I know where tongues go when they're thirsty. I know where tongues go when they're happy. But where do tongues go when they're angry?
July 10th 2011
The good news is I taught my lizard to speak English very well in only 3 weeks. The bad news is she says terrible things about the human race.
July 30th 2011
What's the name of that movie where Jennifer Lopez falls in love with a woman, but is afraid of the shame it will bring to her family's name, so she gets a sex change so she can woo the woman of her dreams but ends up getting an infection during the procedure and dies on the operating table, but then we see their life together play out in her dreams during her final moments while she dies?
August 19th 2011
What was that movie where Sandra Bullock tries to help a family pay their taxes by taking part in a motorcycle race that has a huge money reward for the winner, but she doesn't have any idea how to ride a motorcycle, so she spends the whole day before the race learning how, but still loses the race?
August 20th 2011
What was that movie where Ashton Kutcher plays a limo driver who drives kids to prom and listens to the stories they tell him about their sad & stupid lives, but then when he tries to tell them about his life as a divorced guy who's 500k in debt they won't listen and they make fun of his goatee for the rest of the ride? I think it's the movie where he met his wife, Sigourney Weaver.
August 24th 2011
Rock n roll drumming is easy. Here are the basics. You've got your lower beats, some bottom beats, high beats, face rhythms, twist effects, trick melodies, midtrack cymbal crushers, pump thumps. These are common rock n roll drumming moves.
September 25th 2011
I like to leave all my shoes next to the front door of my apartment. It's getting cold out, so spiders come inside for warmth. The first things they see are my shoes. Brown recluses love dark, safe spaces like the insides of my shoes. I leave the shoes on their sides so it's easier for the spiders to discover the welcoming darkness. Some of these shoes are old so I rarely wear them. Brown recluses make their homes in the less worn shoes and leave only at night to hunt. But I like to eventually stick my feet in these shoes so the brown recluses can attack me and send their poison into me. It feels good at first, but then, over the following days and weeks as my flesh falls apart and my toes are nothing but bone, I think to myself "hahaha, Philip, you idiot." After enough spider bites my feet are nothing but bone and oozing, useless globs of meat. The spiders can eat it while I wear my shoes to go jogging or shopping.
October 3rd 2011
Yesterday I put an ad on craigslist for a small Uhaul trailer's worth of Waterworld paraphernalia. Last night I got an email grom a guy who was really interested in buying all of it. Today I drove to meet him out by the airport. Guess who the guy was. That's right, it was Kevin Costner. But he wasn't offering me money for this stuff, he robbed me at gunpoint and told me if he ever caught me dealing Waterworld merch again he'd give my computer all kinds of viruses and would steal gas from my car for the next ten years. As he drove off in his Porsche I screamed that I never thought I'd be robbed by Robin Hood. He hit the brakes and threw his car in reverse. But I jumped back in my car and got the hell out of there. Wasn't good enough, though. Kevin followed me all the way home and confrnted me in the parking lot. We had words and he threw me to the ground and stepped on my hands. He tied me up and dragged me into my apartment. Right now he's going through my DVD collection, trying to figure out what to steal from me. I'm locked in my bathroom. Someone come over and help me. We'll probably have to fight Kevin Costner together at some point.
He's been reciting lines from Dances with Wolves and Field of Dreams most of the day while he rummages through my stuff. He found one of my copies of the Bodyguard soundtrack (I have it in every released format) and he's been blasting it on my stereo. He just plays "I Will Always Love You" and "I'm Every Woman" over and over again.
July 10th 2011
The good news is I taught my lizard to speak English very well in only 3 weeks. The bad news is she says terrible things about the human race.
July 30th 2011
What's the name of that movie where Jennifer Lopez falls in love with a woman, but is afraid of the shame it will bring to her family's name, so she gets a sex change so she can woo the woman of her dreams but ends up getting an infection during the procedure and dies on the operating table, but then we see their life together play out in her dreams during her final moments while she dies?
August 19th 2011
What was that movie where Sandra Bullock tries to help a family pay their taxes by taking part in a motorcycle race that has a huge money reward for the winner, but she doesn't have any idea how to ride a motorcycle, so she spends the whole day before the race learning how, but still loses the race?
August 20th 2011
What was that movie where Ashton Kutcher plays a limo driver who drives kids to prom and listens to the stories they tell him about their sad & stupid lives, but then when he tries to tell them about his life as a divorced guy who's 500k in debt they won't listen and they make fun of his goatee for the rest of the ride? I think it's the movie where he met his wife, Sigourney Weaver.
August 24th 2011
Rock n roll drumming is easy. Here are the basics. You've got your lower beats, some bottom beats, high beats, face rhythms, twist effects, trick melodies, midtrack cymbal crushers, pump thumps. These are common rock n roll drumming moves.
September 25th 2011
I like to leave all my shoes next to the front door of my apartment. It's getting cold out, so spiders come inside for warmth. The first things they see are my shoes. Brown recluses love dark, safe spaces like the insides of my shoes. I leave the shoes on their sides so it's easier for the spiders to discover the welcoming darkness. Some of these shoes are old so I rarely wear them. Brown recluses make their homes in the less worn shoes and leave only at night to hunt. But I like to eventually stick my feet in these shoes so the brown recluses can attack me and send their poison into me. It feels good at first, but then, over the following days and weeks as my flesh falls apart and my toes are nothing but bone, I think to myself "hahaha, Philip, you idiot." After enough spider bites my feet are nothing but bone and oozing, useless globs of meat. The spiders can eat it while I wear my shoes to go jogging or shopping.
October 3rd 2011
Yesterday I put an ad on craigslist for a small Uhaul trailer's worth of Waterworld paraphernalia. Last night I got an email grom a guy who was really interested in buying all of it. Today I drove to meet him out by the airport. Guess who the guy was. That's right, it was Kevin Costner. But he wasn't offering me money for this stuff, he robbed me at gunpoint and told me if he ever caught me dealing Waterworld merch again he'd give my computer all kinds of viruses and would steal gas from my car for the next ten years. As he drove off in his Porsche I screamed that I never thought I'd be robbed by Robin Hood. He hit the brakes and threw his car in reverse. But I jumped back in my car and got the hell out of there. Wasn't good enough, though. Kevin followed me all the way home and confrnted me in the parking lot. We had words and he threw me to the ground and stepped on my hands. He tied me up and dragged me into my apartment. Right now he's going through my DVD collection, trying to figure out what to steal from me. I'm locked in my bathroom. Someone come over and help me. We'll probably have to fight Kevin Costner together at some point.
He's been reciting lines from Dances with Wolves and Field of Dreams most of the day while he rummages through my stuff. He found one of my copies of the Bodyguard soundtrack (I have it in every released format) and he's been blasting it on my stereo. He just plays "I Will Always Love You" and "I'm Every Woman" over and over again.
October 11th 2011
Dr. Bruce Banner may have gained a magical gift when he was bombarded with radiation on that fateful day. But he lost something even more significant than his newly released inner hulk - the ability to form and maintain meaningful relationships. I will still be your friend, Bruce. Don't you... forget about me.
October 14th 2011
Making people laugh is no substitute for making them cum.
October 16th 2011
Dr. Bruce Banner may have gained a magical gift when he was bombarded with radiation on that fateful day. But he lost something even more significant than his newly released inner hulk - the ability to form and maintain meaningful relationships. I will still be your friend, Bruce. Don't you... forget about me.
October 14th 2011
Making people laugh is no substitute for making them cum.
October 16th 2011
I just checked and have confirmed what I already suspected to be true. There is room in my mouth for one more tongue.
October 29th 2011
October 29th 2011
Sitting in the parking lot eating apple pie and staring at various gentlemen as they get in their cars to leave or get out of their cars to go to class. With my hair in my face I look like a woman. We make eye contact. Apples fall out of my mouth as I smile. Happy Halloween.
October 31st 2011
October 31st 2011
My wife emailed me from California. Said she's met a surfer named Clubbard Broman 69 with golden hair and oiled chest. She claims the 69 in his name is silent, but I've never heard if a silent 69. Not really sure why she's there when we had plans to shop for doors today.
November 5th 2011
If you stay up late enough on Sunday night you develop immunity to poison.
November 14th 2011
Achieving godhood before death is not easy.
December 7th 2011
I cry when I hear japanese music because I just think about pearl harbor nonstop.
December 9th 2011
I know it's past midnight, but if you come over I'll read you poetry. My wife's asleep on the floor so we'll just sit at the table.
December 21st 2011
Matt Damon sent me a Christmas card and we're not even friends. It came late, so even if we had been friends I think our friendship would be over. But it was nice of him. He and his friend Ben Affleck wrote me a nice long holiday poem that I'll share later.
December 29th 2011
Today my son came home from a trip with his friends (he's in a gang) with his face painted up, and told my wife and me that he's now a Juggalo. He showed us his favorite band, ICP. We immediately got on the phone with our family abortionist to discuss late term abortion plans.
January 30th 2012
my girlfriend cheated on me while I was learning to fly airplanes. but get this. she cheated on me with the flight instructor while I was up in the air and he was pretending to have diarrhea so he wouldn't have to fly. there is no way this valamtymes day is gonna be any good.
February 14th 2012
Just discovered my wife's hair isn't real and she's been wearing a wig all these years. She shaves her head every morning before I wake up and puts the hair in the waffles she makes me for breakfast. I guess that's true love.
February 17th 2012
When I take off my clothes I'm always mistaken for Beyoncé Knowles.
February 28th 2012
[In response to a remark about Kenny Loggins' song "Playing With the Boys", asking, "so, this song has been about playing volleyball the whole time?", I ponder the deeper meaning of the tune.]
Nah man, not just volleyball. That's the surface. It goes deeper than that. It's about the base spirit of man and his urges to fight and to make sense of the planet he calls home. It is about a fellowship in blood among humankind, but it also details the ugliness of reality that tries to drive us apart. Take a look, here:
"Knock, knock, knocking on wood
Bodies working overtime
Man against man
And all that ever matters
Is baby who's ahead in the game
Funny but it's always the same"
knock - knock - knocking on wood--> KKK on wood, a decidedly racist line meant to antagonize the listener at first, but the words that follow make its meaning clear: bodies working overtime, man against man. Men working in the factories, on the oil rigs, even on the wall streets, trying to make money for their families. It's a dog eat dog world out there, or a man against man world, where men try to hurt one another, they try to destroy one another out of hate and competitive spirit. Race doesn't matter - men will hate men, by virtue of the fact that they are the competition. The destroyer gene kicks into gear and men try to hurt one another by any means necessary. Sometimes that manifests itself in racism. "All that ever matters is, baby, who's ahead in the game. funny but it's always the same." The collective fist of the downtrodden and the oppressed crushes through the wall of lies and exposes this man eat man spirit for what it really is - a game. A game played by fools. And who's winning? You guessed it, the same person who's always winning ... The Man.
Let's take a closer look at the chorus:
"Playing, playing with the boys
Playing, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of life's simple joys
Is playing with the boys"
Is playing really such a simple pleasure? Loggins explores that idea with an analysis of boys and men, shifting the focus of the 80's commercialism so rampant in society at the time from Miami and fast cars to the slimy underbelly of beach-life, namely, volleyball and other sand-based sports. "playing" here, is taken to mean a game of volleyball. The interesting thing about volleyball is that it's a game of two teams of six players (Classic American Volleyball). Think about that. 6 players. 2 teams. 6^2=36. 36 is the smallest number with 4 representations as a sum of 2 distinct primes. 36 = 5+31 = 7+29 = 13+23 = 17+19. Numerology has always been Kenny Loggins's number 1 way of communicating his philosophy, and this song is no different. Kenny loved the beauty in numbers, because some numbers were so primordial, so ancient and powerful, so drenched in meaning that there was just no other way to interpret them. So, 4 representations as a sum of 2 distinct primes. 4^2 = 16. 1+6=7. And what number comes between 4 and 2? 3. Three sevens -- 777. Look at the year 777 AD. It began on a Wednesday. Wednesday is known today as "Hump day". What Loggins intends to portray with this numerological cryptography is that "Playing with the boys" is synonymous with humping the boys. In the 80's, humping was innocent and free of malice. It was a loving gesture meant to convey affection for one's friends, which is why I still do it to everyone I meet. But Loggins was a man of the future. His mind was cosmic. The song was published in 1986, but Loggins's mind was at least ten years ahead of his peers, in 1996, when "Humping" would mean disrespect. He wrote this chorus to imply disrespect from one boy to another, to suggest that men continue to disrespect one another in an age where men thirst for the respect of their fellow man. It's a problem we still face today. We want respect but we just don't give it.
"Chasing sunsets." Picture a sunset for a moment. You see orange, red, yellow. The beautiful colors of a sun sinking below the earth. But what else do you see? You see a horizon, where the earth meets the sky in poetic matrimony. It is unity, but it is still a division, a clear divider of that which is above and that which is below. The sun represents the unifying force between the two, as an offering of peace and retribution between the empires of two warring gods. One who chases sunsets, then, must be one who chases the symbolism of peace, who seeks out unity and understanding, who tries, with blood and sweat in his eyes, to achieve comradery with his fellow man, his fellow human.
So the seemingly incongruent polarity of "Playing" = disrespect and "chasing sunsets" = seeking peace and understanding, is portrayed in this chorus as a sort of wake up call to humanity, and also as a symbol of the dichotomy of man. Man is war, and man is love. But what else is man?
"What else is man?" is answered in the bridge, wherein Mr. Loggins sings, "I don't want to be the moth around your fire," a line that penetrates even the hardest and coldest of hearts. It is a declaration of the highest decree. Man doesn't want to linger and circulate where he isn't wanted.. He wants his presence to mean something. "I don't want to be obsessed by my desire," shows the man's yearning for strength, his want for power and control over his own destiny. He knows his heart will lead him to misery, to trouble, to bitter mountains where cold lingers and the fog of uncertainty blocks his path to fulfillment. "You play too rough," the final new line of the song, is the warrior's cry for a gentle touch. A man feels he must be a man in all affairs, facing horror and danger with an iron gullet and blood of liquid steel. But sometimes he just wants a benign caress, a placid finger upon his lips, a sympathetic whisper that the game isn't all that matters. After all, it is not the game that makes the man, but the man who makes the game.
Although the advertisement before the feature presentation of Top Gun on the video cassette version of the movie suggests that Pepsi is the Voice of a New Generation, I would like to argue that it is in fact Kenny Loggins who is the Voice of a New Generation.
March 9th, 2012
my girlfriend's voice is an orchestra of flutes, and I am a wailing saxophone. we're playing arpeggios all through the night.
March 13th 2012
Today, all the animals outside have been telling me their names. This is a good day for friendship.
April 12th 2012
I'd rather be a hurricane than a human.
April 21st 2012
I bet Bill Gates is sad he didn't finish college.
April 25th 2012
I just caught my three sons getting high behind our cement shed. So I've got them out mowing the lawn while I'm sitting inside smoking their joints, watching The Notebook with a woman I met two days ago who wants to just be friends. What a cool Thursday.
April 26th 2012
Think of all the guitar solos we could pull off on top of a mountain, together.
April 28th 2012
April 28th 2012
So glad I was born on Earth and not a propeller moonlet in the rings of Saturn.
April 30th 2012
I remember the first time I gathered my children around the stereo to let them listen to Impetuous Ritual. "It's about time," they said. Turns out my daughters had already been listening to them behind my back for weeks, so it wasn't as special for them. But my sons really appreciated it.
May 28th 2012
May 28th 2012
I worry that some spiders might have arachnophobia and there's nothing they can do about it.
June 4th 2012
June 4th 2012
what's the name of that movie about the orphans who grow up to start a broccoli farm on the outskirts of a small French town? at first all the townspeople love the orphans' broccoli, since they have Europe's finest brocolatier working the fields, but after a while everyone in the town realizes they're actually allergic to broccoli and most other vegetables? I think it's either a sequel or prequel to Chocolat.
June 21st 2012
June 21st 2012
what's the name of that movie where all the dogs on that one mountain are speaking English to each other, and they can count really high, but then a team of mountaineers from Colorado show up with their peace pipes and their Jagerbombs and the dogs are like, "please leave," but the mountaineers don't even acknowledge them, and then the dogs forget how to speak English, and can't even count numbers at all anymore?
July 8th 2012
July 8th 2012
During Whitney Houston's final performance Prince ran onto the floor (the show was on a dance floor, not on a stage) and started dancing with her. He kept smiling, and yelling that he was an entertainer, too. Whitney didn't seem to recognize him. She hit him in the face and called him Todd. I was really close to the action and could feel Prince's sweat fly off his face into mine. Even when he was on his hands and knees, Prince was still smiling. He'd sing along to Whitney's songs when he knew the words. But soon Whitney was in the middle of a dance number, no lyrics to sing, so she was able to hurl verbal abuse at him nonstop. I didn't expect it to be this kind of show. Many in the audience, myself included, had been tempted to get on the floor to dance with Whitney while she sang "I Will Always Love You", but after seeing how she treated Prince, we changed our minds. For the rest of the night people were calling Prince Todd. But he just smiled.
July 10th 2012
July 10th 2012
I invented a new super hero named Spiders Man. He was attacked by spiders one night while sleeping on the beach. Now he has arachnophobia, and necrosis all over his arms and legs. He doesn't have any powers. Yet.
Oh god, his arms just fell off. He's bleeding everywhere.
Spiders are crawling out of him...
Everyone on the beach is screaming at him that he's a horrible super hero. I think they're right. He's kicking sand everywhere. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
My sand castle has become a fortress for hundreds of spiders. They crossed the saltwater moat like it was nothing. Spiders Man is trying to run away from his own spiders but he can't. I hope this ends soon.
He's been on this beach for a week. Hasn't even bothered to see a doctor. I kind of don't feel sorry for him. A woman told him spider bites are easy to treat but he wouldn't listen.
OK, it's over. A dead whale just washed ashore (very sad), and seems to have crushed Spiders Man before he could really do anything heroic or harmful. Some people at the beach are clapping, which I think is rude. What a day.
July 25th 2012
Oh god, his arms just fell off. He's bleeding everywhere.
Spiders are crawling out of him...
Everyone on the beach is screaming at him that he's a horrible super hero. I think they're right. He's kicking sand everywhere. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
My sand castle has become a fortress for hundreds of spiders. They crossed the saltwater moat like it was nothing. Spiders Man is trying to run away from his own spiders but he can't. I hope this ends soon.
He's been on this beach for a week. Hasn't even bothered to see a doctor. I kind of don't feel sorry for him. A woman told him spider bites are easy to treat but he wouldn't listen.
OK, it's over. A dead whale just washed ashore (very sad), and seems to have crushed Spiders Man before he could really do anything heroic or harmful. Some people at the beach are clapping, which I think is rude. What a day.
July 25th 2012
The Solar system was doing alright until the angry red giant Antares showed up out of nowhere. Now the planets cry out as they're pulled inexorably toward it. Even their own Sun hurdles toward the burning supergiant with ever increasing speed.
Mercury and Venus are the first to perish in the burn of Antares' outer layer. The Sun goes next. But as if sent by the generous hand of Wotan himself, Betelgeuse materializes not far from Antares, only a few dozen AU away. Briefly, it is hoped the gravitational pull of Betelgeuse might save the remaining planets in some complex multi-body song and dance.
But it's too late for Earth. The blue and green rock burns in Antares' fiery clutches. Saturn and Jupiter too are pulled into its monstrous hell. Uranus is far enough away and traveling with enough momentum to allow it to barely pass Antares, and move quickly toward Betelgeuse. The beautiful blue ball of gas corkscrews toward the ungodly supergiant. Heat like Uranus has never known scorches its hydrogen and helium atmosphere, quickly burning as it dives hopelessly into Betelgeuse's unforgiving pull.
Mars has long since burned to nothing in the fires of Antares. But Neptune and Pluto remain, their distance a great advantage for survival.
Antares and Betelgeuse, within arms reach for the first time, are engaged in an orbit about a center of mass, each pulling the other closer, then propelling away with momentum unimaginable to the extinct human race. This causes horrific disorder and uncertainty for Pluto and Neptune. But soon, both are stuck in Betelgeuse's mighty pull, no chance of escape. Doom ends them.
The trans-Neptunian objects such as Sedna, Eris, Haumea, and 1993 RO have managed to escape the nightmarish force of the dueling supergiants, spinning in absurd paths out of danger, all in their own directions, cast off into the darkness beyond. Aimless and unsure they fly, no destination, no hope. Perhaps they will find a home in the Kuiper Belt. Or perhaps they will one day end up in the Oort Cloud, immortal and unscathed by the void of space.
Antares and Betelgeuse twirl in a cosmic ballet, heated by primordial fuels and ancient rage. The fate of this duo remains unclear.
July 31st 2012
Remember when you'd buy a box of Fruit Roll Ups and sometimes the Fruit Roll Ups were replaced with Beef Roll Ups, and they'd gone bad weeks earlier? And remember how there was always hair all over the place? And remember how your dog wouldn't even eat them, but your cat would? And if you ever took them out of the box and looked inside, remember there was always that drawing of a kid and a note scribbled under it that said something like, "it's not MY hair, but it adds lots of flavor."? And sometimes there were dead bugs at the bottom of the box that had crawled in there for the meat but couldn't get out. Remember that? God, the 90's, man.
August 3rd 2012
Every summer, as a young boy, I would fantasize about finding a wasp or a hornet or a yellow jacket captured in a spider's web. In my fantasy, I'd free the insect and we would immediately form a powerful friendship. As I imagined it, the bug would share this tale of the heroic human with its local community, and I would find myself befriended by the entire bug population surrounding me. Every summer I've remembered this fantasy. This summer, I'd forgotten all about it. When I walked outside today, on the way to do some laundry, I discovered a yellow jacket struggling to escape an abandoned spider web. Holy shit. This was it. The moment I'd dreamt of my whole life. I dropped my laundry and jumped into action. I don't mean to brag, but I was incredible. I used my car key to tear apart the web, then helped the yellow jacket latch onto it so I could pull him to safety. He was clearly traumatized by the incident, but as soon as we made eye contact I think he understood he'd made an ally. But I shook my head and whispered, "Not an ally. A friend." He flew off shortly after this. I hope he's shared the tale, and I hope the bugs know I am the peacebringer of all insect tribes.
August 11th 2012
It's depressing to realize that if I'm ever turned into a mouse, I'll have no idea how to convince my cats it's really me.
August 18th 2012
Did you know Applebee's is owned by Apple? Steve Jobs started the restaurant back when Apple was starting to take off. He didn't want it to be obvious that it was his, so he called it Apple...Bs. At the time Apple was actually called Apples, because Steve liked to throw an S on the end of words. So he threw a B before the S and named his restaurant. The B stands for steve joBs. The B also stands for Buddhism, because Steve was a Buddhist. Some people even say the B also stands for Bill, as in Bill Gates, Steve's number one best friend and personal hero.
August 30th 2012
I wish I could swim in a pool where instead of water it is only Sonoran centipedes waving their frail little ligaments, tickling my face and laughing with me into the dark of night. We would smile and celebrate the cloudless skies, together. No clouds means no rain. I'll move my legs and feel their eggs hatching against my skin. It will be beautiful. With promises of dry weather they'll be eager to hunt. I'll lie there in their swarming presence, humming my favorite Yes and Captain Beyond melodies. They won't recognize them, but I won't even care.
September 10th 2012
September 10th 2012
What if, when you and I first met, I pulled up my shirt to show you that I had a tattoo of your face on the right side of my chest? And when I pulled my shirt to the side a little you saw a tattoo of my face on the other side of my chest? And in the middle of my chest was a tattoo of the two of us just hanging out at a friend's house playing games and talking about lakes? And really, what if it was more of a collage of images of each of us just doing fun stuff with smiles on our faces, most of the time not even aware of the other one's existence? Would you say, "Cool tats, man," or would you say, "Dude, stop."? Or would you be a true friend and pull up your shirt to show me you have the very same tattoos?
September 19th 2012
September 19th 2012
Last night I dreamed I was visiting my sister and her husband. They took me to an enormous, very fancy garage I'd never known they had, and showed me a collection of sleek, high-tech motorcycles that looked as if they came from the future. I asked my brother in law how he convinced my sister to let him do this. He said as soon as she rode one she understood, and agreed to support this hobby and investment. I knew that, having jobs, they could afford this sort of thing. They rode two motorcycles out into a massive field of beautiful green hills and dusty motorcycle trails. I followed on foot. Bryan let me try out his cool looking yellow motorcycle. It had a touch-activated throttle, where one's thumb controlled the speed by moving to different nodes on the handle. Very high-tech, I thought. I rode the motorcycle over the hills and along the trails at velocities that would tear apart a standard, run-of-the-mill motorcycle. When Bryan yelled for me to hit a particular button, I obeyed, and found my motorcycle becoming airborne. I soared over the hills and looked down at the miniature world below. I reflected on my life as I rode this flying motorcycle, and took note of my own self-inflicted poverty. As the motorcycle's unfathomable engine and inspiring design took me higher and faster, I decided it was time to drop out of graduate school and find a real job.
September 25th 2012
September 25th 2012
Have you guys seen that new commercial for Google where the little girl is reading a book and she doesn't understand what a word means, so she runs to ask her dad what it means, but you can tell her dad has no idea what the word is, so he says, "Honey, let me show you a really neat thing you can do!", and he gets on the computer, waits for the modem to connect to the net, and types "ikon" into the Google search bar, all while Tatu's "All the Things She Said" is playing in the background, and the search results are just filled with things the dad doesn't understand, and the girl is laughing, and then the synthesizer breakdown in the Tatu song plays, and the girl is dancing while the dad is staring at the computer in deep confusion, and the Google logo keeps flashing across the screen, and then the girl gets impatient, and says, "Dad, I don't even like reading!" and the dad throws the computer monitor across the room? The Google logo flashes one more time, I think. Anyway, cool commercial.
September 26th 2012
September 26th 2012
I was shopping at Food City and Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" was blasting over the speakers. The song ended, and something by Katie Perry came on. I dropped my groceries in the bread 'n cakes aisle and ran to the manager, who was on the phone, and signaled for him to hang up. This was an emergency. He set the phone down and asked what he could do for me. I said, "Put Justin back on the speakers. Now." He gave me the dumbest look I've ever seen in a grocery store, and said, "man, you GOTTA BE kidding me." I said, "NO. The only thing I GOTTA BE doing is grocery shopping somewhere else if you don't put Justin back on these speakers. And I mean NOW." He nodded and pressed some buttons on a Muzak panel that stuck out from his computer. He looked at me with dead eyes that told me, "Give it a minute." The Katie Perry song played through in its entirety, for which I stood in the manager's office, berating him with furious pupils and irate irises. When the "A... A... A..." opening word-riffs of Justin's slick "One Time" came over the speakers I nodded to the manager and closed his door as I left. I returned to the bread n cakes aisle, picked up my eggs and yogurt and sweet rolls and Meow Mix and resumed shopping.
September 30th 2012
September 30th 2012
Is it true that when men start to go noticeably bald they're sent a hundred miles away from their friends and families to live in a small studio apartment with no windows for the rest of their lives, with no telephone, no computer, no TV, no radio, no music, and no books? If that man uses Rogaine or gets hair plugs or wears a wig or always tops himself with a stylish hat is he allowed to return to his family and friends?
October 1st 2012
October 1st 2012
Anybody else been to Justin Timberlake State Park? There's a whole river there full of tears cried by all the hearts he's broken over the years. Interestingly, you can take a kayak tour of this river while wearing headphones that play Justin's various odes to friendship and romance. This river cried by his exes actually leads into the large lake at the center of the park, simply called Timberlake, and is surrounded by one of every kind of tree in the world. These trees (according to the guide's voice in the headphones, who only has a few seconds to talk between Justin's songs) apparently represent Justin's constant reach to the heavens in his various areas of success (music, business, acting, etc...). Legend has it Justin visits this park once a year and has climbed every tree surrounding the great lake.
I was at this park over the summer and met a Native American boy who told me his ancestors passed down stories of "The Timberman", a bringer of gifts in the form of sound to the people. They say he came from the stars whistling the kinds of melodies no tribes had ever produced of their own free will. Speaking words of an alien tongue (most historians say it was an early form of English, long before the first European settlers arrived), he crafted entire opuses that quelled the fiery hearts of warring tribes. He was a peace-bringer and a song-singer. Even then, he was breaking hearts and causing the tearfalls that flooded the valleys of West Tennessee to create the river that formed the lake of his namesake. The little boy told us his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother on his mom's side had actually pressed her lips to the Timberman's songfilled mouth and tasted the bright colors of song and dance. He said his whole family was cursed with the gift of song, and the child proceeded to perform a lively number that hinted at a Timberlakian influence, but that didn't seem at all like an imitation.
As I left, the boy said the Timberlake glows with a watery aurora each night. Says there's something below the surface that's older than time, older even than Justin Timberlake's eternal energy. I've never gone back to that lake, or the park for that matter, but I'm curious if anyone else has been, or has heard similar stories.
October 8th 2012
Anyone remember that kid who was in the news back in the 90's who couldn't listen to CDs because all he heard was the NRZI mapping of the binary signal, pretty much just heard the pits and lands in the disc as the laser reflected off them? Said it was like a bunch of blips and beeps and the occasional deep cloudy buzzing. He could only listen to tapes and records, but his parents were really into
technology so they got rid rid of all the kid's analog media to make way for the digital future. Geraldo Rivera did an episode of Rivera Live with this kid as a guest and said he was such a good sport, and he shined like the lights on a baseball field. Geraldo offered to buy the kid a whole shopping cart's worth of DVDs, which just showed he hadn't even been paying attention the entire time. DVDs were the same thing to this kid, only he could see the blips and the beeps. Anyway, that kid was me.
October 12th 2012
I was at this park over the summer and met a Native American boy who told me his ancestors passed down stories of "The Timberman", a bringer of gifts in the form of sound to the people. They say he came from the stars whistling the kinds of melodies no tribes had ever produced of their own free will. Speaking words of an alien tongue (most historians say it was an early form of English, long before the first European settlers arrived), he crafted entire opuses that quelled the fiery hearts of warring tribes. He was a peace-bringer and a song-singer. Even then, he was breaking hearts and causing the tearfalls that flooded the valleys of West Tennessee to create the river that formed the lake of his namesake. The little boy told us his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother on his mom's side had actually pressed her lips to the Timberman's songfilled mouth and tasted the bright colors of song and dance. He said his whole family was cursed with the gift of song, and the child proceeded to perform a lively number that hinted at a Timberlakian influence, but that didn't seem at all like an imitation.
As I left, the boy said the Timberlake glows with a watery aurora each night. Says there's something below the surface that's older than time, older even than Justin Timberlake's eternal energy. I've never gone back to that lake, or the park for that matter, but I'm curious if anyone else has been, or has heard similar stories.
October 8th 2012
Anyone remember that kid who was in the news back in the 90's who couldn't listen to CDs because all he heard was the NRZI mapping of the binary signal, pretty much just heard the pits and lands in the disc as the laser reflected off them? Said it was like a bunch of blips and beeps and the occasional deep cloudy buzzing. He could only listen to tapes and records, but his parents were really into
technology so they got rid rid of all the kid's analog media to make way for the digital future. Geraldo Rivera did an episode of Rivera Live with this kid as a guest and said he was such a good sport, and he shined like the lights on a baseball field. Geraldo offered to buy the kid a whole shopping cart's worth of DVDs, which just showed he hadn't even been paying attention the entire time. DVDs were the same thing to this kid, only he could see the blips and the beeps. Anyway, that kid was me.
October 12th 2012
What's that movie where Julia Roberts is stuck in the trunk of a car the whole time and you never see her and she has no lines, but you hear her laughing every time someone gets in the car?
October 18th, 2012
Blue whales shouldn't be kept in captivity. No whales should, but especially not the blue ones. They're huge. Having a tank that's only 4 Olympic sized pools in volume just isn't enough. I don't even think he can turn around in there. And a twenty foot ceiling over the tank isn't nearly high enough for him to jump out of the water in excitement every time he sees his personal caretaker. It's cute, but it's also sad. He bumps his huge head every time. This is why I freed him into the ocean and have been watching him these past few months as he develops lasting friendships in the deep blue waters of the Pacific. I've named him The Ambassador. I've never seen a happier whale in my life.
October 19th, 2012
oh no i forget how speak englash and now i say wrong theng in front of a hundreds people at futboll game when i make speche about volanteer divers for swimmin pool team. now i hav so many guy with strong arm but no a strong laeg in them :( how they swim and dive fast when other boys comes to school to race and do jumpeng match?
anser: there no way
it going to be long night for swim team long in the face and long in the swim and longest of all in thet final lap
just want be champeons thats all
dark moon make shadow down on the grond where im walkin just whistle song to myself hope no one hears it. kickin gray can in the street it clinks and clanks on sidewalk now old man sees me and chase me to aparment. 'i don even live here' i say. 'don care' he say. we get in fist match an maybe black eyes or soumthin. now tear make me wet in face and i just keep goin til i find my home and talk to frinds about swimmin team and no hope of win.
oh no i forget how speak englash and now i say wrong theng in front of a hundreds people at futboll game when i make speche about volanteer divers for swimmin pool team. now i hav so many guy with strong arm but no a strong laeg in them :( how they swim and dive fast when other boys comes to school to race and do jumpeng match?
anser: there no way
it going to be long night for swim team long in the face and long in the swim and longest of all in thet final lap
just want be champeons thats all
dark moon make shadow down on the grond where im walkin just whistle song to myself hope no one hears it. kickin gray can in the street it clinks and clanks on sidewalk now old man sees me and chase me to aparment. 'i don even live here' i say. 'don care' he say. we get in fist match an maybe black eyes or soumthin. now tear make me wet in face and i just keep goin til i find my home and talk to frinds about swimmin team and no hope of win.
October 22nd, 2012
I think the worst job I ever had was working as a Hot Air Balloon Model. I'd fly hot air balloons to a few hundred feet in the air and let people on the ground take pictures of me wearing different outfits in the basket. You can't see much detail in the pictures because the photographers never used very powerful lenses, but I hated the job because I have a paralyzing fear of heights.
I think the worst job I ever had was working as a Hot Air Balloon Model. I'd fly hot air balloons to a few hundred feet in the air and let people on the ground take pictures of me wearing different outfits in the basket. You can't see much detail in the pictures because the photographers never used very powerful lenses, but I hated the job because I have a paralyzing fear of heights.
October 23rd, 2012
As the oppressive hand of poverty tightened ever so slightly, I decided to sell my body. Or rather, rent it out. Not in the traditional sexual sense but in a new way. For a negotiable price, your consciousness can be transferred into my body while my mind finds temporary reprieve in the clouds of Limbo. What you do as the commander of this body is limited only by vague human laws and the physical limits imposed on it by my own doing. If, when you return the body to me, I find it in better condition than when you first rented, you will be added to the Valued Customer list. If its condition worsens, your deposit will not be returned. I look forward to your business and the astral planes on which our transactions take place. This body is a temple, not a junk yard. Please be mindful.
October 24th, 2012
What's the name of that movie where Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones are both trying out for the role of Barack Obama in a major stage production about US Presidents and they stop at nothing to sabotage each other's casting tryouts, but they soon learn they have more in common than they thought and (spoiler) they both end up getting the part?
November 7th, 2012
Last night I was in bed and felt movement around me. Not the movement of small creatures, but compressions in the mattress, an obvious series of motions. All the cats were on the floor running into each other and spiraling out of control. It was about this time I entertained the idea that my bed was full of ghosts who only made their presence known in the dark hours before sleep. I liked the idea but was very tired and so I tried to ignore it. The movement continued, and I asked the invisible things to stop. To my surprise it stopped. To greater surprise, it turned out I was right. At least partially. There weren't ghosts in my bed, but a singular ghost. He materialized at the foot of my bed. He wore a mustache and the most handsomely parted locks of hair I've seen on a man besides myself. He introduced himself to me as Nikolai Gogol, or rather the ghost of Nikolai Gogol, and smiled warmly in my direction. We tried to shake hands put I passed through his and we had a laugh. I asked him why he'd come to bother me in the middle of the night, and he told me it wasn't the middle of the night, it was almost morning.
I said I was too tired for technicalities and shooed him away. He then started spouting off other bits of information I wasn't ready to hear, and none of it was particularly interesting. "You sure are full of useless info," I said.
"Useful bits, too," he replied. "You'd be surprised the amount of information I have in here." He pointed to his head.
I told the ghost of Mr. Gogol I had a great respect for him but was very tired and needed to sleep. He was quiet and I lied back down and closed my eyes. As I was about to slide into unconscious ether his grinding voice sprang me from almost-slumber.
"Where do you think Google got their name?" he said.
"The number. They got it from the number. Ten to the one hundredth power..."
"NO!" he shouted, pouncing off the bed. "They used my name! A pitiful bastardization of my name! Say my name with me!"
"Gogol, no..."
"AGAIN!" he shouted.
"No! I want to sleep!"
"GOGOL! I AM GOGOL, AND I AM THE NAME OF GOOGLE, ADORED MOST OF ALL EARTH'S SEARCH ENGINES. Philip! Do you know everything Google is capable of? Though I posit they are still a cheapening of my great name, they are capable of many things. Google Earth, for example."
"I know of it," I said. "But what of Google Wind and Google Fire?"
Nikolai's ghost raised a perplexed eyebrow and began walking circles around my room. "Never have I heard of those. But many others... Google Plus. Google Documents. A website for videos, a website for blogs. It seems to this dear, late, Gogol, that the new Google is just too much..."
"I have a feeling you're really stretching your name out to make it sound like Google. It seems odd, the way you say it. Unnatural. I think you're not being honest."
"You, sir, are looking for trouble."
"I'm looking for sleep, Gogol. You came here and won't shut up. Please leave."
"Only out of my great respect for you will I leave!" shouted Nikolai Gogol's ghost, before vanishing. I laid back and as I fell into darkness I was tickled at the thought of Nikolai Gogol respecting ME. What a thought!
Today when I opened Chrome, Nikolai Gogol's face peered at me from the other side of my screen, winking over and over until I could take it no more. He said the only way he would leave me be is if I put out the word about Google and their services, to make the world aware. So here you go.
As the oppressive hand of poverty tightened ever so slightly, I decided to sell my body. Or rather, rent it out. Not in the traditional sexual sense but in a new way. For a negotiable price, your consciousness can be transferred into my body while my mind finds temporary reprieve in the clouds of Limbo. What you do as the commander of this body is limited only by vague human laws and the physical limits imposed on it by my own doing. If, when you return the body to me, I find it in better condition than when you first rented, you will be added to the Valued Customer list. If its condition worsens, your deposit will not be returned. I look forward to your business and the astral planes on which our transactions take place. This body is a temple, not a junk yard. Please be mindful.
October 24th, 2012
What's the name of that movie where Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones are both trying out for the role of Barack Obama in a major stage production about US Presidents and they stop at nothing to sabotage each other's casting tryouts, but they soon learn they have more in common than they thought and (spoiler) they both end up getting the part?
November 7th, 2012
Last night I was in bed and felt movement around me. Not the movement of small creatures, but compressions in the mattress, an obvious series of motions. All the cats were on the floor running into each other and spiraling out of control. It was about this time I entertained the idea that my bed was full of ghosts who only made their presence known in the dark hours before sleep. I liked the idea but was very tired and so I tried to ignore it. The movement continued, and I asked the invisible things to stop. To my surprise it stopped. To greater surprise, it turned out I was right. At least partially. There weren't ghosts in my bed, but a singular ghost. He materialized at the foot of my bed. He wore a mustache and the most handsomely parted locks of hair I've seen on a man besides myself. He introduced himself to me as Nikolai Gogol, or rather the ghost of Nikolai Gogol, and smiled warmly in my direction. We tried to shake hands put I passed through his and we had a laugh. I asked him why he'd come to bother me in the middle of the night, and he told me it wasn't the middle of the night, it was almost morning.
I said I was too tired for technicalities and shooed him away. He then started spouting off other bits of information I wasn't ready to hear, and none of it was particularly interesting. "You sure are full of useless info," I said.
"Useful bits, too," he replied. "You'd be surprised the amount of information I have in here." He pointed to his head.
I told the ghost of Mr. Gogol I had a great respect for him but was very tired and needed to sleep. He was quiet and I lied back down and closed my eyes. As I was about to slide into unconscious ether his grinding voice sprang me from almost-slumber.
"Where do you think Google got their name?" he said.
"The number. They got it from the number. Ten to the one hundredth power..."
"NO!" he shouted, pouncing off the bed. "They used my name! A pitiful bastardization of my name! Say my name with me!"
"Gogol, no..."
"AGAIN!" he shouted.
"No! I want to sleep!"
"GOGOL! I AM GOGOL, AND I AM THE NAME OF GOOGLE, ADORED MOST OF ALL EARTH'S SEARCH ENGINES. Philip! Do you know everything Google is capable of? Though I posit they are still a cheapening of my great name, they are capable of many things. Google Earth, for example."
"I know of it," I said. "But what of Google Wind and Google Fire?"
Nikolai's ghost raised a perplexed eyebrow and began walking circles around my room. "Never have I heard of those. But many others... Google Plus. Google Documents. A website for videos, a website for blogs. It seems to this dear, late, Gogol, that the new Google is just too much..."
"I have a feeling you're really stretching your name out to make it sound like Google. It seems odd, the way you say it. Unnatural. I think you're not being honest."
"You, sir, are looking for trouble."
"I'm looking for sleep, Gogol. You came here and won't shut up. Please leave."
"Only out of my great respect for you will I leave!" shouted Nikolai Gogol's ghost, before vanishing. I laid back and as I fell into darkness I was tickled at the thought of Nikolai Gogol respecting ME. What a thought!
Today when I opened Chrome, Nikolai Gogol's face peered at me from the other side of my screen, winking over and over until I could take it no more. He said the only way he would leave me be is if I put out the word about Google and their services, to make the world aware. So here you go.
November 19th, 2012
When you read books, if you read books, be sure to only read books that validate your way of thinking, confirm your opinions and ideas, and be sure that nothing in those pages challenges your beliefs or disagrees with your mighty convictions. If you want to stay young forever you need to keep your delicate mind safe from the universe.
November 20th, 2012
When you read books, if you read books, be sure to only read books that validate your way of thinking, confirm your opinions and ideas, and be sure that nothing in those pages challenges your beliefs or disagrees with your mighty convictions. If you want to stay young forever you need to keep your delicate mind safe from the universe.
November 20th, 2012
If ever you start to feel worthless, as all people at some point will, just remember that you serve as host to millions of tiny parasites throughout your life. You have worth.
November 27th, 2012
November 27th, 2012
What's the name of that movie where the old guy is having a birthday party on his private Caribbean island and all his friends are there, and there's a bomb in the cake, and he's passing around pieces for everyone to eat, but everyone secretly knows there's a bomb in the cake and they're all hoping they don't get the piece with the bomb, and when the old man's wife makes a toast to the old guy's health everyone eats their cake and nothing explodes, so everyone's like "whew!" but then the old man says, "is this a bomb in my cake?" and he eats it anyway while everyone is yelling at him, and it explodes, and the entire island goes up in flame? I think it was either filmed or took place during the Cuban missile crisis.
December 6th, 2012
What's that song where she keeps saying "Human Centipede Shuffle, Human Millipede Hustle, Don't Forget to Kick Your Legs, All Those Legs, Don't Forget To Move Your Legs, I have Seen Your Legs, I See Them All the Time."? None of the usual lyrics sites have it. Kinda has a disco or funk beat.
December 6th, 2012
What's that song where she keeps saying "Human Centipede Shuffle, Human Millipede Hustle, Don't Forget to Kick Your Legs, All Those Legs, Don't Forget To Move Your Legs, I have Seen Your Legs, I See Them All the Time."? None of the usual lyrics sites have it. Kinda has a disco or funk beat.
December 22nd, 2012
I learned something interesting about McAlister's Deli tonight. If you happen to be pregnant while dining in the establishment, and by your good fortune you give birth inside their doors, the McAlister's legal department has put a law into effect that requires you to name your child McAlister, spelled exactly as the restaurant spells it. Should you refuse, and still call your child Pompo, you'll be fined $500 and be banned for life from all McAlister's delis around the globe.
December 31st, 2012
'A world without heroes destroys itself.' This is something Ptolemy told me in a dream two nights ago. After looking up the quote, it seems the guys in Kiss, and Lou Reed, have differing opinions on what a heroless world would be. I can't say I agree with any of them.
January 6th, 2013
[I was then informed, by a comrade, that if I destroy Kiss, I become the hero. I accepted this quest.]
I hunted down the Catman, Peter Criss, first, finally coming into his feline lair. Perched atop his throne of Catfaced dominion, he snarled at me, hurled percussive beats my way, but I deflected them with responsive drum beats of my own, generated on EZdrummer two summers ago. He fell from his throne into a pile of Zildjian cymbals, signaling his defeat. A simple victory.
The glitzy eyed Spaceman, Ace Frehley was next. In the swirling space of colorful guitar leads, fog-machine induced haze, and spandex-stifled power chords I found what some would call a guitar hero. To me he was another target, a Goliath to be beaten. An axe of my own adorned my torso, and with fireballs bursting from the walls of his space-cave, we dueled. Frets burned and ears cried, and our sounds ruined many a peaceful night's sleep for dames and dudes across the nation. When finally papers drifted from the heavens, scribbled over with sheet music, I knew I would win. Ace's inability to read music gave me the lead, and I busted lead guitar all over Ace-face, straight from the pages. He collapsed into a mountain of failure.
Kiss's true, and perhaps finest talent, lied in wait in his Starchild orb, floating gracefully over Earth's atmosphere. He refused me entry to his celestial home, so I muscled my way in with axefire and droning, dissonant chords that would find no place in a Kiss guitar book. As he regaled me with stories of Kiss on the road, and showed me various items he'd planted his lipsticked lips upon over the years, still stained with the shape of his lips, I turned my pocket amplifier up to 15, screamed riffs into his red lips, dug holes of rock n roll into his heart, and overpowered his voice that sang. He seemed crippled by surprise, maybe mad with loss. Either way, Paul Stanley bowed his head and handed his guitar to me. I refused it, claiming only his makeup bag as my trophy.
The final boss awaited me. The black-haired demon of Kissville, the business man who dabbled in music, the Jewish Juggernaut, as he was known in some circles, stepped off his mountain of Kiss merchandise to meet me in the gray wasteland where 80's hard rock met soft rock in a tango bejewelled by the zest of disco. Not until our noses touched, and our sunglasses-covered eyes locked, did final combat begin. Unlike my previous battles with Klassic Kiss members, this battle was not musical. No, it instead resembled a game of trivial pursuit, where the only knowledge that mattered was business sense, and a strong familiarity with capitalism. Hours passed as we defined terms, forced the other to concede to our ideas, and had a pissing contest rivaling that of history's most beloved athletes. A few of my words hit him so hard in the face his sunglasses became displaced, and I saw for the first time his eyeballs were dollar signs, not the white and black and iris-having spheres with which humanity had learned to see. After pushing his sunglasses back to as they must be, he fired off some SimmonsSeminar knowledge I was hopeless to deter. Words were exchanged for hours, until Gene was simply too exhausted to continue, and I, by virtue of my caffeine consumption leading up to our meeting, emerged victorious. He fell from the gray wasteland into a pit of gold and money. He was heard to yell that gold was meaningless, but money still held minimal value.
KISS has been defeated. I claim the high throne as Warrior, Hero, and King.
The glitzy eyed Spaceman, Ace Frehley was next. In the swirling space of colorful guitar leads, fog-machine induced haze, and spandex-stifled power chords I found what some would call a guitar hero. To me he was another target, a Goliath to be beaten. An axe of my own adorned my torso, and with fireballs bursting from the walls of his space-cave, we dueled. Frets burned and ears cried, and our sounds ruined many a peaceful night's sleep for dames and dudes across the nation. When finally papers drifted from the heavens, scribbled over with sheet music, I knew I would win. Ace's inability to read music gave me the lead, and I busted lead guitar all over Ace-face, straight from the pages. He collapsed into a mountain of failure.
Kiss's true, and perhaps finest talent, lied in wait in his Starchild orb, floating gracefully over Earth's atmosphere. He refused me entry to his celestial home, so I muscled my way in with axefire and droning, dissonant chords that would find no place in a Kiss guitar book. As he regaled me with stories of Kiss on the road, and showed me various items he'd planted his lipsticked lips upon over the years, still stained with the shape of his lips, I turned my pocket amplifier up to 15, screamed riffs into his red lips, dug holes of rock n roll into his heart, and overpowered his voice that sang. He seemed crippled by surprise, maybe mad with loss. Either way, Paul Stanley bowed his head and handed his guitar to me. I refused it, claiming only his makeup bag as my trophy.
The final boss awaited me. The black-haired demon of Kissville, the business man who dabbled in music, the Jewish Juggernaut, as he was known in some circles, stepped off his mountain of Kiss merchandise to meet me in the gray wasteland where 80's hard rock met soft rock in a tango bejewelled by the zest of disco. Not until our noses touched, and our sunglasses-covered eyes locked, did final combat begin. Unlike my previous battles with Klassic Kiss members, this battle was not musical. No, it instead resembled a game of trivial pursuit, where the only knowledge that mattered was business sense, and a strong familiarity with capitalism. Hours passed as we defined terms, forced the other to concede to our ideas, and had a pissing contest rivaling that of history's most beloved athletes. A few of my words hit him so hard in the face his sunglasses became displaced, and I saw for the first time his eyeballs were dollar signs, not the white and black and iris-having spheres with which humanity had learned to see. After pushing his sunglasses back to as they must be, he fired off some SimmonsSeminar knowledge I was hopeless to deter. Words were exchanged for hours, until Gene was simply too exhausted to continue, and I, by virtue of my caffeine consumption leading up to our meeting, emerged victorious. He fell from the gray wasteland into a pit of gold and money. He was heard to yell that gold was meaningless, but money still held minimal value.
KISS has been defeated. I claim the high throne as Warrior, Hero, and King.
January 8th, 2013
I went to Five Guys today for the first time in my life. The ambulance was already parked outside, waiting for me. The parking lot carried the smells of fresh meat, and the rain seemed only to enhance them. After befriending a firefighter at the drink machine I was in high spirits, ready for the cheeseburger to climb inside my wet mouth. The short, smiling Hispanic man called my number, 24, like the TV show. Like the number of hours in a day. I took my bag to the back, to the wettest, cleanest table, away from experienced Five Guysers, to absorb the glory of my first time alone. That cheeseburger was fucking magic. And the fries that flooded the bag were almost equally as magic. But as I forcefed myself on the endless deluge of fries my chest felt a ripping pain. This was no doubt a heart attack, something I expected at such an establishment.
But I didn't quit shoveling fries into myself. The cup of fries hadn't even been touched. I had to vanquish the bagfries first. Chest pain grew more intense. As I felt my body trying to end itself, I thought back to things my father taught me. "Tough it out," he would say. Tough out the heart attack, or the Five Guys win. To let a fast food place defeat me would bring shame to my family and any spawn of my own.
So I punched my chest, swallowed more fries, wrapped up my trash, and crawled to the trash can so my corpse could be more easily disposed of should I succumb to my internal wounds. As I glanced out the window I saw the ambulance was gone. I was on my own. Even in a fast food joint filled with people like a bag is filled with fries, I had never felt more alone. I picked myself up off the floor, threw my dignity in the trash with half of my fries, and carried my pausing, struggling heart out of Five Guys, wearing my shame like a hat.
I went to Five Guys today for the first time in my life. The ambulance was already parked outside, waiting for me. The parking lot carried the smells of fresh meat, and the rain seemed only to enhance them. After befriending a firefighter at the drink machine I was in high spirits, ready for the cheeseburger to climb inside my wet mouth. The short, smiling Hispanic man called my number, 24, like the TV show. Like the number of hours in a day. I took my bag to the back, to the wettest, cleanest table, away from experienced Five Guysers, to absorb the glory of my first time alone. That cheeseburger was fucking magic. And the fries that flooded the bag were almost equally as magic. But as I forcefed myself on the endless deluge of fries my chest felt a ripping pain. This was no doubt a heart attack, something I expected at such an establishment.
But I didn't quit shoveling fries into myself. The cup of fries hadn't even been touched. I had to vanquish the bagfries first. Chest pain grew more intense. As I felt my body trying to end itself, I thought back to things my father taught me. "Tough it out," he would say. Tough out the heart attack, or the Five Guys win. To let a fast food place defeat me would bring shame to my family and any spawn of my own.
So I punched my chest, swallowed more fries, wrapped up my trash, and crawled to the trash can so my corpse could be more easily disposed of should I succumb to my internal wounds. As I glanced out the window I saw the ambulance was gone. I was on my own. Even in a fast food joint filled with people like a bag is filled with fries, I had never felt more alone. I picked myself up off the floor, threw my dignity in the trash with half of my fries, and carried my pausing, struggling heart out of Five Guys, wearing my shame like a hat.
January 9th, 2013
Did I ever tell you about the time I took a trip, by myself, to Wyoming? It was to the Jackson Hole valley, to Teton County I traveled, with only a bag of hiking and climbing supplies. I brought my leather whip as well, but not for any practical purpose.
I'd read stories about things that happened here. I stopped by the Teton County Search and Rescue headquarters on the pretext of giving them information pertaining to my visit. While they took down my name and recorded the location I said I'd be spending my time, I snuck a peak at the shift schedule. The name I wanted to see was on the schedule. I noted the shift hours for said name, and planned accordingly.
The next afternoon I found myself lost among the mountains and trees. I counted the hours, and when the hour approached the hour I had seen on the shift schedule in the Teton County Search and Rescue, I phoned in my plight to ask for help. Not more than an hour passed before I heard a motor, far off in the sky. With binoculars in front of me, I saw a simple helicopter, small but perhaps the one I hoped for. As it came closer I identified it as a Bell 407. Fantastic! The helicopter I hoped for! It descended to a clearing, which I made my way to, and it released a ladder for me to climb.
Once on board, I saw my purpose for the Wyoming visit had been fulfilled. In the pilot's seat of the small helicopter sat Harrison Ford. "Sit back, kid," he said, and he flew me to safety. When we landed, I pulled the whip out of my backpack and handed it to him, asking him to sign it. He didn't laugh, and he didn't smile. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I got rescued by Han Solo," I said. "How about that?" He asked how he was supposed to sign a black leather whip, and I told him he could use whatever he wanted. Not being anywhere close to his home, he said he didn't have a pen. I took back the whip, rolled up a sleeve, and handed Harrison a knife from my belt. "Do it on me," I said.
There was no confusion in his face. He knew what I meant. He grabbed my arm, pinned it to the ground, and carved not only his name into me, but quotes from his roles as Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Rick Deckard. Blood was everywhere, but more importantly, so was my mind, as I tried to fathom the unfathomable. Rescued by Harrison Ford. What a thing to do in Wyoming!
I'd read stories about things that happened here. I stopped by the Teton County Search and Rescue headquarters on the pretext of giving them information pertaining to my visit. While they took down my name and recorded the location I said I'd be spending my time, I snuck a peak at the shift schedule. The name I wanted to see was on the schedule. I noted the shift hours for said name, and planned accordingly.
The next afternoon I found myself lost among the mountains and trees. I counted the hours, and when the hour approached the hour I had seen on the shift schedule in the Teton County Search and Rescue, I phoned in my plight to ask for help. Not more than an hour passed before I heard a motor, far off in the sky. With binoculars in front of me, I saw a simple helicopter, small but perhaps the one I hoped for. As it came closer I identified it as a Bell 407. Fantastic! The helicopter I hoped for! It descended to a clearing, which I made my way to, and it released a ladder for me to climb.
Once on board, I saw my purpose for the Wyoming visit had been fulfilled. In the pilot's seat of the small helicopter sat Harrison Ford. "Sit back, kid," he said, and he flew me to safety. When we landed, I pulled the whip out of my backpack and handed it to him, asking him to sign it. He didn't laugh, and he didn't smile. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I got rescued by Han Solo," I said. "How about that?" He asked how he was supposed to sign a black leather whip, and I told him he could use whatever he wanted. Not being anywhere close to his home, he said he didn't have a pen. I took back the whip, rolled up a sleeve, and handed Harrison a knife from my belt. "Do it on me," I said.
There was no confusion in his face. He knew what I meant. He grabbed my arm, pinned it to the ground, and carved not only his name into me, but quotes from his roles as Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Rick Deckard. Blood was everywhere, but more importantly, so was my mind, as I tried to fathom the unfathomable. Rescued by Harrison Ford. What a thing to do in Wyoming!
January 10th, 2013
The other day my buddy Rooster was over, we were just talking about the first book he'd ever read, which he was still reading, and we heard some hammering from the apartment below mine. Those obnoxious neighbors had been gone since Thanksgiving, and the thought that they had returned sent my blood pressure so high it started to come out of me like sweat. Gross, but indicative of the kind of rage I felt.
I looked out the window and saw a large, rolled up section of carpet in the parking lot, in front of their apartment. Ah, they weren't back. They'd moved out, and their carpet was being replaced. Standard procedure. My blood pressure returned to healthy levels.
But the hammering continued on, and soon the neighbor next to me started hitting the wall between us, in a "you'd better stop that hammering" sort of way, as if he thought it was me doing all the hammering. He seemed to be under the impression I was hammering just for the hell of it, to be annoying. The hammering below me continued, and the angry punches from my next door neighbor on our wall continued, as well. Rooster had a laugh, and I groaned.
Eventually, after the hammering continued, my neighbor shouted, "SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!" through the wall. This I laughed at, but Rooster wasn't laughing. He got up from the floor (where he always sits, because he hates chairs), knocked on the wall, and yelled, "If anyone needs to shut the fuck up right now, it's you!"
Oh no, Rooster, I thought. Please, no. That guy is from the bottom of the barrel. Let's not stoop to his level. But it was too late. Rooster had stooped, and things were going to get ugly. The neighbor knocked on the wall again, echoing the hammering below us, and shouted, "Fuck off." Now he'd done it.
Rooster put on his boots (not combat boots, as you may think, but cowboy boots. And not a Nashville country music kind of cowboy, but a Josie Wales kind of cowboy. Rooster didn't fuck around.)
"Rooster, don't!" I said, as he headed out the door. But it was too late. The door slammed behind him before the apostrophe of my "don't" had materialized in the air. I ran to the window and watched him march along the sidewalk to the neighbor's door.
He didn't knock, but kicked, three times, his foot flying through the door on that third kick. From the other side of my wall I heard, "what the fuck!" and a girl's voice saying, "who the fuck are you!?"
The sound of a rumble came from the other side of the wall, like furniture was flying through the air, as though a hurricane, confined to 800 square feet, had appeared in the apartment next to mine, and opened Hell's mouth to both its residents. When silence overcame everything a minute or two later, Rooster opened my door, removed his boots, and walked back to the middle of my floor to sit down. The hammering in the apartment beneath mine went on, with no disapproval from the guy next door. I waited for a sound, but there was nothing. Rooster had already started talking about that book again, and said he was excited to get to the end. Said he might like to read another one after this. I started to ask him about my neighbor, about what went on when he walked over there. But I changed my question to one about the book, and pretended nothing had happened. That's always the best way to deal with Rooster.
The other day my buddy Rooster was over, we were just talking about the first book he'd ever read, which he was still reading, and we heard some hammering from the apartment below mine. Those obnoxious neighbors had been gone since Thanksgiving, and the thought that they had returned sent my blood pressure so high it started to come out of me like sweat. Gross, but indicative of the kind of rage I felt.
I looked out the window and saw a large, rolled up section of carpet in the parking lot, in front of their apartment. Ah, they weren't back. They'd moved out, and their carpet was being replaced. Standard procedure. My blood pressure returned to healthy levels.
But the hammering continued on, and soon the neighbor next to me started hitting the wall between us, in a "you'd better stop that hammering" sort of way, as if he thought it was me doing all the hammering. He seemed to be under the impression I was hammering just for the hell of it, to be annoying. The hammering below me continued, and the angry punches from my next door neighbor on our wall continued, as well. Rooster had a laugh, and I groaned.
Eventually, after the hammering continued, my neighbor shouted, "SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!" through the wall. This I laughed at, but Rooster wasn't laughing. He got up from the floor (where he always sits, because he hates chairs), knocked on the wall, and yelled, "If anyone needs to shut the fuck up right now, it's you!"
Oh no, Rooster, I thought. Please, no. That guy is from the bottom of the barrel. Let's not stoop to his level. But it was too late. Rooster had stooped, and things were going to get ugly. The neighbor knocked on the wall again, echoing the hammering below us, and shouted, "Fuck off." Now he'd done it.
Rooster put on his boots (not combat boots, as you may think, but cowboy boots. And not a Nashville country music kind of cowboy, but a Josie Wales kind of cowboy. Rooster didn't fuck around.)
"Rooster, don't!" I said, as he headed out the door. But it was too late. The door slammed behind him before the apostrophe of my "don't" had materialized in the air. I ran to the window and watched him march along the sidewalk to the neighbor's door.
He didn't knock, but kicked, three times, his foot flying through the door on that third kick. From the other side of my wall I heard, "what the fuck!" and a girl's voice saying, "who the fuck are you!?"
The sound of a rumble came from the other side of the wall, like furniture was flying through the air, as though a hurricane, confined to 800 square feet, had appeared in the apartment next to mine, and opened Hell's mouth to both its residents. When silence overcame everything a minute or two later, Rooster opened my door, removed his boots, and walked back to the middle of my floor to sit down. The hammering in the apartment beneath mine went on, with no disapproval from the guy next door. I waited for a sound, but there was nothing. Rooster had already started talking about that book again, and said he was excited to get to the end. Said he might like to read another one after this. I started to ask him about my neighbor, about what went on when he walked over there. But I changed my question to one about the book, and pretended nothing had happened. That's always the best way to deal with Rooster.
January 15th, 2013
Last night before I went to bed, a man came to my room, covered in shadows, and with a rumbling voice. He told me to upgrade my Facebook fan page, and asked me to buy ad space. I turned him away, but he was insistent. It was past midnight, but he refused to be reasoned with. Now I'm a Premium member, and I possess three new amazing skills and a black cowboy hat to signal myself out to others who want to buy adspace and upgrade their Facebooks. But I have no feeling in my hands or arms.
January 25th, 2013
January 25th, 2013
Dennis Rodman, legendary man of hoops, was known for his good looks and his good business sense in high school, but few could imagine that someday this boy would be known as "Air" Rodman, and sell books and shoes and shirts covered in his name. 1995 is a year of few memories for the world, but for Dennis "Air" Rodman, known to close friends as "Nuke of the Net" (basketball terminology), there could be no better year. Check this out: The man was voted MVP in the NABA (north american basketball association), he sold his first chunk of real estate, he fathered twin boys, and, of course, took the All American Dream Team The Chicago Bulls to the superdome to win all the big games. His autobiography came out the following year and it sold hundreds of millions of copies around the globe.
Conquering the world of real estate, hoops, lit'rature, and parenting wasn't enough for ol' Bad Boy Rodman. When he took the stage on the silver screen as leading man, alongside other leading men of film, he was awarded several awards and received numerous nominations for accomplishment, also achievement.
You wouldn't guess it by the life he leads, but Dennis "Fly Guy" Rodman's favorite food is Mexican food. Tancos, burrtos, jimmy jangas, chalapanyos, enshylydas, you name it, he loves it. Imagine, then, the disappointment Rodman suffered when he came to Dallas, TX last night to scope out some prime real estate and all the Mexican food in Dallas was gone. Property value plummeted all over the state, and now Dennis "Not Nedry" Rodman is taking his ventures elsewhere. Way to go, Texas. Really. Nice job.
Conquering the world of real estate, hoops, lit'rature, and parenting wasn't enough for ol' Bad Boy Rodman. When he took the stage on the silver screen as leading man, alongside other leading men of film, he was awarded several awards and received numerous nominations for accomplishment, also achievement.
You wouldn't guess it by the life he leads, but Dennis "Fly Guy" Rodman's favorite food is Mexican food. Tancos, burrtos, jimmy jangas, chalapanyos, enshylydas, you name it, he loves it. Imagine, then, the disappointment Rodman suffered when he came to Dallas, TX last night to scope out some prime real estate and all the Mexican food in Dallas was gone. Property value plummeted all over the state, and now Dennis "Not Nedry" Rodman is taking his ventures elsewhere. Way to go, Texas. Really. Nice job.
January 26th, 2013
Today I held the door open for a blond man of high fashion, exquisitely styled hair, an elegant jacket that surely went for thousands, who seemed to recognize me as a fellow man of impeccable fashion sense, judging by how enthusiastically he thanked me. "You're welcome," I imagined myself saying. In the reflection of my car window I admired my own coat, my smartly combed hair, my contemporary glasses, and said, "Yes. Fashion just comes naturally to you, Philip. It is yours. You belong in LA, maybe New York, if even they are fast enough for your savvy ways." Once I was driving, I was promoted to Fashion Captain of the vehicle and rolled down my window to give Hot-or-Not tips to others on the road. Residents of Knoxville appreciated my good taste and valued my opinions. Tomorrow I announce a new line of Mason's Casual Wear for Adults, and on Monday I reveal a line of Men's Hair Gels. You will not be sorry you know me.
February 21st, 2013
As most of you probably know, LL Cool J has been the butt of most of my jokes since at least '97, and part of me thinks this is just because I was jealous of the man's talent, success, and chiselled physique. Such is often the nature of personal jokes, we all admit. When today I found myself the victim of a flat tire in the heartless heart of Knoxville, my spare tire and tools back at home where I like them, I thought I was finished. Today's rain only made matters worse. But who should come to my rescue but one icon of rap, a James so Cool the Ladies Love him. No entourage, no driver, just Cool J himself, stepping out of a modest Mercedes, his hands were already ungloved, ready to help.
He pulled a tire just right for a Kia Rio from his trunk, and I peaked into the tire-filled trunk to see tires of all sizes and brands, so to provide service to any car and driver he encounters on the sids of the road in an hour of need. My respect for the man was piling higher. While he worked alone on my tire, as I sat in the car to stay dry, we joked around through the barely cracked window, and he floored me with the intensity of his voice and words as he freestyled a seemingly endless flow of word and rhyme, song and beat, metaphor and parable, memorable passages, and a myriad of concoctions of speech. Truly a wordsmith and voiceworker.
Before I could ask him how he had so perfected his craft, he finished fastening my tire and thanked ME for allowing him the pleasure of playing roadside mechanic. I didn't know what to say. He shook my hand through the ever slightly more opened window and got grease all over me. It's OK, I told him, but he didn't hear. He pulled from his coat his three most recent albums, and threw them into my car and said the best way I could repay him for his service was to give his CDs a listen. With that, he was regloved, back in his Mercedes, and cruising away.
I haven't heard the music yet, for fear it will cripple me with rhythm and rhyme, things I always ready myself for. But soon theae babies will play, and the word of Cool J will spread like gospels and wind.
As most of you probably know, LL Cool J has been the butt of most of my jokes since at least '97, and part of me thinks this is just because I was jealous of the man's talent, success, and chiselled physique. Such is often the nature of personal jokes, we all admit. When today I found myself the victim of a flat tire in the heartless heart of Knoxville, my spare tire and tools back at home where I like them, I thought I was finished. Today's rain only made matters worse. But who should come to my rescue but one icon of rap, a James so Cool the Ladies Love him. No entourage, no driver, just Cool J himself, stepping out of a modest Mercedes, his hands were already ungloved, ready to help.
He pulled a tire just right for a Kia Rio from his trunk, and I peaked into the tire-filled trunk to see tires of all sizes and brands, so to provide service to any car and driver he encounters on the sids of the road in an hour of need. My respect for the man was piling higher. While he worked alone on my tire, as I sat in the car to stay dry, we joked around through the barely cracked window, and he floored me with the intensity of his voice and words as he freestyled a seemingly endless flow of word and rhyme, song and beat, metaphor and parable, memorable passages, and a myriad of concoctions of speech. Truly a wordsmith and voiceworker.
Before I could ask him how he had so perfected his craft, he finished fastening my tire and thanked ME for allowing him the pleasure of playing roadside mechanic. I didn't know what to say. He shook my hand through the ever slightly more opened window and got grease all over me. It's OK, I told him, but he didn't hear. He pulled from his coat his three most recent albums, and threw them into my car and said the best way I could repay him for his service was to give his CDs a listen. With that, he was regloved, back in his Mercedes, and cruising away.
I haven't heard the music yet, for fear it will cripple me with rhythm and rhyme, things I always ready myself for. But soon theae babies will play, and the word of Cool J will spread like gospels and wind.
April 4th, 2013
What's that movie where a pilot falls off the aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and he's ripped to pieces by four sharks, eaten entirely, and then the sharks are caught by a fisherman on the same aircraft carrier, and he eats all four of them for dinner, and the remains of the pilot come together inside him and burst out of the fisherman in the middle of the night, to reveal a courageous looking pilot who is now part shark? I know there are a few famous people in it.
What's that movie where a pilot falls off the aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and he's ripped to pieces by four sharks, eaten entirely, and then the sharks are caught by a fisherman on the same aircraft carrier, and he eats all four of them for dinner, and the remains of the pilot come together inside him and burst out of the fisherman in the middle of the night, to reveal a courageous looking pilot who is now part shark? I know there are a few famous people in it.
April 12th, 2013
When I ran my own tattoo shop I was the first tattoo artist ever with the policy of only doing tattoos of horses or quotes. What was really cool is that if you came in asking for a tattoo that was both a horse and a quote, you'd get half-off. And that's a pretty good deal because you're getting two kinds of tattoo for the price of half a tattoo. I really don't think you can find that kind of deal these days. I'd still throw ink (we said it like that in the bod-mod artist community) if I had hands, but as you know I got into shark-wrestling a few years back and now I have no hands.
April 13th, 2013
Most people don't know that nowadays most action movies are filmed almost entirely with the stunt double doing everything on the screen, only to have the actor's face digitally inserted over his by the special effects guys. This is why actors are living longer than ever, because they don't overwork themselves. But stunt men and women are still dying off by the dozens as a result of too many flips and kicks and jumps. Remember this when you pay money to see new action films.
April 15th, 2013
Once upon a time there was a captain of a ship, a very large and important and magnificent ship. The ship, which we'll call Serf603, had itself a crew like any other ship: Ship's captain, first and second mates, quarter master, sailing master, boatswain, master gunner, riggers, various sailors of numerous duties, carpenters, swabs, etc... You get the picture, I'm sure you do. Anyway, this magnificent ship called Serf603 was given a mission by the elder landlubbers to sail far and away to a new land, and to take all kinds of treasure thataway, so as to bury it. The captain of Serf603 was, as all men and women agreed, perhaps the greatest man to ever walk the earth, or sail the sea.
But as great as he was, it still might come as a surprise to some that he was able to do what I am about to say he did. A mutiny of laziness, we will call it, came about upon the ship. For every person, including quarter master, riggers, sailing masters, boatswain, mates, carpenters, and all other souls, decided, two days into the quest, to not do their jobs. Peculiar, eh? Right. So it came to be that the captain found himself in the unique position of doing everyone else's job for them, for he was of such high character and peerless ability that he would undertake the job of all others so that the treasure might be delivered properly. Such was the utterly unstoppable perfection of this mighty captain. All hail him, we will learn to say. He was now not merely captain, but first mate, second mate, quarter master, sailing master, boatswain, master gunner, rigger, carpenter, swab, and any and every other role required upon a magnificent ship as the Serf603 certainly was. Now this is truly impossible, you might say. One man, even a powerful captain, cannot do the role of every man upon the ship, and certainly not at once. That is just too exhausting, too much, too impossible. While your skepticism would be wise, you would be dead wrong. Your lack of faith in the captain, should you verbalize it to his face, would be met with no comment but a sword into your gut and spit into your eyes as you die.
This remarkable captain, a true hero of the past and the future and all times, did in fact take on the role of every other man in his ship and accomplish it with perfection, for two months, until the Serf603 arrived, barely on schedule, to the island upon which the treasure was to be buried. Perceptive as you might be, you will notice that had all hands on deck worked as they should have, and pulled their own weight, the ship would have arrived much earlier than scheduled, and things would have gone better. Upon arriving, the captain unloaded the treasure, hefty and bulky though it was, single-handedly. Yes, sirs and madams. You read correctly. The amazing captain unloaded dozens of chests of treasure entirely on his own. The kind of treasure it takes three men to carry was taken to the island by the captain, by himself.
Now imagine, then, if you will, the nerve of those landlubbing elders who sent this perfect captain a letter, via messenger bird, that informed him the treasure hadn't been buried correctly, or in a timely manner. Imagine, too, that when the captain responded to these elders that he had not only done his job, but the job of every man on his sharkfucking boat, for two months, so that the ship and treasure would arrive on time, imagine then that the elders responded with harsh, unfriendly demands, instead of appreciativeness and awe and thankfulness at the captain's superior breeding. You can imagine it fairly well, I suppose. So imagine how the captain, knowing himself above these sea-fearing cretins, felt when addressed with such dismal orders.
As any respectable captain will do, he informed the elders on land that he would be doing no more work in the process of burying this godforsaken treasure, for he had already done more than his own part in getting it to where it needed to be. "That miserable job," said he, "is now up to all of my good-for-nothing men, who proved themselves feeble and inferior on my ship." Having a superior sense of justice and universal balance to any man on any day, the captain was well informed and well versed in the art of "making things right." Lesser men would cave and crawl and obey the crippled elders from their foggy back-alley hideaways, afraid to restore balance where there was now none. But the true master of himself and of the world would assert with steel balls that no more sweat shall pour from his brow. "They will stay upon the island to do the burying, while I, Captain Philip Mason, sail away on this schooner into glorious lands of plenty. And the vultures will pick at their starving bones, just as the vultures will pick at the bones of the starving elders when I return to them." By now, the reader can imagine just what this glorious hero of a captain might do to such thankless people.
The good captain sailed the ship away, purposefully crashed it into an island of rocks, and set it ablaze, to dance in its radiant glow as the moon flew high through the sky. The same moon, knew Captain Mason, gazed upon by his enemies.April 24th, 2013
[After that sweet wet bucket of PhD sauce finally gets poured over my head, and I move on with my life, and UT decides to call me at some point down the line with the audacity of asking for alumni donations, I will kindly remind them of the fat stacks of cash I've injected into their unwashed veins. But it won't end there. They will press on. I'll find the people who call me, and I will take a large knife to their homes in the middle of the night and saw away at them, at the neck, gathering their heads as a trophies. I can expect a new phone call every few months begging for the same thing, so I can expect to amass an impressive trophy collection. When I feel I've got enough, or I've run out of room on my trophy shelf, I'll take my knife to those in charge of the alumni donations offices and hack away at their limber bodies, and feast on their hearts, collect their heads, and make full body suits out of their skin, to wear to UTK homecoming, whatever that is. As this is going on, I'll drain the bank accounts of my victims and bathe in my plunder every morning and afternoon, reserving the evenings for cotillions in which I wear a dress made of all the sad souls who had the nerve to expect money from me.]
End Scene.
Once upon a time there was a captain of a ship, a very large and important and magnificent ship. The ship, which we'll call Serf603, had itself a crew like any other ship: Ship's captain, first and second mates, quarter master, sailing master, boatswain, master gunner, riggers, various sailors of numerous duties, carpenters, swabs, etc... You get the picture, I'm sure you do. Anyway, this magnificent ship called Serf603 was given a mission by the elder landlubbers to sail far and away to a new land, and to take all kinds of treasure thataway, so as to bury it. The captain of Serf603 was, as all men and women agreed, perhaps the greatest man to ever walk the earth, or sail the sea.
But as great as he was, it still might come as a surprise to some that he was able to do what I am about to say he did. A mutiny of laziness, we will call it, came about upon the ship. For every person, including quarter master, riggers, sailing masters, boatswain, mates, carpenters, and all other souls, decided, two days into the quest, to not do their jobs. Peculiar, eh? Right. So it came to be that the captain found himself in the unique position of doing everyone else's job for them, for he was of such high character and peerless ability that he would undertake the job of all others so that the treasure might be delivered properly. Such was the utterly unstoppable perfection of this mighty captain. All hail him, we will learn to say. He was now not merely captain, but first mate, second mate, quarter master, sailing master, boatswain, master gunner, rigger, carpenter, swab, and any and every other role required upon a magnificent ship as the Serf603 certainly was. Now this is truly impossible, you might say. One man, even a powerful captain, cannot do the role of every man upon the ship, and certainly not at once. That is just too exhausting, too much, too impossible. While your skepticism would be wise, you would be dead wrong. Your lack of faith in the captain, should you verbalize it to his face, would be met with no comment but a sword into your gut and spit into your eyes as you die.
This remarkable captain, a true hero of the past and the future and all times, did in fact take on the role of every other man in his ship and accomplish it with perfection, for two months, until the Serf603 arrived, barely on schedule, to the island upon which the treasure was to be buried. Perceptive as you might be, you will notice that had all hands on deck worked as they should have, and pulled their own weight, the ship would have arrived much earlier than scheduled, and things would have gone better. Upon arriving, the captain unloaded the treasure, hefty and bulky though it was, single-handedly. Yes, sirs and madams. You read correctly. The amazing captain unloaded dozens of chests of treasure entirely on his own. The kind of treasure it takes three men to carry was taken to the island by the captain, by himself.
Now imagine, then, if you will, the nerve of those landlubbing elders who sent this perfect captain a letter, via messenger bird, that informed him the treasure hadn't been buried correctly, or in a timely manner. Imagine, too, that when the captain responded to these elders that he had not only done his job, but the job of every man on his sharkfucking boat, for two months, so that the ship and treasure would arrive on time, imagine then that the elders responded with harsh, unfriendly demands, instead of appreciativeness and awe and thankfulness at the captain's superior breeding. You can imagine it fairly well, I suppose. So imagine how the captain, knowing himself above these sea-fearing cretins, felt when addressed with such dismal orders.
As any respectable captain will do, he informed the elders on land that he would be doing no more work in the process of burying this godforsaken treasure, for he had already done more than his own part in getting it to where it needed to be. "That miserable job," said he, "is now up to all of my good-for-nothing men, who proved themselves feeble and inferior on my ship." Having a superior sense of justice and universal balance to any man on any day, the captain was well informed and well versed in the art of "making things right." Lesser men would cave and crawl and obey the crippled elders from their foggy back-alley hideaways, afraid to restore balance where there was now none. But the true master of himself and of the world would assert with steel balls that no more sweat shall pour from his brow. "They will stay upon the island to do the burying, while I, Captain Philip Mason, sail away on this schooner into glorious lands of plenty. And the vultures will pick at their starving bones, just as the vultures will pick at the bones of the starving elders when I return to them." By now, the reader can imagine just what this glorious hero of a captain might do to such thankless people.
The good captain sailed the ship away, purposefully crashed it into an island of rocks, and set it ablaze, to dance in its radiant glow as the moon flew high through the sky. The same moon, knew Captain Mason, gazed upon by his enemies.April 24th, 2013
[After that sweet wet bucket of PhD sauce finally gets poured over my head, and I move on with my life, and UT decides to call me at some point down the line with the audacity of asking for alumni donations, I will kindly remind them of the fat stacks of cash I've injected into their unwashed veins. But it won't end there. They will press on. I'll find the people who call me, and I will take a large knife to their homes in the middle of the night and saw away at them, at the neck, gathering their heads as a trophies. I can expect a new phone call every few months begging for the same thing, so I can expect to amass an impressive trophy collection. When I feel I've got enough, or I've run out of room on my trophy shelf, I'll take my knife to those in charge of the alumni donations offices and hack away at their limber bodies, and feast on their hearts, collect their heads, and make full body suits out of their skin, to wear to UTK homecoming, whatever that is. As this is going on, I'll drain the bank accounts of my victims and bathe in my plunder every morning and afternoon, reserving the evenings for cotillions in which I wear a dress made of all the sad souls who had the nerve to expect money from me.]
End Scene.
May 1st, 2013
I woke up this morning, but it wasn't a 2013 morning. For just a moment it was 2033, I was 48 years old, I had finally finished my PhD in particle physics, and my son already had his girlfriend over, getting ready for prom. My boy asked me to take pictures of them in their prom clothes, and he slipped a prom-ise ring over his girlfriend's finger while reciting a cryptic, primordial sounding chant. I couldn't figure out how to work the camera (it evidently belonged to the girl), but it was no matter because their colors were all out of coordination, definitely not the fashionable style of 2033. "Get changed or I'm not taking any pictures," I said. The girl cried and my son screamed at me that he was adopted.
I felt bad, but style is style, fashion is fashion. If kids can't learn to look beautiful in high school, I don't suspect they ever will. The girl changed her dress and my son took a new look with darker tie and pants. They faked smiles and my daughter taught me how to use the camera. She was the first one to notice something was wrong. "You look griggid," she said. Griggid was a new word that came out in the 20's. I was griggid as fuck. My son and his girlfriend were antsy to get some good shots and to hop off to a night of debauchery, but I dropped the camera, sat on the marble floor, and said it felt like I'd missed out on 20 years of my life. The camera looked at me. My son and daughter looked at me, and son's girlfriend crossed her arms in a purple dress. The camera flashed. I told the kids to let their old man crawl back into bed so he could return to ancient days. The girlfriend picked up her camera and asked my son if we had a tripod. I heard the argument they fell into as I climbed into bed and something about drugs and alcohol was mentioned, so too was a remark about the watching eyes of Dis. They became intimate in the living room, but I was too tired to do anything. My daughter screamed at me from the hall that disgusting things were afoot in the home, but what was I to do? I had the mind of a 28 year old, not someone coming up on 50.
With luck, 2033 soon faded into 2013. My children ceased to exist. And so did my PhD.
May 10th, 2013
I felt bad, but style is style, fashion is fashion. If kids can't learn to look beautiful in high school, I don't suspect they ever will. The girl changed her dress and my son took a new look with darker tie and pants. They faked smiles and my daughter taught me how to use the camera. She was the first one to notice something was wrong. "You look griggid," she said. Griggid was a new word that came out in the 20's. I was griggid as fuck. My son and his girlfriend were antsy to get some good shots and to hop off to a night of debauchery, but I dropped the camera, sat on the marble floor, and said it felt like I'd missed out on 20 years of my life. The camera looked at me. My son and daughter looked at me, and son's girlfriend crossed her arms in a purple dress. The camera flashed. I told the kids to let their old man crawl back into bed so he could return to ancient days. The girlfriend picked up her camera and asked my son if we had a tripod. I heard the argument they fell into as I climbed into bed and something about drugs and alcohol was mentioned, so too was a remark about the watching eyes of Dis. They became intimate in the living room, but I was too tired to do anything. My daughter screamed at me from the hall that disgusting things were afoot in the home, but what was I to do? I had the mind of a 28 year old, not someone coming up on 50.
With luck, 2033 soon faded into 2013. My children ceased to exist. And so did my PhD.
May 10th, 2013
Part criminal court judge, part comedian, part dreamweaver, all man. Look for him this summer in his very own daytime courtroom show: Judge John Justice and Jury. The first televised courtroom show with real rapists, murderers, kidnappers, terrorists, and war criminals.
Watch as suspected murderers go on defense against mourning families hungry for televised justice. The antics and jokes of Judge John will have you rolling in your floral patterned loveseat every morning.
No laughtrack added. All laughter is REAL JURY LAUGHTER.
No jury reactions have been scripted or rehearsed, it's all authentic and fueled by real human thirst for humor and justice and realism.
Judge John Justice has 12 years experience as a criminal court judge, and 13 years experience as nightclub comedian and wisecrack maker. You won't believe how witty and clever he makes his monologues and his morality tales in front of his audience.
America has spoken. Judge John Justice and Jury is the number one daytime cable courtroom program in the nation. Watch a very special episode in June featuring guest Judge AXL ROSE from legendary rock n rollers GUNSNROSES. Welcome to the jungle, INDEED.
Watch it LIVE as convicted murderers are read their sentence of life imprisonment or the ratings enhancing DEATH ROW CONDEMNATION!
Check out www.judgejohnjustice.net to watch streaming real time executions of cinvicted killers to QUENCH YOUR THIRST FOR JUSTICE!
You've got to choose: Watch a courtroom show with divorcees whining about children and breakfast cereal, or watch Judge John Justice yell at terrorists and arsonists in a comical, mocking tone that screams JUSTICE IS SERV'D!
All defendants have been thoroughly evaluated for shock value, public menace potency, charisma, sociopathic behavior, and plot thickening personalities. Unforgettable People, Unforgivable Crimes!
Judge John Justice is licensed in Sass, authorized in Attitude, and over qualified in Cuttin' Through the Bullshit.
"This courtroom is a motherfucking zoo, I'm like a pedestrian with binoculars watching the beasts fight." - Marlon Wayans at celebrity pre-showing of Judge John Justice and Jury.
"I learned what justice really is, means, should be." - Jack Johnson, acoustic guitarist.
"He was to' up from da flo' up!" - Kelly Osbourne, celebrity daughter.
"Them ringlets in da ears is a hindrance." - Rihanna, famous songstress remarking on the wardrobe of war criminal defendant Janet Smort.
"My career could use the boost Judge John's show would give me." - Macaulay Culkin while contemplating something heinous.
"How the world get like this, like it is today? Just can't understand." - Shaq, basketball star and accomplished musician and actor, Renaissance Man.
"Thought I'd see some baby mama drama, but it was actually a rape and double homicide. Shouldn't have brought my kids." - Brad Pitt at taping of very first episode.
"Please know this isn't your average courtroom show. I just saw a suicide in the courtroom after a six year prison sentence was read to the defendant. I can't talk about this anymore." - Robin Williams after the taping of the third episode.
"When I saw the defendant drop dead in the courtroom after swallowing a cyanide capsule, I was in shock. But Judge John made the funniest wisecrack I've ever heard. The jury was in a fit of laughter that lasted til the paramedics arrived. Luckily the cameras were still rolling, so it ought to make it into the show." - Kirk Cameron.
May 13th, 2013
Watch as suspected murderers go on defense against mourning families hungry for televised justice. The antics and jokes of Judge John will have you rolling in your floral patterned loveseat every morning.
No laughtrack added. All laughter is REAL JURY LAUGHTER.
No jury reactions have been scripted or rehearsed, it's all authentic and fueled by real human thirst for humor and justice and realism.
Judge John Justice has 12 years experience as a criminal court judge, and 13 years experience as nightclub comedian and wisecrack maker. You won't believe how witty and clever he makes his monologues and his morality tales in front of his audience.
America has spoken. Judge John Justice and Jury is the number one daytime cable courtroom program in the nation. Watch a very special episode in June featuring guest Judge AXL ROSE from legendary rock n rollers GUNSNROSES. Welcome to the jungle, INDEED.
Watch it LIVE as convicted murderers are read their sentence of life imprisonment or the ratings enhancing DEATH ROW CONDEMNATION!
Check out www.judgejohnjustice.net to watch streaming real time executions of cinvicted killers to QUENCH YOUR THIRST FOR JUSTICE!
You've got to choose: Watch a courtroom show with divorcees whining about children and breakfast cereal, or watch Judge John Justice yell at terrorists and arsonists in a comical, mocking tone that screams JUSTICE IS SERV'D!
All defendants have been thoroughly evaluated for shock value, public menace potency, charisma, sociopathic behavior, and plot thickening personalities. Unforgettable People, Unforgivable Crimes!
Judge John Justice is licensed in Sass, authorized in Attitude, and over qualified in Cuttin' Through the Bullshit.
"This courtroom is a motherfucking zoo, I'm like a pedestrian with binoculars watching the beasts fight." - Marlon Wayans at celebrity pre-showing of Judge John Justice and Jury.
"I learned what justice really is, means, should be." - Jack Johnson, acoustic guitarist.
"He was to' up from da flo' up!" - Kelly Osbourne, celebrity daughter.
"Them ringlets in da ears is a hindrance." - Rihanna, famous songstress remarking on the wardrobe of war criminal defendant Janet Smort.
"My career could use the boost Judge John's show would give me." - Macaulay Culkin while contemplating something heinous.
"How the world get like this, like it is today? Just can't understand." - Shaq, basketball star and accomplished musician and actor, Renaissance Man.
"Thought I'd see some baby mama drama, but it was actually a rape and double homicide. Shouldn't have brought my kids." - Brad Pitt at taping of very first episode.
"Please know this isn't your average courtroom show. I just saw a suicide in the courtroom after a six year prison sentence was read to the defendant. I can't talk about this anymore." - Robin Williams after the taping of the third episode.
"When I saw the defendant drop dead in the courtroom after swallowing a cyanide capsule, I was in shock. But Judge John made the funniest wisecrack I've ever heard. The jury was in a fit of laughter that lasted til the paramedics arrived. Luckily the cameras were still rolling, so it ought to make it into the show." - Kirk Cameron.
May 13th, 2013
As a Facial Hair Coach for Newly Pubescent Men at Temple of Men & Hair
Most of our clients we see on a day to day basis are prepubescent boys getting ready to make that leap into adulthood. They're learning how to grow and groom stylish, healthy looking facial hair for adulthood, to get that head start on life. Our experts are highly knowledgeable and intensely trained in current facial hair fashions. We teach the trends and fashions, how to groom the face, and why facial hair matters, what it means, where it can take you. When your boy graduates from our curriculum, he'll be sporting (or know how to sport) the latest beard, stache, chops, burns, even a goat. He'll transition smoothly into a life of comfort and success, adoration and prestige, admired by his peers, desired by women of all ages. Don't waste your time and money on beard books and mustache manuals and goatee guides, let your boy get the knowledge firsthand, directly from the experts.
June 3rd, 2013
Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook in 1444 with the help of a lion who was released from an Italian castle on orders to maim lepers and rebels. Mark, being neither leper nor rebel, befriended the lion. He was knighted by the royal lion, gifted with vast technological proficiency, and a hunger for social gatherings he could watch from a hill or a mountaintop, but that he would never have to participate in. When Mark and the lion put their heads together they created something beautiful, originally called Onsynbōc. That's Olde English for Facebook. When Mark and the lion kissed, the stars lit up the night sky, and constellations took shape to tell stories that were only primitive facsimiles of the story of Mark's voyage toward triumph. To this day we pay homage to the Zuckerbergian memory, and we use the word "lionize" to express an idea of adoration and appreciation, which are feelings the royal lion felt toward Mark in the 15th century.
June 21st, 2013
June 21st, 2013
North Korea's ministry of propaganda has recently been busy producing the country's very first video games. They're for the Atari 2600, and look as sleek as anything from the late 70's. In their first big hit, "Glory for the People's Republic," you play as leader Kim Jong-un, on a quest to find weapons and resources to strengthen your great empire, while balancing your fear/love meter. Limited graphics don't seem to limit the aesthetic shape given to the glorious hero, and the midi music is filled with the notes of beauty. Because the game is in Korean and no translated versions will be licensed by the developers/ministry, I don't know the whole story, or what most of the plot points are. But I can tell you it's a mildly entertaining game that instills in you an unshakable love for North Korea, and an invincible faith, love, and fear in its supreme leader.
June 22nd, 2013
Imagine you accidentally killed a man some months ago. It was a tragic occurrence caused by carelessness. You were arrested, swept away from your world of relative ease, and your life became an instant hell. You were overcome with guilt, seeing his mourning children in the courtroom, his friends who miss him, his tearful parents who loved him, and your own friends and family who share a mixed bag of loathing and sympathy and shame toward you. Every day as you speak to your lawyer about how to avoid the most severe punishment, you wish from the bottom of your heart none of this had ever happened. Each night as you're sent back into your cell to stare at the wall and curl up under thin sheets, you think back to your life, and how no matter what was going on, it was better than this. You want to be back there. You want this to have never happened. You fall into depression, weighed down by the thought that not only is someone's life over because of you, but your own life is essentially over, too. You are broke. Every penny to your name has been spent on legal defense. Your family is hurting trying to help. And each day in the courtroom you feel yourself closer and closer to a conviction.
Imagine the prosecutor has spun such a tale, such a twisting of the facts into something more dismal than you know to be true, that he's now seeking the death penalty. And let's say the jurors seem to be behind him. And imagine, now, that you enter the courtroom for the last time. Your family is there, the family of the dead man is there, and after a few hours, the sentence of Death by Electrocution is announced. It's all over. You quickly see your fate unravel before you, a tortuous time in prison, abused by guards and prisoners alike, only to meet a painful end. You just want your old life back. The life where you went to your stupid job, dealt with the world you were tired of, and sulked through the day with a stupid look on your face. It seemed bad at the time, but at least you weren't responsible for the death of one man, the ruination of countless lives, and your own awful fate in the chair. You are rushed back to your cell to await the move to death row. You spend the night in mourning. And you wish you could go back to where once were, that neutral point where you kept wishing it would get better. You'd only be going back to a state of equilibrium, but goddammit, it'd be nice, wouldn't it? You'd be back where you started, but with a new perspective, and a new appreciation for all the things you thought were so miserable and mundane and boring. And you felt so silly for ever complaining about your lot in life, because now... now that you're a killer, and you're heading to death row where your daily life might just make you wish for a swift death, you can't imagine why you were ever unhappy.
Imagine you wake up the next day, and all the months of spiritual and psychological anguish have come to an end, and you're being released on some magical account of your wishes being granted. You may now go back to your old life. Your life where you constantly wanted something better. You're only back where you started, at the neutral spot, but you feel like you've won some kind of life lottery, ascended to the ultimate heights of joy. Everything is looking up. Now that's you. Imagine you're able to be in that state, but without going through a horrendous trial for murder, without piling up months of guilt and sadness and fear. And when you let it sink in, maybe you'll stop crying about your life on Facebook, because really, you've got it good. You promise yourself that if you ever complain about your lot in life again, you'll volunteer to spend the remainder of your life in prison, awaiting the electric chair.
July 3rd, 2013
June 22nd, 2013
Imagine you accidentally killed a man some months ago. It was a tragic occurrence caused by carelessness. You were arrested, swept away from your world of relative ease, and your life became an instant hell. You were overcome with guilt, seeing his mourning children in the courtroom, his friends who miss him, his tearful parents who loved him, and your own friends and family who share a mixed bag of loathing and sympathy and shame toward you. Every day as you speak to your lawyer about how to avoid the most severe punishment, you wish from the bottom of your heart none of this had ever happened. Each night as you're sent back into your cell to stare at the wall and curl up under thin sheets, you think back to your life, and how no matter what was going on, it was better than this. You want to be back there. You want this to have never happened. You fall into depression, weighed down by the thought that not only is someone's life over because of you, but your own life is essentially over, too. You are broke. Every penny to your name has been spent on legal defense. Your family is hurting trying to help. And each day in the courtroom you feel yourself closer and closer to a conviction.
Imagine the prosecutor has spun such a tale, such a twisting of the facts into something more dismal than you know to be true, that he's now seeking the death penalty. And let's say the jurors seem to be behind him. And imagine, now, that you enter the courtroom for the last time. Your family is there, the family of the dead man is there, and after a few hours, the sentence of Death by Electrocution is announced. It's all over. You quickly see your fate unravel before you, a tortuous time in prison, abused by guards and prisoners alike, only to meet a painful end. You just want your old life back. The life where you went to your stupid job, dealt with the world you were tired of, and sulked through the day with a stupid look on your face. It seemed bad at the time, but at least you weren't responsible for the death of one man, the ruination of countless lives, and your own awful fate in the chair. You are rushed back to your cell to await the move to death row. You spend the night in mourning. And you wish you could go back to where once were, that neutral point where you kept wishing it would get better. You'd only be going back to a state of equilibrium, but goddammit, it'd be nice, wouldn't it? You'd be back where you started, but with a new perspective, and a new appreciation for all the things you thought were so miserable and mundane and boring. And you felt so silly for ever complaining about your lot in life, because now... now that you're a killer, and you're heading to death row where your daily life might just make you wish for a swift death, you can't imagine why you were ever unhappy.
Imagine you wake up the next day, and all the months of spiritual and psychological anguish have come to an end, and you're being released on some magical account of your wishes being granted. You may now go back to your old life. Your life where you constantly wanted something better. You're only back where you started, at the neutral spot, but you feel like you've won some kind of life lottery, ascended to the ultimate heights of joy. Everything is looking up. Now that's you. Imagine you're able to be in that state, but without going through a horrendous trial for murder, without piling up months of guilt and sadness and fear. And when you let it sink in, maybe you'll stop crying about your life on Facebook, because really, you've got it good. You promise yourself that if you ever complain about your lot in life again, you'll volunteer to spend the remainder of your life in prison, awaiting the electric chair.
July 3rd, 2013
I remember seeing the new Burger King from across the street, with its large sign that read, "Home of the Late Whopper." Everyone knew what this meant. The Whopper, legendary brand burger, was no more. Or was it? Truth was, the Whopper was still around, but not for much longer. News spread like wildwavefire, and everyone came out to bid farewell to the Whopper. Old men, sweaty women, even vegetarians came out to get a final taste of a thing they feared would fade into extinction like the Dodo. They couldn't tell you what it was that drew them to the Whopper. Most of them hadn't cared for it when it was around, when they knew it was plentiful, when there was no danger of the non-being of a burger. But something about the end of an era wakes us up and sends us crawling, mouths open, to the door of the fast food empire. I didn't go, but I watched from the gas station across the street while I was filling my tank, as the people herded into the King's glass mouth for one last goodbye. I could smell two things at this moment. No, three things. The gas going into my car, the Whopper meat wafting through the air, and the salty tears of mourners begging for a final taste.
A week later the sign read, "Home of the Whopper" like it used to, before the 'Late' had been added. Turns out the Whopper wasn't going anywhere. The whole thing was just a ploy. A publicity thing. BK was the fishing pole and the people were the fish. This enraged a lot of the King's customers and even some of the businesses along that road, who felt the dishonest gimmicks of Burger King were making the whole road look bad. No one asked for my opinion on the matter, but I've always stuck by the saying, "No Kings, No Gods, No Fear." The No Fear part I stole from the shirts I used to see on the school bus in third grade. But the rest I came up with on my own, at the gas station, while looking at Burger King with squinted eyes.
July 8th, 2013
I just sold my Kia Rio5 and bought a Testarossa. Look at me, earth. Face me, and worship. Understand that I am mighty and that my thirst for speed is only quenched by Italian engineering. When I was imprisoned in 1992 for being a speedfreak, little did they know I was a true freak of velocities unattainable by man's legs alone.
July 11th, 2013
A week later the sign read, "Home of the Whopper" like it used to, before the 'Late' had been added. Turns out the Whopper wasn't going anywhere. The whole thing was just a ploy. A publicity thing. BK was the fishing pole and the people were the fish. This enraged a lot of the King's customers and even some of the businesses along that road, who felt the dishonest gimmicks of Burger King were making the whole road look bad. No one asked for my opinion on the matter, but I've always stuck by the saying, "No Kings, No Gods, No Fear." The No Fear part I stole from the shirts I used to see on the school bus in third grade. But the rest I came up with on my own, at the gas station, while looking at Burger King with squinted eyes.
July 8th, 2013
I just sold my Kia Rio5 and bought a Testarossa. Look at me, earth. Face me, and worship. Understand that I am mighty and that my thirst for speed is only quenched by Italian engineering. When I was imprisoned in 1992 for being a speedfreak, little did they know I was a true freak of velocities unattainable by man's legs alone.
July 11th, 2013
July 15th, 2013
My friend Rooster has this infatuation with shitty TV shows. His heroes are people like that guy from Pawn Stars, Dog the Bounty Hunter, entire casts of every tattoo reality show that has ever aired, Anthony Bourdain, and he absolutely idolizes Chris Hansen. After spending some months of his life trying to track down and befriend each of these people, he faced repeated failure and fell into a depression. His favorite of all these celebrities was of course Chris Hansen, for his piercing stare and his professional air, his suave clothing and his tasteful hair. Rooster always talked about shaking Chris's hands, which he liked to think were probably as sweaty as his own. A few years ago Rooster devised a plot to meet Chris that we assured him was flawless. He spent a few nights in chatrooms exercising his flirting muscles, scouring the net for you-know-what. He cast his proverbial hook, but the fish weren't biting. But a TV addict with three rooms of his condo converted into shrines to television personalities doesn't give up easily. No, that TV addict calls off work for a week so he can devote every day to finding a very specific kind of person in those chatrooms: not children, but adults pretending to be children.
Rooster's ace up his sleeve was that he's an adult who's already got the mind of a child. He can spot real children and fake children in a matter of seconds of online talk. He likes making friends, but he hates wasting time, so he told all the real young people to "fuck right off," while he sculpted his chatroom persona into that of a crazed pedophile. Oh Rooster, what are you getting yourself into? We asked this of him daily, but he was too consumed by the glow of his monitor to reply. Even when we asked him by email we only got automated responses stating Rooster was on vacation. Finally Rooster got a bite. It was a Friday. He called us over to his condo that night because he was so stoked. He showed us the various ways he could tell he was speaking to an adult-pretending-to-be-a-child, not a real kid. All the telltale signs were there, he said. I don't know if this was reassuring or not. Really, it was impossible to know what to make of the whole thing. Rooster shifted into character like a Shakespearean actor taking the stage, and I admit we were floored by the kind of verbiage he spewed to his supposed fellow internet actor. Perversity knows no bounds when the dream seems to be within reach.
By his computer he had two sheets of perverted sounding phrases written out in quick shorthand, which he quickly fired off to the thing on his screen. While he did this effortlessly, having already known ahead of time everything he would say, he told me and the guys all the cool stuff he and Chris Hansen would do when they finally hung out. "Chris don't live around here, ya know. He comes to these stings in towns he ain't seen before, so he prolly gets awful lonely and bored when the whole thing's over. I think first things we'll do is go back to my house and watch the Shawshank Redemption." Rooster had just found the movie on VHS for twenty five cents, and was holding off on watching it til he had a reason to celebrate. This was the time. He was moved to tears at the thought that he and Chris would meet, very likely in an upper middle class kitchen, beneath the glow of camera lamps, and both with huge grins on their faces.
Rooster and the decoy; who was baiting who? That's a call we'll leave to the philosophers. After a half hour of their back and forth, the decoy invited Rooster out to an address to meet up for "a little fun." You should have seen how Rooster jumped for joy. He threw his hands in the air, danced like a duck, laughed in good spirits, really lit up the room with cheer. Me and the guys told him to be careful, because he knows how these things go. We didn't want to crush his dreams though, so we let him be happy. Rooster changed into the most sophisticated attire he has, a sleeveless tuxedo and a trucker hat. He shaved himself for his big time in the spotlight, because this wasn't just a face-to-face with Chris Hansen, this was his fifteen minutes of televised glory.
Our pal Mack let Rooster take his truck, since Rooster's car is always in the shop. We taught him how to use a GPS and waved him off. Watching a dream be chased is a beautiful thing.
I was the only one who went to court as a witness in Rooster's defense. The guys were busy getting hammered by the river that day (every day a different river). I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Rooster's face was still lit up and starstruck, and I don't believe he heard a single thing said in the court room. Chris Hansen didn't make it to the trial. He never does. When it was Rooster's turn to say something, he shouted, "Carpe Diem!" and looked toward the ceiling with such love and happiness in his watery eyes that I thought he was on another plane of existence. Perhaps he was. He had momentarily transcended this everydayman life and met his walking-talking savior-in-a-suit. He was too caught up in his own head to hear the verdict. While he was led out of the room he walked past me, smiling, saying, "Chris didn't say when, but I think he's going to come over and watch the Redemption with me." I nodded at him. "Definitely, Rooster. Definitely." He turned back to me and held up his hands. They were so sweaty. "Haven't washed them since the big day!" he shouted. Everyone in the courtroom groaned and voiced displeasure at what they thought was a perverse kind of statement. But I nodded. Good for you, Rooster. Good for you.
July 23rd, 2013
My least favorite thing about being a mother is when we're out in public and my children ask me things like, "Mom, why's that man have long hair?" and "why's that girl have green hair?" and "why doesn't that man have legs?" I always respond, "Because of the war, honey." "What war?" they ask. "The Only War," I tell them. It's amazing how stupid kids are. "The Only War there ever was," I say. Then I close my eyes for a moment of silence, which my kids don't respect because they are loud and confident and imposing and have no understanding of war.
July 25th, 2013
You know that commercial where that fine looking family is walking along to the sound of church bells and the junkie-looking fellow jumps out at them from behind a tree, rubs his arms and palms with a really spaced out look in his bloodshot eyes, and he says, "hey hey hey... I'm new to town... need a fix... any of you know where I can find a dealer?" The father of the family steps forward and says, "You came to the right guy, pal." He pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to the junkie fellow. The junkie sees it's a business card for the Kia dealership. His face turns into a George Clooney lookalike and the glow of heaven is on his cheeks. He thanks the man and goes on his way. You remember that. And some music plays, and a voice over says, "Rusty Wallace Kia. Where you can get your FIX." Beyond the music you can hear what sounds like someone shooting up something into their body, right after the word "fix." But then the screen cuts to a scene of that same junkie thanking the mechanics for fixing some obscure thing in his Kia's engine, and driving away with a smile on his face. Anyway, I'm at the Kia dealership, and they treat you like a king here if you drive one of their cars. Free hat, free drinks, denim vest with a Kia patch, clubhouse password, television privileges, tuition reimbursement, etc. Getting my fix never felt so good. Test drive a Kia today.
September 4th, 2013
I remember Mark Zuckerberg started funding a literacy program a few years back when I told him my friend couldn't read, and therefore couldn't get a job, and therefore was dying of typhus. Mark acted sympathetic to the plight of the illiterate for some time. It made me find a new respect for him. He called the program Reading for the Bleeding: Giving Maerica's Illiterate Youth the Tools for Success. When I came to pick him up one dismal Friday afternoon to take him to our favorite wine and cheese picture gallery in town, I asked him about Reading for the Bleeding. That's when I saw through Mark's little charade and first voiced displeasure at one of his lifegames. As it turns out, Mark's literacy program was just a ruse. Not a ruse I guess, so much as a ploy to get the illiterate reading so they could use Facebook. Mark knew the additional userbase would enhance his net worth significantly, via ad revenue. We had a long talk after that, about money and friendship, and it became clear Mark cares only about one thing. Control. Even though he's been dead for three years he still holds us tightly in his grip. Because of this I've taken it upon myself to forget how to read. I suggest you do the same.
I remember Mark Zuckerberg started funding a literacy program a few years back when I told him my friend couldn't read, and therefore couldn't get a job, and therefore was dying of typhus. Mark acted sympathetic to the plight of the illiterate for some time. It made me find a new respect for him. He called the program Reading for the Bleeding: Giving Maerica's Illiterate Youth the Tools for Success. When I came to pick him up one dismal Friday afternoon to take him to our favorite wine and cheese picture gallery in town, I asked him about Reading for the Bleeding. That's when I saw through Mark's little charade and first voiced displeasure at one of his lifegames. As it turns out, Mark's literacy program was just a ruse. Not a ruse I guess, so much as a ploy to get the illiterate reading so they could use Facebook. Mark knew the additional userbase would enhance his net worth significantly, via ad revenue. We had a long talk after that, about money and friendship, and it became clear Mark cares only about one thing. Control. Even though he's been dead for three years he still holds us tightly in his grip. Because of this I've taken it upon myself to forget how to read. I suggest you do the same.
September 13th, 2013
If I'm not prom queen this year I'll cut off my hands and feet and crawl into the bathtub to bleed to death. That's how much I want this. Need this. Must have this. You don't understand. Without this I am nothing.
October 4th, 2013
When I worked on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's big screen rendition of Bram Stoker's Dracula it was my first time as the Peanut Boy, the boy who brings peanuts to the actors between shoots. When my peanut cart pulled up to Gary Oldman's trailer I'd call out, "Peanut time, Mr. Old Man!" and he'd come out of his trailer in his Dracula makeup, laughing up a storm. He said when he was in his trailer by himself going over a scene he would break out in laughter thinking about my clever take on his last name. He was only about 34 at the time, so of course he wasn't an old man. This is what made it so funny to him. He never pictured himself getting old. Maybe that's why he was drawn to the role of Dracula. If you watch the movie, anytime you see Dracula smile that's Gary Oldman remembering me calling him Mr. Old Man, which he couldn't help but grin about even in front of the camera.
If I'm not prom queen this year I'll cut off my hands and feet and crawl into the bathtub to bleed to death. That's how much I want this. Need this. Must have this. You don't understand. Without this I am nothing.
October 4th, 2013
When I worked on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's big screen rendition of Bram Stoker's Dracula it was my first time as the Peanut Boy, the boy who brings peanuts to the actors between shoots. When my peanut cart pulled up to Gary Oldman's trailer I'd call out, "Peanut time, Mr. Old Man!" and he'd come out of his trailer in his Dracula makeup, laughing up a storm. He said when he was in his trailer by himself going over a scene he would break out in laughter thinking about my clever take on his last name. He was only about 34 at the time, so of course he wasn't an old man. This is what made it so funny to him. He never pictured himself getting old. Maybe that's why he was drawn to the role of Dracula. If you watch the movie, anytime you see Dracula smile that's Gary Oldman remembering me calling him Mr. Old Man, which he couldn't help but grin about even in front of the camera.
October 8th, 2013
It took me 29 years, but today I finally noticed the similarity between the colors of traffic lights and the Fall colors of leaves on the trees, and that this is a technological metaphor for humanity's race toward a full stop, where everything stays as it is, as we are renewed through rest, while we anticipate the return of green to signify our ascent to the plateau of invincibility. A red light paired with a yellow turn arrow against the splendorous backdrop of a hill of changing foliage is like Robert Frost or WB Yeats yelling at you without remorse.
November 1st, 2013
Yesterday I had the honor of organizing and overseeing the reunion of Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith, 17 years after their performance together in the summer smash hit Independence Day. Jeff and I were in the parking lot of Costco waiting for Will to show up. He was visibly nervous, pacing back and forth talking about how he couldn't measure up to Will (not a physical measurement, in which I assureyou he could meet if not match that of W. Smith, but a unit of measurement often used in show business, referring to the number of Blockbusters under one's belt). He looked young as hell, really, with his hair recently dyed black, and his face completely free of wrinkles, either through living right or via Hollywood stem cell technology. Under all this modest-but-elite physicality was a man who had done more than anyone else I knew, but who still compared himself to big league legends he'd shared the screen with over the years. He was dressed nice, in a suit only a celebrity could own, but only a Goldblum would look right in.
"You've got nothing to be ashamed of," I said. "Jeff, you did Jurassic Park. As far as I and a lot of others are concerned, you WERE Jurassic Park. You and the raptors. And good God man, have you forgotten The Fly?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't forget The Fly. But look at Will. He was just a kid when I started out. I started out with Bronson, and that's about as big as you can get on your start. And he--"
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jeff! You did that! And look at your long list of TV shows. Shows everyone watched. You were a big name before Will was out of high school."
I wasn't trying to belittle or minimize the legacy of Will Smith, I was only trying to show Jeff what he was--a master of the trade. He need not compare himself to anyone.
"OK, OK," he said. "Look at this. Try to, listen, see if you can follow. When I did Earth Girls are Easy, that was it for me. I knew I'd made it. There was no question..."
Jeff trailed off into a ballad of his high points and low points, and I was there to reassure him even his low points were more than anyone could hope for. And they weren't "low" in anyone's eyes but his.
"Will took off after Independence Day," he said, eventually. "Men in Black, Wild Wild West, chart topping singles, I, Robot, I am Legend, Hancock... are you telling me... I know how it looks. He's gold, I'm not even silver."
"You're better than gold," I said. "You're a Goldblum."
"His films are raking in hundreds of millions. What do I say when he asks me what I've done with my time? I've done films that please me and make me feel... the kind of stuff I'd want to watch. Nothing flashy or big budget, it's the kind of work I've always wanted. But I haven't made--"
Will's limo pulled up a few yards away. He climbed out, sunglasses on his face, wearing a black suit much like the one Jeff was wearing, and his wife holding his hand. Jeff was frozen.
"Jada Pinkett," he mumbled. "I'd know that leather pantsuit anywhere."
As he came closer, I saw a smile creep over Will's face, a stark contrast to the wide-eyed look on Jeff. With a little push I was able to send Goldblum forward into the embrace of Mr. Smith, a triumph for me and for the world. Will was all smiles and all limericks as soon as their hands met, with high-fives flying, jokes aloud, and piles of laughter unrelenting. I had done it. Soon Jeff was his old self again, joking around with Will, making a few laughter piles of his own, and even doing impressions of people Will and Jada both hated. It was wonderful.
Jeff told Will he couldn't wait for Bad Boys 3, and preferred the movie of I Am Legend to the book. I know these were both jokes intended to make us laugh, but they were also a display of high spirit and showmanship by one of my favorite actors. Will took off his shades and looked Jeff in the eyes (and said something like, 'let's get on some real levels') and said, "Jeff, I gotta tell you. Everything you do, everything you touch, even if it don't seem like it, it's the real deal. It's gold. That's why they call you the Goldblum. Gold blooms from your touch. You have the gift..."
And at this point it got so beautiful my eyes were foggy and my ears were ringing and the sun was bright, as the world around us started to glow with the glow on Jeff's face, and that's a smile that captures you. It doesn't let you go until you're all out of quarters, until you're all used up and worn out. Gold was everywhere. I will never forget this.
November 25th, 2013
It took me 29 years, but today I finally noticed the similarity between the colors of traffic lights and the Fall colors of leaves on the trees, and that this is a technological metaphor for humanity's race toward a full stop, where everything stays as it is, as we are renewed through rest, while we anticipate the return of green to signify our ascent to the plateau of invincibility. A red light paired with a yellow turn arrow against the splendorous backdrop of a hill of changing foliage is like Robert Frost or WB Yeats yelling at you without remorse.
November 1st, 2013
Yesterday I had the honor of organizing and overseeing the reunion of Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith, 17 years after their performance together in the summer smash hit Independence Day. Jeff and I were in the parking lot of Costco waiting for Will to show up. He was visibly nervous, pacing back and forth talking about how he couldn't measure up to Will (not a physical measurement, in which I assureyou he could meet if not match that of W. Smith, but a unit of measurement often used in show business, referring to the number of Blockbusters under one's belt). He looked young as hell, really, with his hair recently dyed black, and his face completely free of wrinkles, either through living right or via Hollywood stem cell technology. Under all this modest-but-elite physicality was a man who had done more than anyone else I knew, but who still compared himself to big league legends he'd shared the screen with over the years. He was dressed nice, in a suit only a celebrity could own, but only a Goldblum would look right in.
"You've got nothing to be ashamed of," I said. "Jeff, you did Jurassic Park. As far as I and a lot of others are concerned, you WERE Jurassic Park. You and the raptors. And good God man, have you forgotten The Fly?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't forget The Fly. But look at Will. He was just a kid when I started out. I started out with Bronson, and that's about as big as you can get on your start. And he--"
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jeff! You did that! And look at your long list of TV shows. Shows everyone watched. You were a big name before Will was out of high school."
I wasn't trying to belittle or minimize the legacy of Will Smith, I was only trying to show Jeff what he was--a master of the trade. He need not compare himself to anyone.
"OK, OK," he said. "Look at this. Try to, listen, see if you can follow. When I did Earth Girls are Easy, that was it for me. I knew I'd made it. There was no question..."
Jeff trailed off into a ballad of his high points and low points, and I was there to reassure him even his low points were more than anyone could hope for. And they weren't "low" in anyone's eyes but his.
"Will took off after Independence Day," he said, eventually. "Men in Black, Wild Wild West, chart topping singles, I, Robot, I am Legend, Hancock... are you telling me... I know how it looks. He's gold, I'm not even silver."
"You're better than gold," I said. "You're a Goldblum."
"His films are raking in hundreds of millions. What do I say when he asks me what I've done with my time? I've done films that please me and make me feel... the kind of stuff I'd want to watch. Nothing flashy or big budget, it's the kind of work I've always wanted. But I haven't made--"
Will's limo pulled up a few yards away. He climbed out, sunglasses on his face, wearing a black suit much like the one Jeff was wearing, and his wife holding his hand. Jeff was frozen.
"Jada Pinkett," he mumbled. "I'd know that leather pantsuit anywhere."
As he came closer, I saw a smile creep over Will's face, a stark contrast to the wide-eyed look on Jeff. With a little push I was able to send Goldblum forward into the embrace of Mr. Smith, a triumph for me and for the world. Will was all smiles and all limericks as soon as their hands met, with high-fives flying, jokes aloud, and piles of laughter unrelenting. I had done it. Soon Jeff was his old self again, joking around with Will, making a few laughter piles of his own, and even doing impressions of people Will and Jada both hated. It was wonderful.
Jeff told Will he couldn't wait for Bad Boys 3, and preferred the movie of I Am Legend to the book. I know these were both jokes intended to make us laugh, but they were also a display of high spirit and showmanship by one of my favorite actors. Will took off his shades and looked Jeff in the eyes (and said something like, 'let's get on some real levels') and said, "Jeff, I gotta tell you. Everything you do, everything you touch, even if it don't seem like it, it's the real deal. It's gold. That's why they call you the Goldblum. Gold blooms from your touch. You have the gift..."
And at this point it got so beautiful my eyes were foggy and my ears were ringing and the sun was bright, as the world around us started to glow with the glow on Jeff's face, and that's a smile that captures you. It doesn't let you go until you're all out of quarters, until you're all used up and worn out. Gold was everywhere. I will never forget this.
November 25th, 2013
Behind an elementary school that's closed for winter break there's a broken down school bus, hidden from public view. The sun has just risen, and on this bus are two men, role playing for keeps. One man sits in the driver's seat, playing the role of a half paralyzed bus driver, the other sits in the very back seat, playing the role of the deaf mute student who's stayed on the bus long after school has started. Their eyes meet in the driver's overhead mirror. The driver yells at the student in words only a healthy-eared man could hear. To the student it's nothing but whale calls and gusts of wind. But he feels something inside him that doesn't call for ears. The driver turns around and lifts himself from his seat, a considerable feat on account of his half-paralyzed body. With one good leg and one good arm, he guides himself down the aisle, hopping on one leg, balancing against the seats, slowly but definitely closing in on the student in the back. The student stands, sporting a fully capable body, and, using the language of signs, he relays a message that stops the bus driver in his track. "I like you," say his hands. The bus driver is a well educated man, having completed a year and a half of ASL courses at night school. He replies, using the paralytic dialect of one handed sign language, his southern drawl somehow evident through his words: "I like you, too, boy. I like that your body is a fully functional dream house, young and strong unlike my own." The student nods, touches a bicep, and walks closer to the bus driver. In the presence of such a strong authority figure he is weak in the knees but strong in the heart. That feeling won't go away. The bus driver wobbles for a moment, trying to maintain balance in the tornado of lust that blows through the bus. The student grabs the driver and soaks his face with a kiss, deaf to the driver's cries of enjoyment, but attentive to the signals his body gives off through heat and nuance. Their tongues collide like blue whales in an underwater cave, wrestling for superiority, fighting for krill. The bus driver loses his balance, and the two topple into a seat, student on top of driver, driver on top of leather, and all bets are off. Outside, the ground is white with snow, but the temperature on the bus is only rising. Shirts come off first. Then pants. Still they're sweating, breathing heavy, both in unbelievable physical condition. Both men have girlfriends waiting for them at home. It's Christmas morning. There's breakfast on the table. But the role play must go on. This is how friends celebrate Christmas.
January 3rd, 2014
Everyone remembers the story of the one-man-black-metal-band who was first in his class at Juilliard when receiving his Doctoral of Musical Arts. He wrote such aural appetizers as "Demus-Aegh", which all the fans mistook for a conjuration tune, a song named for a demon. But it turned out the song title was a play on the abbreviation for the guy's Doctoral of Musical Arts degree, which was D.Mus.A.When he wrote a big USBM hit the following year called "Amos Dei", the fans were quick to point out this was another reference to the artist's D.Mus.A, also commonly abbreviated as A.Mus.D. Despite the artist bordering on narcissism, or having already plummeted to its depths, fans like myself were supportive of his upside down guitar playing style which was new to the scene and the music and the world. We recorded odes to the style on guitars of our own. Great melodies all over the tape. This was before new laws were written concerning TNAUBM(truenorthamericanundergroundblackmetal) and everyone had to turn in their guitars to the Olde Shoppe. The Olde Shoppe, as we later learned, was owned by the very same one-man-black-metal-band who'd inspired our odes. His shoppe specialized in the (oc)cult, the Ündërgröünd, the ÈÉvil, and most famously, the Olde Conservatory. He used the word conservatory instead of school to again draw attention to his days at Juilliard. And he used our guitars to build a full scale model of the Akkadian gods Anu and Antu, from whom he claimed to descend. Pretty much everything about this guy was bad. But he won awards at the USBMA's five years in a row. Anyway, the point of this story is that when your friends tell you not to go to Juilliard, you tell them SHUT IT OR I WILL SHUT IT FOR YOU, and you believe in yourself and you chase your dreams and you just might be the next D.Mus.A in Juilliard's Black Metal Arts program. "Shut the hell up and Stay Inverted" (this is the stupidest phrase in the world, and it's what we used to say in the days of writing our odes to the master's upside down guitar playing style, which doubled as an obvious reference to inverted crosses. We were four years old at the time, having been bred from the highest stock of black metal ancestry, permitting us an early initiation into the black metal listenership cult. Back in those days we called it the black metal team, because 'team' sounded cooler than 'cult', so for a really long time people used sports analogies when talking about black metal, instead of the contemporary motifs of cults and obscurity. Goddammit what a time. An epoch, really. Or, if we allude to the original terminology, a "Regular Season.") I can't think of a worse way to end a transmission.
Everyone remembers the story of the one-man-black-metal-band who was first in his class at Juilliard when receiving his Doctoral of Musical Arts. He wrote such aural appetizers as "Demus-Aegh", which all the fans mistook for a conjuration tune, a song named for a demon. But it turned out the song title was a play on the abbreviation for the guy's Doctoral of Musical Arts degree, which was D.Mus.A.When he wrote a big USBM hit the following year called "Amos Dei", the fans were quick to point out this was another reference to the artist's D.Mus.A, also commonly abbreviated as A.Mus.D. Despite the artist bordering on narcissism, or having already plummeted to its depths, fans like myself were supportive of his upside down guitar playing style which was new to the scene and the music and the world. We recorded odes to the style on guitars of our own. Great melodies all over the tape. This was before new laws were written concerning TNAUBM(truenorthamericanundergroundblackmetal) and everyone had to turn in their guitars to the Olde Shoppe. The Olde Shoppe, as we later learned, was owned by the very same one-man-black-metal-band who'd inspired our odes. His shoppe specialized in the (oc)cult, the Ündërgröünd, the ÈÉvil, and most famously, the Olde Conservatory. He used the word conservatory instead of school to again draw attention to his days at Juilliard. And he used our guitars to build a full scale model of the Akkadian gods Anu and Antu, from whom he claimed to descend. Pretty much everything about this guy was bad. But he won awards at the USBMA's five years in a row. Anyway, the point of this story is that when your friends tell you not to go to Juilliard, you tell them SHUT IT OR I WILL SHUT IT FOR YOU, and you believe in yourself and you chase your dreams and you just might be the next D.Mus.A in Juilliard's Black Metal Arts program. "Shut the hell up and Stay Inverted" (this is the stupidest phrase in the world, and it's what we used to say in the days of writing our odes to the master's upside down guitar playing style, which doubled as an obvious reference to inverted crosses. We were four years old at the time, having been bred from the highest stock of black metal ancestry, permitting us an early initiation into the black metal listenership cult. Back in those days we called it the black metal team, because 'team' sounded cooler than 'cult', so for a really long time people used sports analogies when talking about black metal, instead of the contemporary motifs of cults and obscurity. Goddammit what a time. An epoch, really. Or, if we allude to the original terminology, a "Regular Season.") I can't think of a worse way to end a transmission.
January 5th, 2014
Lance Bass doesn't talk about it now, but NSYNC held him back from the true heights of his powers. Wikipedia tells us that Bass's position in the band was bass singer. Coincidence? Yes. As a matter of fact, Lance told me that growing up he sang countertenor and studied under the German voicemaster Ralf Popken who now distances himself from American music and the pop scene of the late 20th century. Lance became erudite in breath pressure techniques and a master of messa di voce, a capability present in no other members of NSYNC. He learned to cover a range inconceivable to most vocalists. The public feuds between Lance Bass and Justin Timberlake seem like only yesterday's headlines, so I don't need to remind you Justin's leading tenor voice was regularly heralded as the next wave of sound by music critics and newspaper reporters alike. Tenor and Countertenor; the war raged for what seemed like weeks. While off stage and off the front page, Lance underwent a gauntlet vocal training regimen comparable only to the Spartan agoge of the Greeks. On stage he was bass, but behind closed doors he was Bass, countertenor of a new millennium. The war between Bass and Timberlake reached its climax in 2002 when NSYNC crumbled into fire and lava, forever reducing the once glorious empire of music to the ruins we now see. Lance set his sights on greater things, on places only his voice could take him: Outer Space. Semi-recent events concerning the Fukushima reactor meltdown have torn through the fabric of spacetime, allowing privileged individuals a glimpse into the future of mankind. Having been gifted the opportunity to watch footage of such future glimpses, I've seen with my own eyes that Lance Bass plays a huge role in the future of our species, and catapults us into the next stage of human evolution. As we begin to sing with our minds and communicate with the collective consciousness of our marrow, remember the name Lance Bass. The voice of a new generation, the voice of evolution.
Lance Bass doesn't talk about it now, but NSYNC held him back from the true heights of his powers. Wikipedia tells us that Bass's position in the band was bass singer. Coincidence? Yes. As a matter of fact, Lance told me that growing up he sang countertenor and studied under the German voicemaster Ralf Popken who now distances himself from American music and the pop scene of the late 20th century. Lance became erudite in breath pressure techniques and a master of messa di voce, a capability present in no other members of NSYNC. He learned to cover a range inconceivable to most vocalists. The public feuds between Lance Bass and Justin Timberlake seem like only yesterday's headlines, so I don't need to remind you Justin's leading tenor voice was regularly heralded as the next wave of sound by music critics and newspaper reporters alike. Tenor and Countertenor; the war raged for what seemed like weeks. While off stage and off the front page, Lance underwent a gauntlet vocal training regimen comparable only to the Spartan agoge of the Greeks. On stage he was bass, but behind closed doors he was Bass, countertenor of a new millennium. The war between Bass and Timberlake reached its climax in 2002 when NSYNC crumbled into fire and lava, forever reducing the once glorious empire of music to the ruins we now see. Lance set his sights on greater things, on places only his voice could take him: Outer Space. Semi-recent events concerning the Fukushima reactor meltdown have torn through the fabric of spacetime, allowing privileged individuals a glimpse into the future of mankind. Having been gifted the opportunity to watch footage of such future glimpses, I've seen with my own eyes that Lance Bass plays a huge role in the future of our species, and catapults us into the next stage of human evolution. As we begin to sing with our minds and communicate with the collective consciousness of our marrow, remember the name Lance Bass. The voice of a new generation, the voice of evolution.
January 10th, 2014
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