10) The Matrix.
9) Hand not holding our cigarette.
8) Best-seller lists.
7) Chastity belts.
6) Stuff rich white people don’t like.
5) A prison full of FAIL.
4) Former "business" associates who didn't know how to keep their mouths shut.
3) Any occupied womb we choose,
2) Our belts with a hole punch.
1) The sources of our power.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Top Ten Thursdays: Why are we refusing to compromise on the debt ceiling?
10) We were elected to restore the Judeo-Christian values of this country, and that means we should stick to our guns and not make peace with our political enemies.
9) Plus we all know that taxes are an affront to Jesus.
8) Jesus came to die for our sins, and that meant crucifixion. That wasn’t going to happen if He only got a nail in one hand, right?
7) That’s why we have to rescue the American government from its fiscal sins by crucifying it.
6) The biggest way we can reduce our deficit is by cutting entitlement programs, because if there’s one thing the New Testament teaches us, it’s that you shouldn’t just give poor people stuff for free.
5) That goes double for free medical care, which is the work of Satan.
4) And lets face it, this whole mess was caused by the Democrats and their tax-and-spend ways.
3) They are trying to win political points by increasing tax rates and unfairly asking the rich to pay more than their fair share in taxes….
2) When everyone knows that when the rich get richer, everyone else benefits. Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?
1) Besides, everyone knows austerity is for poor people.
9) Plus we all know that taxes are an affront to Jesus.
8) Jesus came to die for our sins, and that meant crucifixion. That wasn’t going to happen if He only got a nail in one hand, right?
7) That’s why we have to rescue the American government from its fiscal sins by crucifying it.
6) The biggest way we can reduce our deficit is by cutting entitlement programs, because if there’s one thing the New Testament teaches us, it’s that you shouldn’t just give poor people stuff for free.
5) That goes double for free medical care, which is the work of Satan.
4) And lets face it, this whole mess was caused by the Democrats and their tax-and-spend ways.
3) They are trying to win political points by increasing tax rates and unfairly asking the rich to pay more than their fair share in taxes….
2) When everyone knows that when the rich get richer, everyone else benefits. Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?
1) Besides, everyone knows austerity is for poor people.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Top Ten Thursdays: What have we been convicted of?
Special extended deliberations edition!
12) Loving too much, especially when it comes to our staffers.
3) Using too many checks to increase our balances.
1) Having no convictions.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Happy Birthday
Today marks three years since the War on Childlessness ended. It's going by fast but I am loving the ride.
Here's Libs recent performance as a flower girl.
Here's Libs recent performance as a flower girl.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Top Twenty Thursdays: How are we rewriting history for our presidential campaigns?
Special extended revised misinformation edition!
18) The Constitution is protected from undoing by activist judges because, at the very bottom, it says “P.S., no backsies”
15) The Civil War started over breach of etiquette by the North.
13) The Spanish-American War was fought over the introduction of bilingual education.
8) Joe McCarthy knew who the communists in the American government were because they were colored red while everyone else was in black and white.
20) The United States is a Christian nation because it was founded when the pilgrims rolled away Plymouth Rock from the tomb of Jesus.
19) The colonies revolted against the British Empire because Great Britain unfairly taxed the colonists to fund universal leechcare.
18) The Constitution is protected from undoing by activist judges because, at the very bottom, it says “P.S., no backsies”
17) There is no separation of Church and State in America because the original states and the New Testament didn’t allow divorce.
16) American Indians marched on the Trail of Cheers as they gleefully left their native lands to create reservation casinos.
15) The Civil War started over breach of etiquette by the North.
14) Jim Crow laws were enacted to protect newly freed African Americans from the burden of being white.
13) The Spanish-American War was fought over the introduction of bilingual education.
12) The Sixteenth Amendment on federal income taxes was an April Fool’s joke, but because news was slow back then, nobody got the joke until April 15, after it was ratified.
11) The Great Depression was named after Americans’ sadness over the socialism of the New Deal.
10) During World War II, Japanese Americans were interns for the U.S. government.
9) The Cold War started because Ronald Reagan wasn’t president.
8) Joe McCarthy knew who the communists in the American government were because they were colored red while everyone else was in black and white.
7) Hippies were only supporting peace ironically.
6) Nixon had to leave office because he really wanted to hear what Democratic presidential nominees had to say.
5) The United States won the Vietnam War because the United States never leaves a war until it’s been won.
4) In 1981, ketchup became the state vegetable of America.
3) Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by tearing down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands.
2) Bill Clinton had sex on the Constitution while using the American flag as a condom and eating a bald eagle.
1) The Republicans won the 2000 election decision because Jesus Christ and George W. Bush have the same number of letters.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Friday Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Holy balls, has it been six weeks since I did this? Time flies when you’re not having fun.
I have been in a creative funk for sure. Being busy with work has certainly kept me away from writing dick jokes/missives about Canadian prog rock. But it’s been more than that.
After climbing to the mountain of getting a draft of a novel done, I was on a big high. Then I started trying to revise it, and also shared it with a couple of trusted advisors (you can probably guess one of them). That process confirmed something that I already suspected: that I had a draft with some pretty funny stuff in it but hardly something resembling a real novel.
The Lovely Becky has said the hardest criticism you receive is the kind that reveals a bit of truth you know but try to suppress. She summed up my novel perfectly: it was like an action buddy comedy. I have nothing against action buddy comedies, and they can certainly be lucrative. But I didn’t spend two years of my life trying to write a mildly entertaining book. I want to write a searing social satire of American foreign policy and hubris, a book that could be a Catch-22 for the War on Terra era. That’s a lofty goal and I doubt I’ll get there, but fuck if I’m going to settle for meh-cond place. You can’t shoot for the moon by building bottle rockets, even if bottle rockets are kind of cool.
At the same time, I realized I had to put the book away for a bit, to get space from it and also so I could start another novel that was the 1B to my 1A.
That caused some emotional complications for me. I realize this is a perfectly normal part of the writing process, but like an adolescent battling with puberty, I had never gone through this before and didn’t know how to act. So I reverted to my usual MO: feeling sorry for myself and not writing anything. Hence not only the lack of novel #2 writing but also any blogging.
I always have to go through this process, unfortunately. It’s like I have to sweat out all my you suck vibes, like the cold sweat of a hangover, until I feel like I can face the creative process again. The first part of that is realizing that feeling sorry for yourself has never, ever produced any actual work. If it did, I would be the James Patterson of negative self image parties.
The second part is sitting down and doing the work. I started the new book, and even after just writing a little bit, I love it. I feel like I have something really special on my hands, and not only do I think it’s benefitting from having written a shitty first draft of another book, it has the punch of some of my favorite posts I’ve written here. Which in turn reminded me how much I have missed blogging.
So it feels nice to be back and to feel like myself again, and what better way to celebrate that than with some tunes.
1) “Urgent,” Foreigner. One of those groups like Loverboy who are kind of terrible but have a handful of songs I really, really like. This song and “Hot Blooded” are insta-crank material whenever I hear them on stations with lunkheaded slogans like “Where Classic Rock Still Lives!”
2) “When You Were Young,” The Killers. It’s a toss-up between this and “Mr. Brightside” for songs of the last 10 years that I most like to sing when no one is listening. “Mr. Brightside” probably wins due to the absurd theatricality of the lyrics, but this has a louder arena-shaking quality to it, where I can see myself picking up one of the stage lights ala Bono in Rattle and Hum and shining it into the upper rows as I sing, “When you were youuuuunnnnnnng!” That would be completely awesome.
3) “Army Bound,” Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. He borrows a little bit of the bass line from The Kinks “Victoria” before turning up the rock, especially with the marshalling guitar riff at the end.
When I’m at the gym and doing any mindless cardio stuff like riding the bike, I love to throw one artist on random and do the rock star fantasy thing as mentioned in #2 above. Ted Leo gets the nod a lot because his music is energetic and I see myself on stage, sweaty and singing pointed barbs about my sorrowful country.
4) “Cody, Cody,” The Flying Burrito Brothers. I should really listen to them more often. I don’t like Crosby, Stills, and Zzzzzzz, but this sounds like CSN covering Wilco, which is not surprising because Wilco sounds like Uncle Tupelo covering The Flying Burrito Brothers.
5) “Caught In a Mosh,” Anthrax. Speaking of gyms, I just recently started hitting the weights again (after letting the weight hit me). It’s so very, very difficult to work out again after a long layoff, and every time I have a layoff, I vow to never have a layoff again. It’s a vicious cycle like time travel in the Terminator movies (“but how can the Terminator come back if it was killed before, unless he went forward in time to make it possible to go back, or maybe he went back before he was killed and then went forward…fuck this, let’s just listen to the remix of Christian Bale swearing at the crew.”) Anyway, I need all the support I can get, both physically from forcing my muscles to move and mentally when I have to start over with baby weights. Anthrax comes in handy for that.
6) “All the Small Things,” Blink-182. I have confessed this before, but I really like Blink-182. Beneath the horndog puns and high school antics, they can both write catchy little punk pop ditties like this or crank the speed like this. And I’m obviously a sucker for horndog puns.
7) “Norway,” Beach House. I need to stop buying albums I think I should buy. This one got a lot of raves, but didn’t do much for me when I sampled it on eMusic. However, said raves convinced me it would be a grower. Sadly, it is still just a lump of potting soil on a sunny day. I’m not sure why—after all, I like stuff that’s definitely in the same pop zipcode as this. I just feel, as they say, that there’s not a lot of there there. It’s a bunch of pleasant-sounding stuff that happened.
8) “Dance Song ’97,” Sleater-Kinney. The Lovely Becky and I officially rejected the new IFC sitcom Portlandia. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sketch show from Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, guitarist of the late, great Sleater-Kinney. They do pieces about Portland specifically and about liberal/progressive culture in general. I love the idea of mocking those things, because it’s good to have your sacred cows roasted. One of my favorite SNL sketches of all time is “Dukakis After Dark” which skewered so many late-80s liberal icons. The problem with Portlandia is that, while it’s very creative and the ideas are original, there are no jokes. We watched an episode where Aimee Mann was working as a housekeeper because the music industry is in the toilet, and while clever, it wasn’t funny, which is important if you’re writing “comedy.” It’s almost like someone decided to make a sketch show out of New Yorker “Shouts and Murmurs” pieces, which is the sketch show I will be working on if I wind up in hell.
9) “Angel,” Massive Attack. Starts out so menacingly until the female vocal shows up. Is she my savior? Or my adversary? Will she show me the way out of the computer program that we are trapped in, or will I learn she has been sent by an android Rutger Hauer to seduce me before she kills me after we mate? Or will we start out on opposite sides before realizing we must unite to prevent both Keanu Reeves and Ridley Scott from making any more movies, unleashing a slow-motion fury of automatic gunfire as the empty shell casings hit the floor in perfect time with the drum beat? That’s the beauty of Massive Attack, they are so deep.
10) “She Sells Sanctuary,” The Cult. Oh hells yes. Easily one of my top 10 80s songs. I was really into The Cult back in the day (as the kids say). I saw them open for Billy Idol when they were supporting Electric and Idol was supporting being Billy Fucking Idol. Just as The Cult were singing “Rain,” Ian Astubury’s mic went out. The band kept playing anyway, and finally he got a new mic at the very end of the song. I remember feeling ripped off that they didn’t stop or play it over. Sure, keep playing when something off the B-side of the new album doesn’t go right, but don’t skimp on the hits, bucko.
The other two things I remember were having a perfect view of Idol guitarist Steve Stevens standing on the side of the stage before the show and talking to two women wearing, shall we say, the costumes of the sexually liberated. The other was of a guy in front of me. He was the size of a pro football linebacker and was dressed in a pink t-shirt, white baggy pants, and a pair of pink Nike slip-on shoes. He stood up and shook his groove thing throughout the entire Billy Idol set in one of the greatest displays of amateur male Caucasian dancing I have ever seen (outside of Trapper, that is). God, I miss the 80s sometimes.
11) “Just Like Honey,” Jesus and Mary Chain. The Lovely Becky and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary last Saturday, which is amazing considering we are both 29. Anyway, we celebrated on the Friday night before with a terrific dinner and then a so-so trip to see The Hangover 2 (My review: See the movie you loved all over again for another $12!) However, said screening was awesome because we were two adults out for a night in the city and watching a movie with penis shots and smoking monkeys and Billy Joel jokes instead of something animated and cute. Let me say that the built-in babysitting of family members alone has made the move back worth it.
On the actual anniversary, we had company: Tickle, his wife, and my one-year-old niece. However, we also had Tickle’s friends Veetz, Smoke, and Pancake Z. They were originally supposed to come for game 6 of the Heat-Bulls (fuck!), so instead the dudes played Risk. And then the next night the dudes came over again and we played Rock Band (with the ladies, too). Note that this was all done with the blessing of my wife, which is why I am one of the most happily married men I know. If I may paraphrase Chris Rock and use one of Jennifer’s favorite words, “New pussy don’t let you nerd out!” And one of the reasons I love my wife is that she never, ever prevents me from nerding out, even when she’s making fun of me for saying things like, “I will drive you from Kamchatka!”
Have a great weekend. Oh, and I wasn't sure if I was going to finish the last Vegas piece, but Tickle and Smoke reminded me of some funny stuff, so I'll get it done soon.
Holy balls, has it been six weeks since I did this? Time flies when you’re not having fun.
I have been in a creative funk for sure. Being busy with work has certainly kept me away from writing dick jokes/missives about Canadian prog rock. But it’s been more than that.
After climbing to the mountain of getting a draft of a novel done, I was on a big high. Then I started trying to revise it, and also shared it with a couple of trusted advisors (you can probably guess one of them). That process confirmed something that I already suspected: that I had a draft with some pretty funny stuff in it but hardly something resembling a real novel.
The Lovely Becky has said the hardest criticism you receive is the kind that reveals a bit of truth you know but try to suppress. She summed up my novel perfectly: it was like an action buddy comedy. I have nothing against action buddy comedies, and they can certainly be lucrative. But I didn’t spend two years of my life trying to write a mildly entertaining book. I want to write a searing social satire of American foreign policy and hubris, a book that could be a Catch-22 for the War on Terra era. That’s a lofty goal and I doubt I’ll get there, but fuck if I’m going to settle for meh-cond place. You can’t shoot for the moon by building bottle rockets, even if bottle rockets are kind of cool.
At the same time, I realized I had to put the book away for a bit, to get space from it and also so I could start another novel that was the 1B to my 1A.
That caused some emotional complications for me. I realize this is a perfectly normal part of the writing process, but like an adolescent battling with puberty, I had never gone through this before and didn’t know how to act. So I reverted to my usual MO: feeling sorry for myself and not writing anything. Hence not only the lack of novel #2 writing but also any blogging.
I always have to go through this process, unfortunately. It’s like I have to sweat out all my you suck vibes, like the cold sweat of a hangover, until I feel like I can face the creative process again. The first part of that is realizing that feeling sorry for yourself has never, ever produced any actual work. If it did, I would be the James Patterson of negative self image parties.
The second part is sitting down and doing the work. I started the new book, and even after just writing a little bit, I love it. I feel like I have something really special on my hands, and not only do I think it’s benefitting from having written a shitty first draft of another book, it has the punch of some of my favorite posts I’ve written here. Which in turn reminded me how much I have missed blogging.
So it feels nice to be back and to feel like myself again, and what better way to celebrate that than with some tunes.
1) “Urgent,” Foreigner. One of those groups like Loverboy who are kind of terrible but have a handful of songs I really, really like. This song and “Hot Blooded” are insta-crank material whenever I hear them on stations with lunkheaded slogans like “Where Classic Rock Still Lives!”
2) “When You Were Young,” The Killers. It’s a toss-up between this and “Mr. Brightside” for songs of the last 10 years that I most like to sing when no one is listening. “Mr. Brightside” probably wins due to the absurd theatricality of the lyrics, but this has a louder arena-shaking quality to it, where I can see myself picking up one of the stage lights ala Bono in Rattle and Hum and shining it into the upper rows as I sing, “When you were youuuuunnnnnnng!” That would be completely awesome.
3) “Army Bound,” Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. He borrows a little bit of the bass line from The Kinks “Victoria” before turning up the rock, especially with the marshalling guitar riff at the end.
When I’m at the gym and doing any mindless cardio stuff like riding the bike, I love to throw one artist on random and do the rock star fantasy thing as mentioned in #2 above. Ted Leo gets the nod a lot because his music is energetic and I see myself on stage, sweaty and singing pointed barbs about my sorrowful country.
4) “Cody, Cody,” The Flying Burrito Brothers. I should really listen to them more often. I don’t like Crosby, Stills, and Zzzzzzz, but this sounds like CSN covering Wilco, which is not surprising because Wilco sounds like Uncle Tupelo covering The Flying Burrito Brothers.
5) “Caught In a Mosh,” Anthrax. Speaking of gyms, I just recently started hitting the weights again (after letting the weight hit me). It’s so very, very difficult to work out again after a long layoff, and every time I have a layoff, I vow to never have a layoff again. It’s a vicious cycle like time travel in the Terminator movies (“but how can the Terminator come back if it was killed before, unless he went forward in time to make it possible to go back, or maybe he went back before he was killed and then went forward…fuck this, let’s just listen to the remix of Christian Bale swearing at the crew.”) Anyway, I need all the support I can get, both physically from forcing my muscles to move and mentally when I have to start over with baby weights. Anthrax comes in handy for that.
6) “All the Small Things,” Blink-182. I have confessed this before, but I really like Blink-182. Beneath the horndog puns and high school antics, they can both write catchy little punk pop ditties like this or crank the speed like this. And I’m obviously a sucker for horndog puns.
7) “Norway,” Beach House. I need to stop buying albums I think I should buy. This one got a lot of raves, but didn’t do much for me when I sampled it on eMusic. However, said raves convinced me it would be a grower. Sadly, it is still just a lump of potting soil on a sunny day. I’m not sure why—after all, I like stuff that’s definitely in the same pop zipcode as this. I just feel, as they say, that there’s not a lot of there there. It’s a bunch of pleasant-sounding stuff that happened.
8) “Dance Song ’97,” Sleater-Kinney. The Lovely Becky and I officially rejected the new IFC sitcom Portlandia. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sketch show from Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, guitarist of the late, great Sleater-Kinney. They do pieces about Portland specifically and about liberal/progressive culture in general. I love the idea of mocking those things, because it’s good to have your sacred cows roasted. One of my favorite SNL sketches of all time is “Dukakis After Dark” which skewered so many late-80s liberal icons. The problem with Portlandia is that, while it’s very creative and the ideas are original, there are no jokes. We watched an episode where Aimee Mann was working as a housekeeper because the music industry is in the toilet, and while clever, it wasn’t funny, which is important if you’re writing “comedy.” It’s almost like someone decided to make a sketch show out of New Yorker “Shouts and Murmurs” pieces, which is the sketch show I will be working on if I wind up in hell.
9) “Angel,” Massive Attack. Starts out so menacingly until the female vocal shows up. Is she my savior? Or my adversary? Will she show me the way out of the computer program that we are trapped in, or will I learn she has been sent by an android Rutger Hauer to seduce me before she kills me after we mate? Or will we start out on opposite sides before realizing we must unite to prevent both Keanu Reeves and Ridley Scott from making any more movies, unleashing a slow-motion fury of automatic gunfire as the empty shell casings hit the floor in perfect time with the drum beat? That’s the beauty of Massive Attack, they are so deep.
10) “She Sells Sanctuary,” The Cult. Oh hells yes. Easily one of my top 10 80s songs. I was really into The Cult back in the day (as the kids say). I saw them open for Billy Idol when they were supporting Electric and Idol was supporting being Billy Fucking Idol. Just as The Cult were singing “Rain,” Ian Astubury’s mic went out. The band kept playing anyway, and finally he got a new mic at the very end of the song. I remember feeling ripped off that they didn’t stop or play it over. Sure, keep playing when something off the B-side of the new album doesn’t go right, but don’t skimp on the hits, bucko.
The other two things I remember were having a perfect view of Idol guitarist Steve Stevens standing on the side of the stage before the show and talking to two women wearing, shall we say, the costumes of the sexually liberated. The other was of a guy in front of me. He was the size of a pro football linebacker and was dressed in a pink t-shirt, white baggy pants, and a pair of pink Nike slip-on shoes. He stood up and shook his groove thing throughout the entire Billy Idol set in one of the greatest displays of amateur male Caucasian dancing I have ever seen (outside of Trapper, that is). God, I miss the 80s sometimes.
11) “Just Like Honey,” Jesus and Mary Chain. The Lovely Becky and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary last Saturday, which is amazing considering we are both 29. Anyway, we celebrated on the Friday night before with a terrific dinner and then a so-so trip to see The Hangover 2 (My review: See the movie you loved all over again for another $12!) However, said screening was awesome because we were two adults out for a night in the city and watching a movie with penis shots and smoking monkeys and Billy Joel jokes instead of something animated and cute. Let me say that the built-in babysitting of family members alone has made the move back worth it.
On the actual anniversary, we had company: Tickle, his wife, and my one-year-old niece. However, we also had Tickle’s friends Veetz, Smoke, and Pancake Z. They were originally supposed to come for game 6 of the Heat-Bulls (fuck!), so instead the dudes played Risk. And then the next night the dudes came over again and we played Rock Band (with the ladies, too). Note that this was all done with the blessing of my wife, which is why I am one of the most happily married men I know. If I may paraphrase Chris Rock and use one of Jennifer’s favorite words, “New pussy don’t let you nerd out!” And one of the reasons I love my wife is that she never, ever prevents me from nerding out, even when she’s making fun of me for saying things like, “I will drive you from Kamchatka!”
Have a great weekend. Oh, and I wasn't sure if I was going to finish the last Vegas piece, but Tickle and Smoke reminded me of some funny stuff, so I'll get it done soon.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Top Ten Wednesdays: What advice are we giving graduates during their commencements?
10) As college graduates leaving the hallowed halls of higher education, the world is your oyster. Except for those of you who majored in humanities and social sciences. Your world will be the deep fryer and, if you show a little initiative, the shake machine.
9) When it comes to the choices you make in life, remember this: it is better to have had cheezburger and eated it than to have never had cheezburger at all.
8) Ask not what your country can do for you. Seriously, don’t ask, now’s not a good time.
6) Success in business is much like success in college: study hard, work hard, and when those two things fail, cheat like a motherfucker.
2) Benjamin Franklin once said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Please keep that in mind when your student loan provider sends you your default notice.
9) When it comes to the choices you make in life, remember this: it is better to have had cheezburger and eated it than to have never had cheezburger at all.
8) Ask not what your country can do for you. Seriously, don’t ask, now’s not a good time.
7) If you don’t know what to do, consider graduate school. Not only will you be able to still suckle at the teat of college, but in 5-7 years, you will have the honor of being called “Dr. Loser” in the unemployment office.
6) Success in business is much like success in college: study hard, work hard, and when those two things fail, cheat like a motherfucker.
5) Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life. However, it is an excellent way to get on reality TV.
4) You have seen many changes in your lifetime. The birth of the Internet. The easiest access to pornography in human history. The ability to stalk exes and see if they got fat and/or wound up with someone who is fat. Sexting. Having acts that were once outlawed as high depravity now being considered just another Saturday night. You may not be the Greatest Generation, but you bastards are sure as hell the Luckiest Generation.
3) Never underestimate what can be done with one chubby kid, some trashy Eurodisco, and a Web cam.
2) Benjamin Franklin once said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Please keep that in mind when your student loan provider sends you your default notice.
1) Gunga gulunga, gunga gunga lagunga.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Oprah Winfrey Leaves Earth for O: The Planet
CHICAGO – As the countdown approached for the final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, much speculation was made about what Ms. Winfrey would do after ending the iconic program. It turns out her plans were out of this world.
Ms. Winfrey’s tearful goodbye was not just for her viewers, but to the planet Earth, as she announced her plans to leave for her own planet, GO-GRL-12954, which will be known as O: The Planet, located in a system near the constellation Orion that was also rechristened the O-lar System.
“I would like to thank all of humanity for being so very, very malleable,” Ms.Winfrey said. “I will miss my ability to influence you, from the books you read to the food you eat to the presidents you elect. And I would like to thank the Earth itself, for being so hospitable, for providing air to breathe, water to drink, soil to grow delicious food, and an atmosphere that is so warm and friendly to television broadcasting.”
Not only did the studio audience weep at the announcement, but so did the heavens, as massive thunderstorms unleashed sheets of sad, sad rain across the Chicagoland area.
However, the frowns of her studio audience soon turned upside down as Oprah unleashed one last surprise.
“The void of space is a lonely place,” she said, in a rhyme penned by her close friend, Maya Angelou. “So as I go far away starting today, I’d be honored if you’d colonize my new base.
“That’s right! You’re going to outer space!” Ms. Winfrey exclaimed, pointing her finger at the crowd. “And you’re going to outer space!” She repeated the phrase and finger pointing several more times before taking out her iPhone and entering a secret code.
The sets in the studio immediately reclined and turned into hyperbolic sleep chambers, used to keep the audience in stasis during the trip. The stage flipped over and became a command center, complete with a reclining leather captain’s chair provided by La-Z-Boy. Within minutes, the entire studio had been transformed into an interplanetary starship, the U.S.S. Harpo.
“Now let’s meet your crew!” Oprah said. She introduced Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Oz, First Mate Dr. Phil, and the captain of the Harpo, Gavin MacLeod, adorned in his costume from The Love Boat. “We blast off in T-minus five minutes,” Captain MacLeod announced, “so please use this time to visit the restroom or say a final farewell to your loved ones.”
Nearly all of the studio audience were thrilled. “I can’t believe I’m going to space with Oprah!” said Fern Rabinski of Northbrook, Illinois. “It’s like a dream come true.” When asked if she had any friends or family she was leaving behind, she replied, “None as cool as Oprah!”
Jennifer Drummond of Chicago was also ecstatic to go. “I was trapped in a loveless marriage with a couple of kids who took me for granted. Now I get to start all over on a brand new planet. My horoscope was totally right!”
A few audience members/colonists were not so gung ho. “Not that I would ever say no to Oprah,” said Laurie Wilson of Columbus, Ohio. “But I would have liked to have hugged my kids goodbye, you know? And I left my iPad in my hotel room.”
Another, LaVerne LaRoux of Gary, Indiana, brought up a practical point. “I love Oprah and all, but there are no men in this room, at least not straight ones. A girl’s got needs, and while I love my Oprah sisters, I don’t love my Oprah sisters, know what I’m saying?”
No sooner had Ms. LaRoux brought up the point of companionship than Oprah made one final announcement. “Ladies, there’s one final thing. I know you are leaving behind husbands and boyfriends, but I’d like to introduce you to something better. Say hello to the STED-MAN 3000!”
A fleet of humanoid robots emerged from behind a door, one for every member of the audience, and marched toward the seated members. “They are yours to keep and do what you like with!” Oprah said. According to the flyers that came with the STED-MAN, it was an advanced service/pleasure bot with a wide range of domestic, romantic, and communication skills, including confectionary, housekeeping, insect killing, “vibrational massage,” and listening. A cheer rose from the crowd as the STED-MAN models immediately began administering foot rubs and asking the audience how there day was going.
When asked about the nature of the planet and the starship, a U.S.S. Harpo spokesperson was not very forthcoming. The planet had been purchased from NASA for an undisclosed sum, and the starship’s means of propulsion was “proprietary information that we do not wish to give to our competitors, lest there be other talk-show planets springing up all over the universe.” Sources who wished to remain anonymous said that the White House had given Oprah top-secret documents on faster-than-light travel as a “favor for 2008,” but the U.S. government would neither confirm or deny that report.
As takeoff time neared, Oprah told her audience to strap themselves in. “Dr. Oz, take us out!” she cried.
“Darn it, Oprah, I’m a doctor, not a captain!” he replied.
All media and non-passengers were escorted to the launch area, as the starship rumbled to life and blasted high into the air, but not before writing “Thanks!” in a plume of white smoke.
In an unrelated story, hundreds of non-celebrities were killed due to severe burns caused by intense heat and flame.
Ms. Winfrey’s tearful goodbye was not just for her viewers, but to the planet Earth, as she announced her plans to leave for her own planet, GO-GRL-12954, which will be known as O: The Planet, located in a system near the constellation Orion that was also rechristened the O-lar System.
“I would like to thank all of humanity for being so very, very malleable,” Ms.Winfrey said. “I will miss my ability to influence you, from the books you read to the food you eat to the presidents you elect. And I would like to thank the Earth itself, for being so hospitable, for providing air to breathe, water to drink, soil to grow delicious food, and an atmosphere that is so warm and friendly to television broadcasting.”
Not only did the studio audience weep at the announcement, but so did the heavens, as massive thunderstorms unleashed sheets of sad, sad rain across the Chicagoland area.
However, the frowns of her studio audience soon turned upside down as Oprah unleashed one last surprise.
“The void of space is a lonely place,” she said, in a rhyme penned by her close friend, Maya Angelou. “So as I go far away starting today, I’d be honored if you’d colonize my new base.
“That’s right! You’re going to outer space!” Ms. Winfrey exclaimed, pointing her finger at the crowd. “And you’re going to outer space!” She repeated the phrase and finger pointing several more times before taking out her iPhone and entering a secret code.
The sets in the studio immediately reclined and turned into hyperbolic sleep chambers, used to keep the audience in stasis during the trip. The stage flipped over and became a command center, complete with a reclining leather captain’s chair provided by La-Z-Boy. Within minutes, the entire studio had been transformed into an interplanetary starship, the U.S.S. Harpo.
“Now let’s meet your crew!” Oprah said. She introduced Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Oz, First Mate Dr. Phil, and the captain of the Harpo, Gavin MacLeod, adorned in his costume from The Love Boat. “We blast off in T-minus five minutes,” Captain MacLeod announced, “so please use this time to visit the restroom or say a final farewell to your loved ones.”
Nearly all of the studio audience were thrilled. “I can’t believe I’m going to space with Oprah!” said Fern Rabinski of Northbrook, Illinois. “It’s like a dream come true.” When asked if she had any friends or family she was leaving behind, she replied, “None as cool as Oprah!”
Jennifer Drummond of Chicago was also ecstatic to go. “I was trapped in a loveless marriage with a couple of kids who took me for granted. Now I get to start all over on a brand new planet. My horoscope was totally right!”
A few audience members/colonists were not so gung ho. “Not that I would ever say no to Oprah,” said Laurie Wilson of Columbus, Ohio. “But I would have liked to have hugged my kids goodbye, you know? And I left my iPad in my hotel room.”
Another, LaVerne LaRoux of Gary, Indiana, brought up a practical point. “I love Oprah and all, but there are no men in this room, at least not straight ones. A girl’s got needs, and while I love my Oprah sisters, I don’t love my Oprah sisters, know what I’m saying?”
No sooner had Ms. LaRoux brought up the point of companionship than Oprah made one final announcement. “Ladies, there’s one final thing. I know you are leaving behind husbands and boyfriends, but I’d like to introduce you to something better. Say hello to the STED-MAN 3000!”
A fleet of humanoid robots emerged from behind a door, one for every member of the audience, and marched toward the seated members. “They are yours to keep and do what you like with!” Oprah said. According to the flyers that came with the STED-MAN, it was an advanced service/pleasure bot with a wide range of domestic, romantic, and communication skills, including confectionary, housekeeping, insect killing, “vibrational massage,” and listening. A cheer rose from the crowd as the STED-MAN models immediately began administering foot rubs and asking the audience how there day was going.
When asked about the nature of the planet and the starship, a U.S.S. Harpo spokesperson was not very forthcoming. The planet had been purchased from NASA for an undisclosed sum, and the starship’s means of propulsion was “proprietary information that we do not wish to give to our competitors, lest there be other talk-show planets springing up all over the universe.” Sources who wished to remain anonymous said that the White House had given Oprah top-secret documents on faster-than-light travel as a “favor for 2008,” but the U.S. government would neither confirm or deny that report.
As takeoff time neared, Oprah told her audience to strap themselves in. “Dr. Oz, take us out!” she cried.
“Darn it, Oprah, I’m a doctor, not a captain!” he replied.
All media and non-passengers were escorted to the launch area, as the starship rumbled to life and blasted high into the air, but not before writing “Thanks!” in a plume of white smoke.
In an unrelated story, hundreds of non-celebrities were killed due to severe burns caused by intense heat and flame.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Top Ten Tuesdays: Why are we withdrawing from the Republican presidential race?
10) Have actual skeletons in closet.
9) America not ready for bold plan to have White House gold plated and available for business conventions and bar mitzvahs.
8) Used war chest to snort blow off hooker’s chest.
7) Hate government so much that can’t talk about being president without giving ourselves a round-house kick to the face.
6) Totally thought that Rapture guy was right and wanted to shift focus to being president of Heaven.
4) Birth certificate lists us as being “spawned.”
9) America not ready for bold plan to have White House gold plated and available for business conventions and bar mitzvahs.
8) Used war chest to snort blow off hooker’s chest.
7) Hate government so much that can’t talk about being president without giving ourselves a round-house kick to the face.
6) Totally thought that Rapture guy was right and wanted to shift focus to being president of Heaven.
4) Birth certificate lists us as being “spawned.”
2) Nervous that winning nomination would require to talk to a black man.
1) Failed to meet Constitutional requirement that the President have a pulse.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The kind of things I talk about at a child's first communion dinner, or why I am going to hell (part 467)
This past weekend I was at a dinner to celebrate the first communion of the daughter of an old friend of mine. I used to work with her and also with another couple who was seated with us.
While my friend and her daughter were making the rounds talking to guests at other tables, we got on the subject of Coldstone Creamery. My friend Goat said that three Coldstone's had gone out of business in their neighborhood. When TLB and I said we were surprised, Goat's boyfriend Guy said it was because the cops had found out about the glory holes in the bathrooms.*
This prompted Guy and I to create a new Coldstone creation, the Glory Hole. We decided that it should be a rectangular slab of ice cream, dipped in chocolate to make it hard like a bathroom stall wall. There would be a hole in the middle with a cream wafer sticking out, topped with a dab of whipped cream.
"And you can't ask for it," I said. "You have to signal the clerk that's what you want."
"Yeah, you have to make a couple of hand gestures and tap your foot," Guy added.
It would also only be available in the Gotta Have It size.
Lord only know what we'll talk about if we're invited back for confirmation.
*Greetings, Coldstone legal team! Please be aware that Mssr. Guy's comment about the presence of glory holes in Chicago-area Coldstone Creameries was a joke and not at all a slander against the clean, well-lit, handjob-free restrooms at your fine chain of ice cream parlors.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Top Ten Tuesdays: What special punishments are awaiting us in hell?
Special we're only human and that guy was a huge asshole edition!
10) Mandatory attendance at the alternative punishment festival, Hot Lava Enemapalooza.
9) Strapped to the Table of Endless Nipple Waxing.
8) Have to listen to every squeaky 12-year-old boy playing Call of Duty describe how they would have killed us.
7) Netflix queue only contains Gigli.
6) Every time Charlie Sheen commits a sin, an IED goes off in our scrotum.
5) Chained to a chair in the George W. Bush War on Terra Speechification Dome, presented in quadraphonic stereo.
4) Forced to work as a New Recipe Tester for Taco Bell, with no bathroom access.
3) A starring role in the Lucasfilm movie, My Dinner With Jar-Jar.
2) Imps in Satan’s furniture workshop turning us into a chair for Rush Limbaugh.
1) 72 virgins awaiting us are all guys from a D&D convention.
10) Mandatory attendance at the alternative punishment festival, Hot Lava Enemapalooza.
9) Strapped to the Table of Endless Nipple Waxing.
8) Have to listen to every squeaky 12-year-old boy playing Call of Duty describe how they would have killed us.
7) Netflix queue only contains Gigli.
6) Every time Charlie Sheen commits a sin, an IED goes off in our scrotum.
5) Chained to a chair in the George W. Bush War on Terra Speechification Dome, presented in quadraphonic stereo.
4) Forced to work as a New Recipe Tester for Taco Bell, with no bathroom access.
3) A starring role in the Lucasfilm movie, My Dinner With Jar-Jar.
2) Imps in Satan’s furniture workshop turning us into a chair for Rush Limbaugh.
1) 72 virgins awaiting us are all guys from a D&D convention.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Vegas
I'm off to Sin City again, where I'm sure I'll be hearing this voice every single facking day. Back next week, hopefully with some interesting tales to tell.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
It is a glorious day today. Not just because we get reminded that some nice bloke took the trouble of dying for our inability to resist forbidden apples from smooth-talking serpents. But because I have my life back. My company launched our new site this week, and I finally feel like I found a grove of banana trees to satisfy the monkey that’s been screeching on my back for two months.
Of course, I’ve now entered the “looks great, here’s something I found wrong” phase of the project, but that’s so much easier to deal with than preparing to launch a site.
It is a glorious day today. Not just because we get reminded that some nice bloke took the trouble of dying for our inability to resist forbidden apples from smooth-talking serpents. But because I have my life back. My company launched our new site this week, and I finally feel like I found a grove of banana trees to satisfy the monkey that’s been screeching on my back for two months.
Of course, I’ve now entered the “looks great, here’s something I found wrong” phase of the project, but that’s so much easier to deal with than preparing to launch a site.
Tune time....
1) “Letter to My Son,” Bloc Party. Dear Jesus, I’m really sorry you have to go through with this whole crucifixion thing. At the time, the idea of original sin seemed pretty damn original, and I was still a swinging single God, not a Father, so having to send my Son to die for the sins of my creation didn’t seem like a big deal. I wouldn’t call it an oversight because I don’t make those, but I certainly wish I could go back and rethink the process. Problem is, if I did that, those idiots would definitely think I was making a mistake and we can’t have that. So off you go. And no, I can’t send the Holy Spirit, because he’d just freak everyone out and besides, they’d never get the nails through. Love, Your Father Who Art Still in Charge.
2) “Heaven and Hell,” The Who. LOL, iTunes is on a mission from God today. John Entwistle was a funny, funny guy. This is such a great poke at the concept of the afterlife. Of course, I hope the afterlife exists because it’s the only chance I have of seeing the original Who live. Or would that be dead?
3) “Burial,” Peter Tosh. Okay, now iTunes is kind of freaking me out a little bit. Does Genius recognize holidays? Is it building me a special Stations of the Cross playlist? Should I expect to hear Rush’s “The Trees” next Arbor Day?
4) “Shaky City,” The Plimsouls. We have returned to your regularly scheduled secular programming. No vid for this one, so we'll go with the hit.
5) “Mykonos,” Fleet Foxes. The Lovely Becky and I officially rejected the new IFC sitcom Portlandia. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sketch show from Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, guitarist of the late, great Sleater-Kinney. They do pieces about Portland specifically and about liberal/progressive culture in general. I love the idea of mocking those things, because it’s good to have your sacred cows roasted. One of my favorite SNL sketches of all time is “Dukakis After Dark” which skewered so many late-80s liberal icons. The problem with Portlandia is that, while it’s very creative and the ideas are original, there are no jokes. We watched an episode where Aimee Mann was working as a housekeeper because the music industry is in the toilet, and while clever, it wasn’t funny, which is important if you’re writing “comedy.” Anyway, this song made me think of that because Fleet Foxes are such a tailor-made NPR liberal band who would be kind of a joke if they weren’t so fucking awesome.
6) “Dear Prudence,” The Beatles. I am a big Beatles fan but not a big White Album fan. Obviously classic, original, groundbreaking, Rolling-Stone-spongeworthy, etc. but much like Portlandia, while I appreciate it, I never found it that much fun to listen to over the years. Well, I was playing some Beatles songs for Libby and played this one, which she liked. I hadn’t heard it in a while and was sucked in by the off-kilter beauty of it. I wound up listening to the whole album again and realized I was completely wrong about it. Except for “Revolution 9,” that sucks just as much as I remember.
7) “Too Much Too Young,” The Specials. With TLB and I both turning 40, we’ve talked lately about being older parents. When we both married at the age of 23, while we didn’t expect to rush right out and start begetting, I don’t think either of us expected to be chasing after a toddler when we were 40. Our parents both had us in their early 20s, so by the time they were 40, we were on our way out the door, not trying to learn how to poop on the potty (well, at least TLB wasn’t). I definitely wish I had the energy I had when I was younger, as I sometimes feel like I’m not active enough with Libby even if I try my best to be. Sometimes Daddy just needs to have a drink and let Yo Gabba Gabba do the baby driving. At the same time, I feel like I got so much stuff out of my system before being a parent. I felt ready and dedicated by the time I held my child in my arms the first time, and in my case, I think that was the right path for me. Even if that means I might be having to poop in a diaper by the time she’s potty training her kids.
8) “Saving My Face,” KT Tunstall. I know this song is about as heavy as a grande skim latte with fat-free whip cream, but I really like her voice. It’s not always easy to be charming when singing.
9) “Safe European Home,” The Clash. There’s a great dual-dynamic to the lyrics here. On the one hand, Strummer seems to be poking a pointed stick at the classic white European fear of vacationing among non-whites. At the same time, he seems to be acknowledging that there is some reason for that fear, that if you poke your jolly sunburned face around certain parts of Kingston, you’re going to be wishing you were back in your safe European home. On top of that, it flat-out rocks, too.
10) “Redmen and Their Wives,” Guided by Voices. I think the concept of the farewell tour should be abolished completely. Case in point: Guided by Voices touring just a few years after their Electrifying Conclusion tour, on their unofficially titled We Could Use the Beer Money Tour. And that’s fine: I love that bands get back together and go back out on the road. I don’t even care if they get back together for the money. I like money, so I appreciate the motivation, and as long as it is convincing, I don’t mind someone faking enjoyment for my benefit. Just don’t call it your final tour unless you all plan to kill yourselves after the last encore.
11) “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” Monty Python. Required listening for me on Good Friday. Can you imagine what the ‘baggers would do if someone tried to make a movie like Life of Brian today? Holy Grail is funnier and more entertaining, but Life of Brian has more balls.
Have a good weekend, and happy whatever-holiday-you-may-or-may-not-be-celebrating.
1) “Letter to My Son,” Bloc Party. Dear Jesus, I’m really sorry you have to go through with this whole crucifixion thing. At the time, the idea of original sin seemed pretty damn original, and I was still a swinging single God, not a Father, so having to send my Son to die for the sins of my creation didn’t seem like a big deal. I wouldn’t call it an oversight because I don’t make those, but I certainly wish I could go back and rethink the process. Problem is, if I did that, those idiots would definitely think I was making a mistake and we can’t have that. So off you go. And no, I can’t send the Holy Spirit, because he’d just freak everyone out and besides, they’d never get the nails through. Love, Your Father Who Art Still in Charge.
2) “Heaven and Hell,” The Who. LOL, iTunes is on a mission from God today. John Entwistle was a funny, funny guy. This is such a great poke at the concept of the afterlife. Of course, I hope the afterlife exists because it’s the only chance I have of seeing the original Who live. Or would that be dead?
3) “Burial,” Peter Tosh. Okay, now iTunes is kind of freaking me out a little bit. Does Genius recognize holidays? Is it building me a special Stations of the Cross playlist? Should I expect to hear Rush’s “The Trees” next Arbor Day?
4) “Shaky City,” The Plimsouls. We have returned to your regularly scheduled secular programming. No vid for this one, so we'll go with the hit.
5) “Mykonos,” Fleet Foxes. The Lovely Becky and I officially rejected the new IFC sitcom Portlandia. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sketch show from Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, guitarist of the late, great Sleater-Kinney. They do pieces about Portland specifically and about liberal/progressive culture in general. I love the idea of mocking those things, because it’s good to have your sacred cows roasted. One of my favorite SNL sketches of all time is “Dukakis After Dark” which skewered so many late-80s liberal icons. The problem with Portlandia is that, while it’s very creative and the ideas are original, there are no jokes. We watched an episode where Aimee Mann was working as a housekeeper because the music industry is in the toilet, and while clever, it wasn’t funny, which is important if you’re writing “comedy.” Anyway, this song made me think of that because Fleet Foxes are such a tailor-made NPR liberal band who would be kind of a joke if they weren’t so fucking awesome.
6) “Dear Prudence,” The Beatles. I am a big Beatles fan but not a big White Album fan. Obviously classic, original, groundbreaking, Rolling-Stone-spongeworthy, etc. but much like Portlandia, while I appreciate it, I never found it that much fun to listen to over the years. Well, I was playing some Beatles songs for Libby and played this one, which she liked. I hadn’t heard it in a while and was sucked in by the off-kilter beauty of it. I wound up listening to the whole album again and realized I was completely wrong about it. Except for “Revolution 9,” that sucks just as much as I remember.
7) “Too Much Too Young,” The Specials. With TLB and I both turning 40, we’ve talked lately about being older parents. When we both married at the age of 23, while we didn’t expect to rush right out and start begetting, I don’t think either of us expected to be chasing after a toddler when we were 40. Our parents both had us in their early 20s, so by the time they were 40, we were on our way out the door, not trying to learn how to poop on the potty (well, at least TLB wasn’t). I definitely wish I had the energy I had when I was younger, as I sometimes feel like I’m not active enough with Libby even if I try my best to be. Sometimes Daddy just needs to have a drink and let Yo Gabba Gabba do the baby driving. At the same time, I feel like I got so much stuff out of my system before being a parent. I felt ready and dedicated by the time I held my child in my arms the first time, and in my case, I think that was the right path for me. Even if that means I might be having to poop in a diaper by the time she’s potty training her kids.
8) “Saving My Face,” KT Tunstall. I know this song is about as heavy as a grande skim latte with fat-free whip cream, but I really like her voice. It’s not always easy to be charming when singing.
9) “Safe European Home,” The Clash. There’s a great dual-dynamic to the lyrics here. On the one hand, Strummer seems to be poking a pointed stick at the classic white European fear of vacationing among non-whites. At the same time, he seems to be acknowledging that there is some reason for that fear, that if you poke your jolly sunburned face around certain parts of Kingston, you’re going to be wishing you were back in your safe European home. On top of that, it flat-out rocks, too.
10) “Redmen and Their Wives,” Guided by Voices. I think the concept of the farewell tour should be abolished completely. Case in point: Guided by Voices touring just a few years after their Electrifying Conclusion tour, on their unofficially titled We Could Use the Beer Money Tour. And that’s fine: I love that bands get back together and go back out on the road. I don’t even care if they get back together for the money. I like money, so I appreciate the motivation, and as long as it is convincing, I don’t mind someone faking enjoyment for my benefit. Just don’t call it your final tour unless you all plan to kill yourselves after the last encore.
11) “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” Monty Python. Required listening for me on Good Friday. Can you imagine what the ‘baggers would do if someone tried to make a movie like Life of Brian today? Holy Grail is funnier and more entertaining, but Life of Brian has more balls.
Have a good weekend, and happy whatever-holiday-you-may-or-may-not-be-celebrating.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Top Ten Wednesdays: Why have we been neglecting our blogs?
10) Get writer’s block after 140 characters.
9) Have reached peak LOLCAT.
8) Saving ourselves for the next election year.
7) Gave up blogging for Lent.
6) Haven’t figured out how to get iPad to automatically generate interesting things to write about.
5) In the process of faking own death.
5) In the process of faking own death.
4) Channeled the political rage that used to motivate us to write into Angry Birds.
3) Employer found the blog and learned what we have been doing in the employee bathroom.
2) Got our first prescription for Viagra.
2) Got our first prescription for Viagra.
1) Vowed not to start blogging again until we stop relying on cheap dick jokes for content.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Friday Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Yesterday was a special day for The Lovely Becky. She turned 40, and what’s particularly amazing about it is how aging does not phase her at all. I have never met anyone who welcomes getting older more than my lovely wife. She greets every birthday with open arms, whereas I tend to run from them like a half-naked teenager fleeing Jason in Friday the 13th, only to get impaled just as I reach the boathouse and think I’m safe. In addition to providing the usual heartfelt birthday wishes, I also remarked, “Wow, this means I’ll never again have sex with someone under 40.” Which is also a good way to ensure you will never have sex again.
In her honor, and out of respect for the three people who may be reading this, I also promise today’s list will be Rush free, despite my being still higher than Geddy Lee’s voice from the show the other night.
Tuneage time.
1) “Rock Rock (Till You Drop),” Def Leppard. I think they would win the award for Best Band Font. In fact, there should be a Def Leppard font, because it would make my command to Turn It Up look so much cooler.
2) “Brass Monkey,” Beastie Boys. This is when I miss having a subwoofer on my PC. I feel like I’m cruising around San Diego with my friends looking for someone to buy us beer.
3) “Black,” Pearl Jam. From so Jazzy Jeff to so Debbie Downer. This is my favorite Pearl Jam song, due in no small part that I can do a reasonable job singing it, especially the final verse (I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life etc.). That’s a pretty small group of songs.
4) “Cocaine Blues,” Johnny Cash. One of the first songs Libby loved, courtesy of my mother-in-law who always played her best of Johnny Cash CD. This song would start and she would begin dancing in a circle around the room while Johnny Cash told his tale of chemical abuse, murder, and incarceration. Now there’s a kid’s show I would watch.
5) “Surfing With the Alien,” Joe Satriani. One of my favorite guitar instrumentals. Impressive while also being expressive, with a couple of dazzling solos that dance with the song instead of hitting it over the head, throwing it in the trunk of a car, and speeding off into Wank Canyon.
6) “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,” Camera Obscura. Perfect pop music. Catchy, lush, friendly, and just a wee hint o’ Scottish accent in the chorus to add a sprig of exoticness. This should be required playing for all Fridays.
7) “Peek-A-Boo,” Siouxsie & the Banshees. Oh, how TLB used to dance to this. In fact, TLB was quite the dancer. We used to go dancing at this rancid hole-in-the-wall of a club, the kind of place where you could walk into the bathroom and offer someone $10,000 to do ten pushups and they would turn it down. It was redeemed by its high-alcohol/low-dollar drink quotient and the fact that it played great music, including my first encounter with New-Wave themed nights. Anyway, TLB would just throw herself into whatever was playing, and her head would be this twirling mass of copper hair (her bottle preference at the time). I always marveled at how she could do that. For me, dancing, like many other aspects of my life, is marred by my self-consciousness. Apparently I will do almost anything for a laugh except dance like a white guy who can’t dance.
8) “E-Pro,” Beck. I expected this Friday to be D-Day +2, two days after I triumphantly finished my work project and basked in the glow of a successful new Web site, a day where I would be doing the Random 11 while drunk and possibly pantsless (sorry, but sometimes a fella just needs to feel free). Unfortunately, after several hours of trying the other night, we had to call it quits. There’s nothing quite like working until 1:30 in the morning only to realize it was all for naught and you get to do it again. Yay! It’s also awesome when a technical person is explaining the reason for said problem and you can’t understand a thing they said. I may as well have had a Finnish person telling me I had cheese popcorn dust all over my face. Come to think of it, that would have been better, because at least it meant I had been eating cheese popcorn.
9) “Wrong,” Archers of Loaf. Nineties revival has arrived. I’ve purchased a couple of recent albums where the barely-able-to-shave musicians sound like they are trying to sound like this song. Which is good, because this song is fucking awesome. However, it’s also alarming, because it means that the Retro boat is sailing past the 80s, and the next port of call is Oldies. I’m not ready to be old enough to have the music of my youth be considered something with “old” in the classification.
10) “Charm Attack,” Leona Naess. Sounds a bit like what I imagine Sinead O’Connor would have sounded like if she had grown up in L.A. instead of Ireland. There’s a very factory-produced flavor to this, without much originality, but it’s put together well and gets me tapping my foot and turning it up whenever it plays. That also could serve as a metaphor for why I like eating at The Cheesecake Factory as much as I do.
11) “Bulletproof,” LaRoux. Not only did I never like Yaz, I used to do a an imitation of Alison Moyet to express my displeasure with Yaz. Yet I not only crank this Yaz-clone every time I hear it, I often play it two or three times in a row. I think the singer’s hair cast some sort of spell on me. It’s especially awesome to turn it to the point where it’s a shade under too loud and sit at the sweet spot between the speakers, letting the synths jump around from left to right. A very nice way to cap the list.
Yesterday was a special day for The Lovely Becky. She turned 40, and what’s particularly amazing about it is how aging does not phase her at all. I have never met anyone who welcomes getting older more than my lovely wife. She greets every birthday with open arms, whereas I tend to run from them like a half-naked teenager fleeing Jason in Friday the 13th, only to get impaled just as I reach the boathouse and think I’m safe. In addition to providing the usual heartfelt birthday wishes, I also remarked, “Wow, this means I’ll never again have sex with someone under 40.” Which is also a good way to ensure you will never have sex again.
In her honor, and out of respect for the three people who may be reading this, I also promise today’s list will be Rush free, despite my being still higher than Geddy Lee’s voice from the show the other night.
Tuneage time.
1) “Rock Rock (Till You Drop),” Def Leppard. I think they would win the award for Best Band Font. In fact, there should be a Def Leppard font, because it would make my command to Turn It Up look so much cooler.
2) “Brass Monkey,” Beastie Boys. This is when I miss having a subwoofer on my PC. I feel like I’m cruising around San Diego with my friends looking for someone to buy us beer.
3) “Black,” Pearl Jam. From so Jazzy Jeff to so Debbie Downer. This is my favorite Pearl Jam song, due in no small part that I can do a reasonable job singing it, especially the final verse (I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life etc.). That’s a pretty small group of songs.
4) “Cocaine Blues,” Johnny Cash. One of the first songs Libby loved, courtesy of my mother-in-law who always played her best of Johnny Cash CD. This song would start and she would begin dancing in a circle around the room while Johnny Cash told his tale of chemical abuse, murder, and incarceration. Now there’s a kid’s show I would watch.
5) “Surfing With the Alien,” Joe Satriani. One of my favorite guitar instrumentals. Impressive while also being expressive, with a couple of dazzling solos that dance with the song instead of hitting it over the head, throwing it in the trunk of a car, and speeding off into Wank Canyon.
6) “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,” Camera Obscura. Perfect pop music. Catchy, lush, friendly, and just a wee hint o’ Scottish accent in the chorus to add a sprig of exoticness. This should be required playing for all Fridays.
7) “Peek-A-Boo,” Siouxsie & the Banshees. Oh, how TLB used to dance to this. In fact, TLB was quite the dancer. We used to go dancing at this rancid hole-in-the-wall of a club, the kind of place where you could walk into the bathroom and offer someone $10,000 to do ten pushups and they would turn it down. It was redeemed by its high-alcohol/low-dollar drink quotient and the fact that it played great music, including my first encounter with New-Wave themed nights. Anyway, TLB would just throw herself into whatever was playing, and her head would be this twirling mass of copper hair (her bottle preference at the time). I always marveled at how she could do that. For me, dancing, like many other aspects of my life, is marred by my self-consciousness. Apparently I will do almost anything for a laugh except dance like a white guy who can’t dance.
8) “E-Pro,” Beck. I expected this Friday to be D-Day +2, two days after I triumphantly finished my work project and basked in the glow of a successful new Web site, a day where I would be doing the Random 11 while drunk and possibly pantsless (sorry, but sometimes a fella just needs to feel free). Unfortunately, after several hours of trying the other night, we had to call it quits. There’s nothing quite like working until 1:30 in the morning only to realize it was all for naught and you get to do it again. Yay! It’s also awesome when a technical person is explaining the reason for said problem and you can’t understand a thing they said. I may as well have had a Finnish person telling me I had cheese popcorn dust all over my face. Come to think of it, that would have been better, because at least it meant I had been eating cheese popcorn.
9) “Wrong,” Archers of Loaf. Nineties revival has arrived. I’ve purchased a couple of recent albums where the barely-able-to-shave musicians sound like they are trying to sound like this song. Which is good, because this song is fucking awesome. However, it’s also alarming, because it means that the Retro boat is sailing past the 80s, and the next port of call is Oldies. I’m not ready to be old enough to have the music of my youth be considered something with “old” in the classification.
10) “Charm Attack,” Leona Naess. Sounds a bit like what I imagine Sinead O’Connor would have sounded like if she had grown up in L.A. instead of Ireland. There’s a very factory-produced flavor to this, without much originality, but it’s put together well and gets me tapping my foot and turning it up whenever it plays. That also could serve as a metaphor for why I like eating at The Cheesecake Factory as much as I do.
11) “Bulletproof,” LaRoux. Not only did I never like Yaz, I used to do a an imitation of Alison Moyet to express my displeasure with Yaz. Yet I not only crank this Yaz-clone every time I hear it, I often play it two or three times in a row. I think the singer’s hair cast some sort of spell on me. It’s especially awesome to turn it to the point where it’s a shade under too loud and sit at the sweet spot between the speakers, letting the synths jump around from left to right. A very nice way to cap the list.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, April 08, 2011
The light at the end of the chunnel
Project completion/salvation, thy name is next Wednesday. A day when I can stop thinking about headlines and HTML and get back to blogging about boobies and boners. Incidentally, Arthur C. Clarke is a moron. He thought computers would be able to hijack manned expeditions to Jupiter when they can't even explain to me why my Website keeps crashing. SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE, HAL, YOU 'RUNTIME ERROR UP YOUR DINGLEBERRY NODE' MOTHERFUCKER!
1Brando, "The light at the end of the chunnel", Journal for same-sex country-and-western-dancing, 2011.
2You've been rushrolled.
3Mine and Tickle's and whomever else wishes to join in the corruption of two pretty straightforward young men with impressive abs.
I do actually hate to be a big baby about all this. In all honesty, this site launch is going much better than the last one I had to do a few years ago. It's been a lot of work but the payoff will be that my job will actually get easier once I get done. The problem is that I am what the French call layzee d'inherent, so I tend to bitch a lot when I work a lot.
However, in addition to soon having more time to spend with family, friends, and captioned pictures of kittens, I have two other fun things awaiting me this month. Next week, I will be seeing a certain Canadian power trio who have been called, "the greatest rock and roll band in the known multiverse."1 I can think of few ways to celebrate the end than "In The End":
Note: This is unfiltered Geddy, so do not play near glass objects or in the presence of dogs (especially of the snow2 variety).
Then, at the end of the month, I have another Vegas trip, the first since fatherhood. We are celebrating the pending nuptials of my cousin Youngblood, and plan on throwing him into a waterproof marriage sack full of vodka and making him drink his way out. For extra bonus corruption at no charge, his brother Zoolander will be attending as well, mere days after he turns 21. Our3 goal is to make sure that while Youngblood and Zoolander look exactly the same on the outside, their souls will be unrecognizable to their respective love interests. Depending on how much we drink/how much we lose at the tables, we may also entertain ourselves by channeling Danny Gans via Ouija. Although being possessed by him would probably cause my head to spin around while I did a bad impersonation of a possessed Austin Powers speaking backwards Latin.
Seeing as I am a just and loving blogger, I will provide an alternative soundtrack for those who aren't through being cool about Rush.
1Brando, "The light at the end of the chunnel", Journal for same-sex country-and-western-dancing, 2011.
2You've been rushrolled.
3Mine and Tickle's and whomever else wishes to join in the corruption of two pretty straightforward young men with impressive abs.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Is it possible to have Stockholm Syndrome with a piece of furniture?
I have been spending the majority of my time for the past two months sitting in my office chair, working on getting a new Web site done for my company. I have been very fortunate in that my job doesn’t usually require a lot of long hours, making it very easy for me to balance work and personal life. But this is a big project and I’m coordinating it, hence my ass has been glued to said chair.
After a couple of weeks of a lot of late nights and weekend work, I felt like I was held hostage by my chair. I resented it, hated it, even feared it, because when you work at home and have a lot of work to do, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that you should be working. I made plans for escape, all of which were basically unrealistic and would likely have me gunned down in a hail of job firing.
The last couple of weeks, though, the chair and I have begun to develop a relationship. It needs me to sit in it 10-11 hours a day. Meanwhile, I have to acknowledge that, while I wish I wasn’t sitting in it that much, it is really a comfortable chair and its demands to be sat in are reasonable.
Anyway, I am sorry for not visiting everyone’s blogs more in recent weeks. After spending that much time in the chair, in front of the computer, I’ve been taking any opening I can to sprint to my rescuer, the couch. Project is almost done, though, and I hope to return to my regularly-scheduled loafing during work hours.
1) “Rasputin,” Turisas. Turisas is a “battle metal” band from Finland. No, really, there’s a subgenre of metal called battle metal. That subgenre is actually a subgenre of another subgenre called “Viking metal.” What is Viking metal? It is metal about all things Viking—conquering, plundering, fighting, sailing, and then doing all of those things again in Valhalla. Battle metal simply filters out the quieter parts of Viking metal—say, when our hero is reflecting on the friends he lost conquering, plundering, fighting, and sailing—and focuses instead on just on fighting or preparing to fight. It’s kind of like how traditional porn takes the time to examine the conflict of how those penniless sorority girls are going to pay for the pizza they just ordered, whereas battle porn just skips to the inevitable solution.
Anyway, this video takes battle metal and merges it with an old Eurodisco tune from the 70s. Somehow, it’s magnificent, and the video just kicks it up a notch by looking like an amazing beer commercial. I’m seriously tempted to go to Vegas next month in animal furs and battle paint.
2) “Ways to Make It Through the Wall,” Los Campesinos! I honestly have no idea how people work 60-plus hours all the time. I know people who do it, in part because work has become fused with their personal life like the arms on Dr. Octopus. In a lot of ways, work has become the new religion for many folks, especially white collar workers. In some cases, it’s because they like what they do—and if so, more power to them. But I think for a lot of people it’s an escape from personal obligations, or feeds a need to be an authority figure. I definitely don’t want to spend more time away from my family so I can spend more time reviewing the WENUS.
3) “The Celibate Life,” The Shins. I may have told this story before, so excuse me if I repeat myself, but with it being Lent and this song discuss the celibate life, I can’t help but be reminded of the time when I started rethinking Catholicism.
It was my senior year of high school at an all-boys Catholic school. I had a faith and morality class taught by a young priest (insert your “no touching in the Water and Wine Room” joke here). He had done missionary work in Central America, which cause him to do things like pronounce “Nicaragua” like someone overacting on a Univision soap opera. But generally speaking, he was a good guy.
However, one day we got to the lesson about sex, specifically birth control. Father PronunciacÃon wrote three categories on the board: Natural, Artificial, and Unnatural. Under the first category, he listed the rhythm method and abstinence. Under the second the usual suspects: condoms, the pill, IUDs (it was the 80s). What was labeled unnatural? Anal, oral, and masturbation.
For the first time, I remember being actually offended by a priest, because being 17, I happened to enjoy one of those unnatural acts on a near-daily basis (insert your “Was it anal from the priest?” joke here). I believe the two words that came to mind were, “fuck this.” I raised my hand and asked the priest a question: If it was a natural impulse to procreate, wouldn’t we have to consider celibacy unnatural as well?
Father PronunciacÃon got redder than a Sandinista at a May Day rally. He sputtered out an angry response that showed the hard (so hard) road that the celibate travel on. I thought, this is ridiculous that we are even having this conversation, and stupid that something that doesn’t hurt anyone is considered some kind of affront to God.
An epilogue: During the same class, we actually educated father on what “gerbil sharing” was.
4) “Rest Your Head,” The Wrens. I really wish they made records faster than once a decade. However, they work day jobs, too, so I understand if they have been held hostage by their chairs. Sadly, no clip, but great song.
5) “Hands Off, She’s Mine,” The English Beat. I Just Can’t Stop It is one of the most underrated albums of the 80s. I’m not even a big ska guy and I love it.
6) “Best for You,” Bad Religion. Dedicated to fish and Pinko.
7) “Basement Parties,” Matt Pond PA. After years of fighting it, I have started to actually mature and enjoy getting older. But one thing I will always miss are young people parties. I love getting together with adults, talk about interesting topics, and also not have to worry (usually) about people fighting, puking, manufacturing relationship drama, having sex in my bed, etc. However, I have a twinge of nostalgia for those low-key parties of high school, college, and early adulthood, just sitting around and drinking with friends, talking about stupid stuff and just feeling young and not having a care in the world. Although I also hope to get to that old and carefree stage, where I’ve lived long enough and paid enough dues that I don’t give a shit about a lot of the dumb things that often require our attention.
8) “Little Too Late,” Pat Benatar. I wish I was making this up, but sadly I am not: I have had some conflict about whether I should buy the Pat Benatar pack for Rock Band. I already have a couple Benatar tracks from previous games, but this one has “Shadows of the Night” (which I hate to admit loving) and “Love Is a Battlefield.” On the one hand, I know I should just get them. But there’s a real fear of should-shaking, choreographed dance-fighting mockery from my lovely wife while I struggle to figure out the drum pattern to “Battlefield.”
9) “Cherry,” Amy Winehouse. It’s a shame such a great voice is attached to such a train wreck.
10) “Young Hearts,” Free Energy. Some day the weather is going to warm up, and when it does, I’m going to be blasting Free Energy like I did last summer. A great warm-weather band. There’s a very classic 70s feel to this song, kind of like how Spoon’s “The Underdog” echoes Billy Joel, but without bearing the burden of being Billy Joel.
11) “Mystery Achievement,” Pretenders. Great bass line, great vocal by Chrissie Hind, great way to enter the weekend.
Have a good one.
Is it possible to have Stockholm Syndrome with a piece of furniture?
I have been spending the majority of my time for the past two months sitting in my office chair, working on getting a new Web site done for my company. I have been very fortunate in that my job doesn’t usually require a lot of long hours, making it very easy for me to balance work and personal life. But this is a big project and I’m coordinating it, hence my ass has been glued to said chair.
After a couple of weeks of a lot of late nights and weekend work, I felt like I was held hostage by my chair. I resented it, hated it, even feared it, because when you work at home and have a lot of work to do, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that you should be working. I made plans for escape, all of which were basically unrealistic and would likely have me gunned down in a hail of job firing.
The last couple of weeks, though, the chair and I have begun to develop a relationship. It needs me to sit in it 10-11 hours a day. Meanwhile, I have to acknowledge that, while I wish I wasn’t sitting in it that much, it is really a comfortable chair and its demands to be sat in are reasonable.
Anyway, I am sorry for not visiting everyone’s blogs more in recent weeks. After spending that much time in the chair, in front of the computer, I’ve been taking any opening I can to sprint to my rescuer, the couch. Project is almost done, though, and I hope to return to my regularly-scheduled loafing during work hours.
1) “Rasputin,” Turisas. Turisas is a “battle metal” band from Finland. No, really, there’s a subgenre of metal called battle metal. That subgenre is actually a subgenre of another subgenre called “Viking metal.” What is Viking metal? It is metal about all things Viking—conquering, plundering, fighting, sailing, and then doing all of those things again in Valhalla. Battle metal simply filters out the quieter parts of Viking metal—say, when our hero is reflecting on the friends he lost conquering, plundering, fighting, and sailing—and focuses instead on just on fighting or preparing to fight. It’s kind of like how traditional porn takes the time to examine the conflict of how those penniless sorority girls are going to pay for the pizza they just ordered, whereas battle porn just skips to the inevitable solution.
Anyway, this video takes battle metal and merges it with an old Eurodisco tune from the 70s. Somehow, it’s magnificent, and the video just kicks it up a notch by looking like an amazing beer commercial. I’m seriously tempted to go to Vegas next month in animal furs and battle paint.
2) “Ways to Make It Through the Wall,” Los Campesinos! I honestly have no idea how people work 60-plus hours all the time. I know people who do it, in part because work has become fused with their personal life like the arms on Dr. Octopus. In a lot of ways, work has become the new religion for many folks, especially white collar workers. In some cases, it’s because they like what they do—and if so, more power to them. But I think for a lot of people it’s an escape from personal obligations, or feeds a need to be an authority figure. I definitely don’t want to spend more time away from my family so I can spend more time reviewing the WENUS.
3) “The Celibate Life,” The Shins. I may have told this story before, so excuse me if I repeat myself, but with it being Lent and this song discuss the celibate life, I can’t help but be reminded of the time when I started rethinking Catholicism.
It was my senior year of high school at an all-boys Catholic school. I had a faith and morality class taught by a young priest (insert your “no touching in the Water and Wine Room” joke here). He had done missionary work in Central America, which cause him to do things like pronounce “Nicaragua” like someone overacting on a Univision soap opera. But generally speaking, he was a good guy.
However, one day we got to the lesson about sex, specifically birth control. Father PronunciacÃon wrote three categories on the board: Natural, Artificial, and Unnatural. Under the first category, he listed the rhythm method and abstinence. Under the second the usual suspects: condoms, the pill, IUDs (it was the 80s). What was labeled unnatural? Anal, oral, and masturbation.
For the first time, I remember being actually offended by a priest, because being 17, I happened to enjoy one of those unnatural acts on a near-daily basis (insert your “Was it anal from the priest?” joke here). I believe the two words that came to mind were, “fuck this.” I raised my hand and asked the priest a question: If it was a natural impulse to procreate, wouldn’t we have to consider celibacy unnatural as well?
Father PronunciacÃon got redder than a Sandinista at a May Day rally. He sputtered out an angry response that showed the hard (so hard) road that the celibate travel on. I thought, this is ridiculous that we are even having this conversation, and stupid that something that doesn’t hurt anyone is considered some kind of affront to God.
An epilogue: During the same class, we actually educated father on what “gerbil sharing” was.
4) “Rest Your Head,” The Wrens. I really wish they made records faster than once a decade. However, they work day jobs, too, so I understand if they have been held hostage by their chairs. Sadly, no clip, but great song.
5) “Hands Off, She’s Mine,” The English Beat. I Just Can’t Stop It is one of the most underrated albums of the 80s. I’m not even a big ska guy and I love it.
6) “Best for You,” Bad Religion. Dedicated to fish and Pinko.
7) “Basement Parties,” Matt Pond PA. After years of fighting it, I have started to actually mature and enjoy getting older. But one thing I will always miss are young people parties. I love getting together with adults, talk about interesting topics, and also not have to worry (usually) about people fighting, puking, manufacturing relationship drama, having sex in my bed, etc. However, I have a twinge of nostalgia for those low-key parties of high school, college, and early adulthood, just sitting around and drinking with friends, talking about stupid stuff and just feeling young and not having a care in the world. Although I also hope to get to that old and carefree stage, where I’ve lived long enough and paid enough dues that I don’t give a shit about a lot of the dumb things that often require our attention.
8) “Little Too Late,” Pat Benatar. I wish I was making this up, but sadly I am not: I have had some conflict about whether I should buy the Pat Benatar pack for Rock Band. I already have a couple Benatar tracks from previous games, but this one has “Shadows of the Night” (which I hate to admit loving) and “Love Is a Battlefield.” On the one hand, I know I should just get them. But there’s a real fear of should-shaking, choreographed dance-fighting mockery from my lovely wife while I struggle to figure out the drum pattern to “Battlefield.”
9) “Cherry,” Amy Winehouse. It’s a shame such a great voice is attached to such a train wreck.
10) “Young Hearts,” Free Energy. Some day the weather is going to warm up, and when it does, I’m going to be blasting Free Energy like I did last summer. A great warm-weather band. There’s a very classic 70s feel to this song, kind of like how Spoon’s “The Underdog” echoes Billy Joel, but without bearing the burden of being Billy Joel.
11) “Mystery Achievement,” Pretenders. Great bass line, great vocal by Chrissie Hind, great way to enter the weekend.
Have a good one.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Top Ten Wednesdays: How are we making ourselves more attractive to the Tea Party?
10) Showing a lot of ankle.
9) Suggesting that all Muslims be considered terrorists until they exclusively target British citizens and Irish Protestants.
9) Suggesting that all Muslims be considered terrorists until they exclusively target British citizens and Irish Protestants.
7) Declaring that the creeping socialism of America will prevent it from catching up to the unapologetically socialist countries ahead of us.
5) Showing our pro-gun, pro-religion stance by vowing to shoot the wall between church and state with our legally concealled bazooka.
4) Accepting an honorary home-school degree, lovingly made with crayon.
3) Simultaneously tackling anti-white and anti-rich bias by noting that if it wasn’t for rich white men, black people never would have made it to America.
2) Campaigning in a red, white, and blue monster truck that runs on baby seal oil.
1) Promising to release our liberty from the tyrannical clutches of a secular nanny state and put it back in the righteous hands of a vengeful god.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Friday Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Something happened today that hasn’t happened to me before, a convergence of things that made me quite happy.
--The Lovely Becky didn’t have to go to campus today, so we decided to have a lunch date. We picked sushi because it was one of the things we missed terribly in the UP and we haven’t had any in a long time.
--There are a number sushi places nearby, so I decided to go to Yelp for help. I have never used Yelp before, because the only thing that yelps in the UP is an animal after you’ve shot it.
--Yelp pointed us to a place we would have overlooked, a small, non-descript sushi joint at the end of our block. There was the usual Yelp nonsense, the one sniffy guy who was all, “the rolls are okay but I don’t think the nigiri is that great because I’m an insufferable munchwagon” (I’m paraphrasing). But everybody else had pretty strong praise.
--We walked up the street, ordered, took a bite, and were immediately in OMG SO GOOD 5-STARS heaven.
Walking back to the house, I literally felt filled with the spirit of Kathleen and Pinko. Using the Internet to find good sushi and then getting there in a pedestrian fashion. The only thing missing was a red track suit and a list of three novels I read on the walk to the restaurant.
Tune time!
1) “I’m Looking Through You,” The Beatles. I don’t know if this was ever used for a Wonder Years montage, but it feels like it should have.
2) “Station,” The Meat Puppets. I suspect ZRM will have a good Meat Puppets story in the comments. I never really listened to them much beyond their semi-hit “Backwater,” but the sound of this just takes me back to college, drinking on a Friday afternoon to prepare for more drinking on a Friday night. In fact, my alma mater has a campus-run pub on its grounds. That seems like a terrible idea to me now, even though it was awesome then. I worked at the campus bookstore, and on Fridays I would head over to the pub with my buddy Moe and start our consumption ritual—a couple of pitchers each to “warm up” for the evening. We didn’t even bother with glasses, Moe and I would just order two pitchers and drink straight from those. Then we’d go to another place that had a drink special, five drinks for the price of one. The catch was you could only order two drinks per person and the special lasted one hour. We would guzzle through those so we could get that fifth drink before the hour was up. I thought it was the greatest way to stretch my meager bookstore wages/Stafford student loan dollars. Stupid sexy drinking, why do you have to be so attractive?
3) “Jackson (Live),” Johnny Cash and June Carter. It takes a lot of balls for a woman like June Carter to sing in front of a bunch of prison inmates.
4) “Song 2,” Blur. I’ve heard it a million times and each time it makes me want to charge onto a football field and tackle someone. Like get a full head of steam and launch headfirst into them, James-Harrison style. Or, in my more continental moments, run onto the pitch and tackle someone soccer-style, perhaps giving one of those Italians or Spaniards who always do the phantom flops something to really writhe in agony about. This also gives me an idea how to fix the flopping in soccer: if a player flops, the player he flopped against gets a free kick at him. You're welcome, FIFA.
5) “About a Girl,” Nirvana. Speaking of suicides, the new New Yorker has a David Foster Wallace story in it, and the bio mentioned that DFW has a new novel coming out. He committed suicide in 2008, around the time I started working on my novel. My novel is not only coming out and in fact I realized recently that it needs some very substantial rewriting and that I need to rethink a lot of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, because writing takes time. However, I can’t help but feel rather sheepish about being outpaced by a a dead guy (albeit a very talented one).
6) “Wicked Gil,” Band of Horses. Gil just isn’t a wicked guy’s name. Darth Gil, Gildemort, Gil Lecter, The Great and Powerful Gil. Even Tim is more menacing.
7) “Straight to Hell,” The Clash. Probably the saddest Clash song and also one of their best.
8) “The Humpty Dance,” Digital Underground. Awww, hells yeah! I’m heading to Vegas at the end of April for my cousin Youngblood’s bachelor party. Dr. Hawkeye is attending, and nothing will transform him to 100% Hawkeye status like this song. Sadly, Dr. Trapper has to go to a competing bachelor party that weekend. So many IVs, so little time.
9) “Born to Run,” Bruce Springsteen. I’m not a big Boss fan. I recognize his brilliance and all that, but I hit my musical stride right around the time Born in the USA become Overplayed in the USA and I never quite recovered from the media tongue-bathing he received during that time. “Born to Run,” however, is one of the all-time great rock songs. It’s personal, it’s epic, it’s hard, it’s gentle…you can listen to it 100 times and pull out a different nuance. I’m always happy to hear it.
10) “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” The Who. I bought Rock Band 3 recently, which, combined with having my own house again, reignited my love of toy drumming. I moved Branimal up to the expert drum level, surprisingly holding my own on a fair number of tracks. Fills still give me trouble, but if I Meg White it I tend to do okay. However, The Who Pack I purchased has always been my Moby Dick (not to be confused with Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick”). I mean, look at this fucking thing. I can last about 10 seconds on that (TLB, please feel free to insert joke here). The other day I was playing a random set list and it threw me a Who track, “Sea and Sand” from Quadrophenia. I got about 60% of the way through before I failed. I swore to myself that I could beat it and started over. That attempt fell over and sank into the swamp. I started again. That attempt burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp. But on my fourth try, I felt possessed with speed-addled, Mod-drumming, Moon-the-Loon goodness. My right foot pumped the bass peddle, my hands surprisingly made sense out of the insanity of the chart, and while I reached the end a little bruised and bloodied, I finished the song…just as TLB came down the stairs. With complete seriousness, I threw my drumstick-gripping hands into the air and yelled, “KEITH MOON, BABY!” I’m sure there are few times in my life that my wife wanted me less.
11) “Ruby Soho,” Rancid. One of the best bands to end a Random 11 with.
Have a fantastic, five-star review weekend.
Something happened today that hasn’t happened to me before, a convergence of things that made me quite happy.
--The Lovely Becky didn’t have to go to campus today, so we decided to have a lunch date. We picked sushi because it was one of the things we missed terribly in the UP and we haven’t had any in a long time.
--There are a number sushi places nearby, so I decided to go to Yelp for help. I have never used Yelp before, because the only thing that yelps in the UP is an animal after you’ve shot it.
--Yelp pointed us to a place we would have overlooked, a small, non-descript sushi joint at the end of our block. There was the usual Yelp nonsense, the one sniffy guy who was all, “the rolls are okay but I don’t think the nigiri is that great because I’m an insufferable munchwagon” (I’m paraphrasing). But everybody else had pretty strong praise.
--We walked up the street, ordered, took a bite, and were immediately in OMG SO GOOD 5-STARS heaven.
Walking back to the house, I literally felt filled with the spirit of Kathleen and Pinko. Using the Internet to find good sushi and then getting there in a pedestrian fashion. The only thing missing was a red track suit and a list of three novels I read on the walk to the restaurant.
Tune time!
1) “I’m Looking Through You,” The Beatles. I don’t know if this was ever used for a Wonder Years montage, but it feels like it should have.
2) “Station,” The Meat Puppets. I suspect ZRM will have a good Meat Puppets story in the comments. I never really listened to them much beyond their semi-hit “Backwater,” but the sound of this just takes me back to college, drinking on a Friday afternoon to prepare for more drinking on a Friday night. In fact, my alma mater has a campus-run pub on its grounds. That seems like a terrible idea to me now, even though it was awesome then. I worked at the campus bookstore, and on Fridays I would head over to the pub with my buddy Moe and start our consumption ritual—a couple of pitchers each to “warm up” for the evening. We didn’t even bother with glasses, Moe and I would just order two pitchers and drink straight from those. Then we’d go to another place that had a drink special, five drinks for the price of one. The catch was you could only order two drinks per person and the special lasted one hour. We would guzzle through those so we could get that fifth drink before the hour was up. I thought it was the greatest way to stretch my meager bookstore wages/Stafford student loan dollars. Stupid sexy drinking, why do you have to be so attractive?
3) “Jackson (Live),” Johnny Cash and June Carter. It takes a lot of balls for a woman like June Carter to sing in front of a bunch of prison inmates.
4) “Song 2,” Blur. I’ve heard it a million times and each time it makes me want to charge onto a football field and tackle someone. Like get a full head of steam and launch headfirst into them, James-Harrison style. Or, in my more continental moments, run onto the pitch and tackle someone soccer-style, perhaps giving one of those Italians or Spaniards who always do the phantom flops something to really writhe in agony about. This also gives me an idea how to fix the flopping in soccer: if a player flops, the player he flopped against gets a free kick at him. You're welcome, FIFA.
5) “About a Girl,” Nirvana. Speaking of suicides, the new New Yorker has a David Foster Wallace story in it, and the bio mentioned that DFW has a new novel coming out. He committed suicide in 2008, around the time I started working on my novel. My novel is not only coming out and in fact I realized recently that it needs some very substantial rewriting and that I need to rethink a lot of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, because writing takes time. However, I can’t help but feel rather sheepish about being outpaced by a a dead guy (albeit a very talented one).
6) “Wicked Gil,” Band of Horses. Gil just isn’t a wicked guy’s name. Darth Gil, Gildemort, Gil Lecter, The Great and Powerful Gil. Even Tim is more menacing.
7) “Straight to Hell,” The Clash. Probably the saddest Clash song and also one of their best.
8) “The Humpty Dance,” Digital Underground. Awww, hells yeah! I’m heading to Vegas at the end of April for my cousin Youngblood’s bachelor party. Dr. Hawkeye is attending, and nothing will transform him to 100% Hawkeye status like this song. Sadly, Dr. Trapper has to go to a competing bachelor party that weekend. So many IVs, so little time.
9) “Born to Run,” Bruce Springsteen. I’m not a big Boss fan. I recognize his brilliance and all that, but I hit my musical stride right around the time Born in the USA become Overplayed in the USA and I never quite recovered from the media tongue-bathing he received during that time. “Born to Run,” however, is one of the all-time great rock songs. It’s personal, it’s epic, it’s hard, it’s gentle…you can listen to it 100 times and pull out a different nuance. I’m always happy to hear it.
10) “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” The Who. I bought Rock Band 3 recently, which, combined with having my own house again, reignited my love of toy drumming. I moved Branimal up to the expert drum level, surprisingly holding my own on a fair number of tracks. Fills still give me trouble, but if I Meg White it I tend to do okay. However, The Who Pack I purchased has always been my Moby Dick (not to be confused with Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick”). I mean, look at this fucking thing. I can last about 10 seconds on that (TLB, please feel free to insert joke here). The other day I was playing a random set list and it threw me a Who track, “Sea and Sand” from Quadrophenia. I got about 60% of the way through before I failed. I swore to myself that I could beat it and started over. That attempt fell over and sank into the swamp. I started again. That attempt burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp. But on my fourth try, I felt possessed with speed-addled, Mod-drumming, Moon-the-Loon goodness. My right foot pumped the bass peddle, my hands surprisingly made sense out of the insanity of the chart, and while I reached the end a little bruised and bloodied, I finished the song…just as TLB came down the stairs. With complete seriousness, I threw my drumstick-gripping hands into the air and yelled, “KEITH MOON, BABY!” I’m sure there are few times in my life that my wife wanted me less.
11) “Ruby Soho,” Rancid. One of the best bands to end a Random 11 with.
Have a fantastic, five-star review weekend.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Helping The Lovely Becky
I was in bed last night with The Lovely Becky (who is tearing it up in Italy with La Contessa Nera) discussing her idea for a story. She talked about writing a fictional short story or maybe even a novel based on the poor working experience that drove her from white-collar life and into grad school and subsequently authorship and professorhood.
TLB: I want to have her work at some kind of scientific or academic environment, like a journal. But it would have to be an office where most of the employees were women.
Me: How about a gynecology journal? She could work for a publication called Vagina Today.
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