what’s wrong with this country, people like me.

4) “At and T,” Pavement. I love any song that starts off with the line, Maybe someone’s gonna save me/my heart is made of gravy. Oh, they knew how to write ironic hipster distanced nonsense back in the 90s.

5) “Chasing Cars,” Snow Patrol. Kathleen recently posted about how she envisioned pregnancy as a montage, like you see in the movies. That makes me think: don’t some songs just feel ripe for montages? This one seems that way, like you could practically write a scene of Ross and Rachel breaking up around it. And here to prove my point, a video montage setting this song to Grey's Anatomy.

6) “Satin in a Coffin,” Modest Mouse. I have been listening to these guys and Built to Spill a lot lately. There’s a quality to their music that complements the weather right now: that feeling of fall getting ready to give way to winter. Maybe because both bands mine the ground of bittersweet, sad, and angry, which matches how I feel about the onset of winter.

7) “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt. The thing I notice about getting older is I’m constantly playing the Has it really been X years since Y? game. For instance, it’s been 13 years since No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom came out. Have we really had Superstar Stefani for more than a decade? These kinds of revelations make my mortality feel like it’s on fast forward.

8) “Puke + Cry,” Dinosaur Jr. I’ve done plenty of the former, not so much of the latter. In fact, last month when I went to the Bears game in Charlotte, I was a little wobbly from boozing the night before. I was in the hotel room with my brothers when I felt the inevitable Stalinist digestive purge coming. As I hurled in the bathroom, my brothers cheered for me outside the door. I heard “Yeah, Brando!” and clapping. It’s hard to throw up and laugh at the same time. This video also reminds me how much I miss the old HBO music show Reverb.

9) “The Sporting Life,” The Decemberists. Probably my favorite lyricists working right now. They manage to be catchy and clever without being simplistic or pretentious. This song just drips with pathos, too: the narrator chronicles how his ineptitude at sports causes him to earn the scorn of his father while losing his girlfriend to the captain of the other team. That’s a story treatment for a Michael Cera movie right there.

10) “The Real Slim Shady,” Eminem. OH FACK, I CAN’T STOP HEARING MY BROTHER’S VOICE WHENEVER EMINEM COMES ON!

11) “One by One All Day,” The Shins. There is little that a little Shins can’t fix.

Have a totally bitchin’ weekend.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What last-minute campaign slogans are we unveiling?

10) Yes, We Might.

9) Creating Thousands of New American Jobs...in the Middle East!

8) I Don’t Need Your Vote, I’ve Got ACORN.

7) Ready to Return to Congress to Do All the Things I Neglected While Running for President!

6) Never Hugged by President Bush.

5) Change You Could Spare? Seriously, This Public Financing Thing Sucks.

4) A Man of Many Convictions, All of Them Thrown Out on Appeal.

3) I Sucked at History and Don’t Even Know Who the Weathermen Are.

2) Apocalypse, Now!

1) Keep the White in White House.

Saying hi to Baby Jesus

Sorry for not posting a Random 11 today. We are out of town, getting ready to have Libby baptised at the church where TLB and I got married in 1247 (A.D.). My brother Tickle is going to be the godfather, which means that Libby will likely have a gambling problem by the time she is eight.

Who am I kidding, she'll have a gambling problem no matter who her godfather is.

The baptism is funny in that, while neither TLB and I have been very good about going to church, we never hesitated about having Libby baptised. We've even started going back to church to set an example for her. If my daughter winds up becoming jaded and sarcastic about religion like her old man, that's fine. But if she does wind up at that point, I want it to be because she chose to feel that way, not because I'm that way.

Yes, I realize that makes no sense. Neither does having a person who takes a vow of celibacy counseling couples on the marriages. Embracing life's contradictions may seem silly, but at least I still get a hug.

Update: It was worth it for the cake alone. If they replaced communion wafers with this, the Church could fill those pews again:

Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we encouraging kids to read?

Special unabridged and unedited edition!

12) Developing the Super Mario Brothers Karamazov video game.

11) Publishing a pop-up version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

10) Creating McSweeny’s: The Cereal, with a short story on every box and marshmallows in the shape of today’s literary stars!

9) Adding a shitload of zombies to Beloved.

8) Inserting sound chips in Atlas Shrugged that play Rush songs while you read.

7) Introducing kids to Orwell through Pixar’s Animal Farm.

6) Developing a new, modern update on the works of Leo Tolstoy: Tom Clancy's More War and Less Peace.

5) Giving Jay Gatsby super powers to make him really great.

4) Playing up the lesbianism in Mrs. Dalloway.

3) Broadcasting new reality show, America’s Next Unknown Novelist.

2) Creating text-message version of Finnegan’s Wake.

1) Reducing the amount of words that go into reading.

Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

The last two nights have been the worst I have ever had as a sports fan. There’s a reason “Cubs” and “collapse” start with the same letter, but I didn’t expect them to get treated like the guy who gets killed the first night in Shawshank Prison. The 1984 defeat to the Padres and the 2003 loss to the Marlins were tough, but this is just unbearable. Ugh. Nothing to do but watch Game 3 and cheer for a win.

Couple that feeling with seeing that all it takes to score a political “victory” is not appearing like you got off the short bus to appear at the vice presidential debate. It’s like Bush in 2000 all over again. “Hey, maybe he could sit in the Oval Office without protective headgear. He’s got my vote!” Fuck. Me. CNN’s political pundits are normally a waste of carbon, but one of them made a good point after the debate. When 9/11 happened, Bush was of course whisked away on Air Force One, leaving Cheney in charge for a few hours. Could you imagine Palin in that position? At least Voldemort knows how to get shit done.

Finally, a very slippery Fish subjected me to this video, which is so awful, it made me question the existence of God. This launched a bad rock cover arms race between him, Jennifer, and almostinfamous. Well, I have news for all of them: your national intelligence estimates were wildly inaccurate about the status of my WMV program. I have the enriched plutonium and the system to deliver it. This is so bad, Clarice Starling would rather listen to the lambs screaming.

Okay, I obviously am more wound up than Lewis Black after a pot of IHOP coffee, so I need some music to soothe the savage beast.

1) “The Dark of the Matinee,” Franz Ferdinand. Even when I’m down, FF knows how to put a little shake in my booty.

2) “Roundabout (Live),” Yes. There’s just a little extra wank, courtesy of Rick Wakeman, in this live version. The music is good enough that I don’t care about the lyrics coming out of Jon Anderson’s mouth. And you know what today's music really lacks? Sequined capes.

3) “Fool to Cry,” The Rolling Stones. I have taken the whole dad thing in stride. I am delighted with Libby and love being a dad, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten more sentimental or anything. Except, a few nights ago, I had my little girl on my lap and was reading Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree to her. And damn if it didn’t start getting dusty in the room. I felt like I was 12 again and trying not to lose it at the end of E.T. Why is the boy such a dick to the tree?!

4) “The Ballad of Peter Pumkinhead,” XTC. Here’s a happy tale of a do-good idealist getting crushed by the powers that be. I love how they made such sunny music with such dark lyrics, always a great combination.

5) “Punch Drunk,” Uncle Tupelo. Their working-class desperation unfortunately sounds pitch-perfect right now. It’s too bad Tweedy and Farrar can’t reach across the aisle and work together again.

6) “Fifty Years After the Fair,” Aimee Mann. Her first solo album is still my favorite. The songs are catchy without being trite, her lyrics (especially the couplets) have plenty of zing, and the arrangements make a delicious stew out of 60s, 70s, and 80s guitar-driven pop music.

7) “Kick Push,” Lupe Fiasco. The only hip-hop song dedicated to skateboarding? I dig the beat and the horn sample (which I think I know but can’t quite place).

8) “My Little Needle,” Alkaline Trio. A little Chicago emo seems appropriate today. Hmm, heroin. Now that could cure those Cubbie blues, couldn’t it? This also reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is supposed to go to Africa, but she tests positive for opium. Peterman confronts her and says she's under the spell of “yam yam.” I have no idea why, but that always makes me laugh.

9) “Shellshock,” New Order. Nice to see iTunes has a sense of humor. Honestly, this would be perfect for a Game 3 promo. Never give up until your heart stops beating. Yeah, well after Saturday, I may need to be revived by House.

10) “Anarchy in the U.K.,” The Sex Pistols. Mega-fun to play in Guitar Hero III. I wish they made a breakaway Guitar Hero guitar, so you could smash it without breaking it. I am a giant nerd. Pre-Sid video here with Glenn Matlock on bass.

11) “Unguarded Moment,” The Church. Practically a blueprint for early 80s college radio pop: serious, over-annunciated vocals offset by soaring, but non-wanking, guitar. They should have been bigger than they were. But then again, so should most of us.

Have a good weekend. Hopefully the Cubs will too.

A Few Minutes With Sarah Palin

The CJSD exclusive Celebrity Reacharound!


CJSD: Governor Palin, thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Palin: My pleasure. Say, is that shirt made out of moose hide?

CJSD: No, it’s cotton.

Palin: That’s too bad.

CJSD: Governor, you have been many things. Wife, mother—

Palin: Boy, those two were this close to being reversed.

CJSD: Sportscaster, Mayor, Governor, and now GOP Vice Presidential nominee. How have these experiences prepare you to deal with the possibility that Senator John McCain could become a drooling vegetable within the next eight years, leaving you with supreme control over the White House?

Palin: You know, experience can also take on many different forms, like water. It can be solid, it can be liquid, it can be a gas. My experience is like that, kind of wet and gassy sometimes, but solid too. For instance, when it comes to catching terrorists, my experience as a homemaker is pertinent.

CJSD: How so?

Palin: Well, one time, I was preparing sandwiches for Bristol and her friends. They love pickles on their sandwiches. But the pickle jar would not come unstuck. Todd and the boys were out seal-clubbing, so I was on my own.

One of Bristol’s friends suggested running the jar under hot water. Now, I see that as appeasement. Why should I take the time to warm up a jar of pickles that should open when I tell it to?

Bristol, bless her, suggested whacking on the lid with a knife. That got me thinking. I decided to take it one better. I got out my shotgun and blew the jar open.

CJSD: Did that work?

Palin: Oh yeah. Not only did it open the jar, but it taught all the other jars a lesson, that there will be no compromise when it comes to opening. Although, sadly, the blast destroyed all the pickles in the jar. But better for those pickles to be free and in pieces on my kitchen floor than to live under glass tyranny.

CJSD: Speaking of which, if you were to become president, what would your plans be for withdrawal in Iraq?

Palin: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

CJSD: What would be your criteria for withdrawing from American troops—

Palin: That word, “withdrawing,” what does that mean?

CJSD: To remove, or pull out.

Palin: Oh, if there's one thing we don't do in the Palin household, it's pull out.

CJSD: The economy has overshadowed even national security in this election. If you were in charge, what would you propose doing to help solve the crisis?

Palin: Lemonade.

CJSD: Lemonade?

Palin: Yes, I’d sell lemonade. We have plenty of it, and the markup is incredible. I would require everyone coming into the country to buy a glass of lemonade.

CJSD: How would you implement that?

Palin: If you come through customs, you buy a glass of lemonade. If you cross the border, you buy a glass of lemonade. In fact, I’d make illegal immigrants buy lemonade, too—if you pay for the lemonade, the border patrol would count to 100 before coming after you again.

CJSD: How much would you charge for the lemonade?

Palin: Between 50 cents and $25 a glass. I’m still working with my economic consultants on the pricing.

CJSD: What about job creation? Have you suggested any plans to Senator McCain?

Palin: I have. First thing is, everyone gets fired from their jobs. That would create a whole lot of jobs. Like more than ever. And then we would hire people for those jobs. Problem solved!

CJSD: What as the Senator's response?

Palin: He said he is taking it under advisement, which is just like him really considering it. Yay!

CJSD: You have described yourself as a woman of faith.

Palin: As God is my witness!

CJSD: How does your faith influence your decision making?

Palin: How doesn’t it? I get up every day and I ask Jesus what to do.

CJSD: You mean you pray?

Palin: No, I have a little statue of Jesus, playing baseball with some boys. And I say, “Baseball Jesus, what should I do today?”

CJSD: And does Jesus respond?

Palin: Only on Mondays. But he gives me my list for the week, so it’s all good, you know.

CJSD: What about evolution? Do you believe in it?

Palin: Nah.

CJSD: What about the dinosaurs? How do explain fossils?

Palin: They are the remnants of Lucifer’s battle with God, before he was cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

CJSD: Really?

Palin: I’m sorry, I didn’t explain that very well. I should have said “before Lucifer was cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven,” because “he” would make it sound like God was cast out of heaven. And that would be just silly.

CJSD: What about abortion? You are pro-life, but you recently said you also believe there’s a right to privacy, but that states should also be able to regulate abortion.

Palin: Yeah, I was taken out of context. But I’ve also come up with a solution. I have a plan to arm all fetuses.

CJSD: Arm them?

Palin: Yeah, give them guns. I’d require them to be medically inserted as soon as the little guys have thumbs. Mothers would still have the option to have an abortion, but the babies would have the option to exercise their Second Amendment rights and shoot their way to freedom. Everybody wins. We just have to find a way to shrink the guns.

CJSD: Finally, why do you feel John McCain should be the next president of the United States?

Palin: I’ve given this a lot of thought. I take this honor, this nomination, very seriously, so I have studied the presidency very carefully. And one thing I’ve noticed: every single president has been a white man, and most of them older. That’s what statisticians call a predictor.

CJSD: Governor Palin, thank you for talking with us.

Palin: You bet. Here, have some beaver jerky. I cured it myself.


Note for mouthbreathers: Like most things on this site, this is a work of fiction. If you're not smart enough to figure that out, go to Ted Turner and resign from CNN right now.