Funny Failure

Yesterday wasn't Earth Day. The joke continues.

Kind of a Joke?

"Happy belated Earth Day."

It's So Easy

An Easy Victory

I'm rarely proud of what I do at work, but opening a paragraph with "Today is Earth Day" boosted my spirits this evening. The man who edits my summaries of TV shows was kind enough to leave well enough alone, and he did a great job with the subheds. Further thanks are well in order.

And now I'm off to a coffee shop to meet my favorite Sulkypants.

Beck's in the Moonlight

Normally I'm not one to go in for the bocks, but to paraphrase an old friend from out West, there's nothing for a successful summer evening like a big huge Beck's.

In my backyard, I could hear Radiohead, probably the new album (slow, minor piano and Thom Yorke quavering as he is wont to do nowadays), playing from the window of the college kids two floors above. The apartment complex next door is nearly finished, and it's a monstrosity -- aluminum, curvy walls. They really gutted that place. But the air was warm and full of the promise of a teenage birthday party.

So I says, not too much can go wrong from here.

A Fact About "The Legend of Zelda" and Some Other Things

I'm still on a kick of reading about video games on Wikipedia. Okay enough jibbajabba let's make with some facts!

-Princess Zelda takes her name from Zelda Fitzgerald!

-"The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" deftly uses a pun in a title.

That's it. Not the most research-heavy of posts.

Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"

Okay so the #1 track this week is a song by Leona Lewis, a British performer who looks like Ani Difranco sorta and tears a half a page out of the Kate Bush playbook, near as I can tell.

Embedded below: a YouTube clip of a Karaoke version by YouTube member Oliviathai, who apparently does numerous YouTube covers.



Now for a slideshow of vidcaps from another music video from Leona Lewis. This time the song is "Better in Time."





Note the 19th-century Brit-Lit imagery of a lady and a guy and a horse, kind of like that book Jane Eyre. I think I'm not wrong about that anyway.

This song had me thinking like, "Okay this is one of those weepy songs like the Fergie ballad that hit the top spot a couple months ago." But when the drums came in with some reverb, I was reminded of songs at parties that ignite a fire in the ladies and offer a chance for the dudes to come a little closer. And Leona Lewis wears a lot of makeup, which is kind of unladylike, in a good way.

And that's all I really care to say about Leona Lewis for the moment. I think she'll be in the #1 spot only for a week. But it's a good week for her to be there.

Can It Be All So Simple

I stepped out of my apartment for a minute this morning. My landlord was in the garage. Turns out he has a dinghy, the motor for which was in need of repairs.

"I sail all over -- Cape Cod, Boston, I've been to Florida, Bermuda."

"Sounds great. I hope you figure out what's wrong."

"Oh, I think I got it. There's a bad wire here. Usually, when I look hard enough, I find problems."

A woman was walking her child in a stroller. The little girl waved to me and said "hello." She gave her name.

"Nice meeting you, Eva. Enjoy the weather. I guess it's a little cloudy."

"Bye!"

A Special Message to Me From Delaware

1) Cars stacked nearly on top of one another over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and for several miles afterward. As a special "fuck you" to me, the state had narrowed I-95 to two lanes. The loud women from Maryland complained that the bus driver was talking in Chinese.

2) Last night I dreamed I was back in Delaware waiting tables. This wasn't so bad except no one would tell me where my section was. I would start serving a family, and the managers would move them as I was getting drinks. The menu kept switching mid-meal, too, and people were ordering bizarre things like two lobsters with scrambled eggs and noodles. I had wanted to show the other waiters that I had improved since last time but I continued to look very stupid. At least I was not embarrassed about any of this.

I'm Southbound!

Gearing up for a weekend in the city I fled times before. There, the ratio of time people devote to having an interesting vs. healthy life is probably 70/30. In New York, it's more like 99/1. There will be video games, there will be grilling, and there will be very little blood (with any luck).

DC ahoy, bitches.

Start Over

-Stapleton is still bringing the funny, if you can ever sort through what the heck he's talking about.

-I've been listening to this a lot.

-I just thought of a way to categorize Wikipedia entries: have alphabetical lists of images or ideas invoked in an artist's work. So for Kurt Cobain you'd have a list including Frances Farmer, Leonard Cohen; the Wu-Tang would have Clark's Wallabees, etc. I'm going to check now if they already do this. [. . .] Not the way I'm picturing it.

-I'm looking forward to the new Batman movie. The Joker skateboards in it!

-Tonight I'm gonna see a movie called Priceless. Gonna resurrect my inner francophile, also my inner Audrey Tautou-phile. Is she a gay icon? Lesbian icon? She should be both! She's sort of halfway a straight icon. Bi icon? Bicon!

Don't You Wonder Sometimes

About sound and vision.

First the Guys

It's not right.

One day I will put together a list of all the songs still cache'd from my YouTube searches. That list is the soundtrack of everything since the Great Laptop Theft of 2007.

Maybe this weekend. Blame the boredom.

Owwwww

Many things in life are discouraging, but among the worst in recent memory is clicking the "send" button with a fair amount of conviction that what's being sent isn't worth the two shits that bookended it.

There's falling flat on one's face, which is what happens if the words don't come at all. It's not clear whether falling to one's knees, which is what happens if the words kind of come, is better or worse.

The incessant fear that this will all crash horribly on my balding head makes sleep a distant and remote possibility.

Someone pass the crutch.

So

Liveblogging this mess is only causing disaster. Project ABANDONED. Post-beer, perhaps, or perhaps never again. Too much R&B makes the heart grow sadder.

Okay Okay

-Improved versions of several, aka three, but still probably not at the halfway mark. They may be dumb, but they have hopes of looking pretty one day (tomorrow or not at all, actually).

-So much Red Bull feeling like Ryan Sheckler.

-It doesn't hurt as much as it could.

-One day I will look back on these moments in a separate kind of light.

-Round the block we go.

I'm Having Quintuplets

-But I'm not scared.

-We're looking at 30 on 15 off.

-The jazz is flowing in my veins mighty heavily, but do not worry it's not anything that would make your mama scared (it's Red Bull).

-There will be moments of crushing despair as usual but if there's one *swish* in the bunch it's all a matter of merit.

-Looking at a 1:00 stop time should all proceed properly.

-See you in half an hour.

Pearl Jam's "Lukin"

One of my favorite songs that lasts less than a minute. I was inspired by Sulks' recent invocation of the Descendents.



This video, like the Misfits "Skulls" linked earlier, is animated and hilarious. There is some vulgar (and quite gratuitous) imagery involving weiners, so be careful if you're offended by weiners. If you like vulger and gratuitous imagery involving weiners, though, then you'll love this.

In seriousness, I always liked "Lukin" for the things this video makes fun of - imprecise, directionless, angry yelling. And of course the "B" part where he says "Ain't gonna lose it" or "I'm going Lukin" or whatever.

There's a special genre of song where you don't have to understand the lyrics at all to get pumped. "Tourette's" by Nirvana is probably the most obvious case study.

Dead Lines

It's good on occasion to realize that no one cares as much as you whether what you write is any good, and that most people, having no knowledge of what might have been for a given piece, won't even realize you've done a bad job. This realization allows you to continue to write, ignoring your own conviction that what you're doing is subpar.

On the other hand, too much of this realization makes for complacent -- and therefore bad -- writers.

For now, I'm just glad I'm not a complete smoldering wreck over it all. Plus, there's always next time. That is, until the editors wise up, and then there isn't next time, which might not be so bad either.

Toubabing Along

Duh, the sun came out, boss!

I Never Saw the Sunrise Before I Met All You Guys

Friday: Sulks had a party at a bar. People were in attendance. I met a guy who was into Gaddis and Wayne's World and I got a little slanty. We stayed up very late.

We're never short on special occasions.


Saturday: Enormous brunch at an Irish bar run by an enormous Irish man who, to judge by his gapped teeth and bawdy sense of humor, is a rugby player. Several friends turned up from out of town. We bought a football at the dollar store and threw it in Fort Greene Park, enjoying the sun and the view of a tiny segment of Manhattan. That night, I could have gone to another party but instead slept Friday off.

Sunday: Bought some papers, drank coffee and did laundry as I waited for others to rouse themselves. Met Kibblesmith and other wholesome midwesterners for late breakfast at the Greek man-diner on the corner. We cleaned the apartment and left the window open to get some fresh air in the place. In the evening we bought pizza and for some reason discussed our favorite rap songs from 2005. I read about Goldeneye and Street Fighter II Turbo for a bit before turning in. Came up with a funny joke about having to explain certain absences.

Caught in the Act

Of status-message revision:

Patrick's new status message - hey whiteboy wachyou doin uptown? 8:07 PM

Patrick's new status message - hey whiteboy what are you doin uptown? 8:07 PM

Patrick's new status message - hey whiteboy what are you doing uptown? 8:07 PM

When I Turn Twenty Fivefive

I want to drivedrive in a carcar with the lightlights looking brightbright.

50 Cents

I gave a man 50 cents today when he asked for it. That was the first such gesture I've made in a while.

Mencken

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."
(Epitaph)

"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." (Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920)

Both from the Wikipedia entry.

Orwell

* Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
* Never use a long word where a short one will do.
* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
* Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Foux de Fa Fa Et Moi

Je ne comprends pay.

This is from the TV show "Flight of the Conchords," which is pretty funny, I guess, although it goes into the land of cheesiness a little often.

A friend of mine from out of town, who really is French, watches this video incessantly. I guess it reminds him of home.

If I were to listen to a French song incessantly, it'd be this one.



"J'y pense et puis j'oublie."

Unrelated

Some things are unrelated. Here are some unrelated things.

-Ramen noodles and baseball.
-Me and Michael Jordan.
-Pistachios and jumping jacks.
-Pistols and ... pistols, turns out, are related to everything.
-Guitars and greenhouses.
-Punk rock and "Sally Forth," the cartoon.
-The dotted line in the middle of the road and the way it feels when you touch your facial hair ever so slightly.
-Stars (the balls of flaming gas) and concepts (the concepts).
-Britain and footwear.
-Potatoes and mountain biking.

This is harder than you might think. Most things are related.

I Was Kidding About Neither

Emerica "Stay Gold"

Is going to be worth watching.

Where's Big Blu?

Blogging about Mariah made me wonder whatever happened to Blu Cantrell. She was alright. Sorta like Mary J. Blige but not as old or good at singing (not good at singing in a good way).

The Wikipedia entry is decidedly pro-Blu, and in fact may have been written by Blu herself:

In the summer of 2005, a music video for the previously unreleased song, "The Cha Cha" was produced, but never released because the production agreement over the song was unfairly advantageous to the prodcuer [sic] and left Blu virtually out of the loop, so the video and the song were shelved. Also, in 2005, Hit 'em Up Style: Chart and Club Hits was released without any promotion in the U.S. It was a compilation/remix album containing Cantrell's two biggest hits, some other tracks from the former two albums and some remixes of tracks featured on the first albums. Blu continues to enjoy acclaim by European audiences. [. . .] Blu Cantrell is set to star in a play, on Sept 29th, called 'Gossip, Lies & Secrets'[2]. The stageplay will tour in 15 cities.

Answer: Big Blu is now an actress. Also note that Blu once reneged on a slated appearance in Playboy.

Great Moments in "Whoa"

Just a few songs whose whoas really bring it:

AFI - "God Called in Sick Today": My friend who knows the most about punk of anybody (introduced me to Nobodys and DRI - not that that's indicative) says he liked AFI until they got all goth and Guttermouth made an album about hating them. This song isn't that sweet, but you gotta give credit to the whoas. I used to listen to this in college while playing chess against my roommate. One time I missed a philosophy discussion section because we were playing chess and had to email the professor so I wouldn't fail the class.

Offspring - "The Kids Aren't Alright": This song isn't that sweet either but the whoas are.

Misfits - "Night of the Living Dead": Brian Sumner and Jeff Lenoce skated to this in Birdhouse's "The End." It's not a big surprise that AFI like the Misfits so much.

NOFX - "Whoa Against Whoas": An anti-whoa song that nonetheless illustrates how awesome whoas are. The video linked here contains video-game footage.

Pennywise - "Bro Hymn": When I was in high school, a really fast sprinter let me listen to this on his Discman before I swam a race. The undisputed champion in the whoas category.

Mariah Carey - "Touch My Body"

Mariah outdid Usher and Jeezy at some point in some categories to make her way to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot.

First:

This song is about making a sex tape. Making a sex tape is an exciting prospect for many, but not for Mariah. Her chief concern is that the video not wind up on YouTube.

Second:

It's very Internet of whoever made this video to have the tech-support guy playing on a Guitar Hero thing. In fact, the entire video looks like it should be a Funny or Die affair, with equal "Funny" and "Die" votes.

Third:

"Let me rub my face / around your waist [waste? haha, probably not but still]."

Fourth:

I remember my Rolling Stone subscription including a cover photo of Mariah using a camera with the flash. She was holding the camera between her legs. This reminds me o f the Internet phenomenon of self-shot pornography/erotic photos, where women pose in front of a mirror, sometimes for the express purpose of putting those images on a Web site. The Web site was made so that women could post such photos on it. Some sort of ethical pornography.

The obvious conclusion is that Mariah Carey is the most Internet pornography-savvy of any female R&B performer.

Fifth:

I never much cared for Mariah Carey.

This Week, No Writing Means More Tallboys, Blogging

Hoorah!

Quick Thing

It might be a good idea to start, rather than finish, phrases with "my ass."

You went to Milwaukee, my ass!

vs.

My ass, you went to Milwaukee!

Maybe expresses a different sentiment in the latter case, akin to "My stars!"

Either way, something to consider.

Reportage, Ethics

I have a weird idea that you're not supposed to promise anything to someone you've interviewed for an article at the end of the interview. I always say something like "I'll send you a link to my story." I do that even if I don't really intend on sending a link or secretly hope the subject never sees the finished product*.

1) Why do I feel obligated to give these people anything?
2) Why do I feel obligated to deny that sense of obligation?

*N.B. There are like three "finished products" in existence, encompassing no more than seven subjects. One of which breaks other rules of journalism. So I'm not good at any of this either way. :P

Shooter Effect

Black Armed:758.72ms
Black Unarmed:806.28ms
White Armed:811.16ms
White Unarmed:788.52ms

How racist are you?

Addendum: It occurs to me that by showing my own stats at the beginning there I might skew your sampling. But I have other problems with this statistical analysis.

Some helpful stats to include in future iterations of the racist gun game:

Number of people killed broken down by black vs. white.
Number of unarmed mistakes vs. armed mistakes.
Ibid., broken down by black vs. white.

Also it's important that the size of each black or white population be well thought out. If it's just random, then obviously the sample size for one group or the other will skew results.

At any rate, it's clear that I think a lot longer before deciding whether to kill a white person. Good thing I am only a guy playing a game on the Internet and not an armed guy trying to shoot or not shoot people based on what they hold in their hands.

Walk On

Incoming

Incoming.

Hayfever

An Unemotional Topic

A year ago today I met the midpoint of a horrific bout of hayfever. I spent the entire month between mid-March and mid-April on Benadryl. This was a difficult time because drowsiness is not a desirable symptom for a bartender to have. I didn't mind, though, because the histamine blocker soothes nerves, and I never even noticed how long I was making people wait for their drinks. It was only after the pollen left the air that the regulars told me how slow I'd been. I wonder why they kept coming back. Must be my cheery disposition.

This morning as I sat mentally preparing for a long-delayed physical exertion, my eyes began to itch and water. There's some swelling above my right eye, the way it feels right after it's taken a punch.

Here we go again. April is the cruelest month.

...

And with all that said, the narrator temporarily removed himself to an undisclosed location.

Lord, I'm Discouraged

That makes two of us, Craig. Hang it up already.

Got a Book

Down and Out in Paris and London. Borders. The one on Wall and Broadway. Still amazed my life contains such locations.

Robert

One of my friends named Robert, who was 25 when I was 23, said to me "I could tell you stories. I could tell you stories like I was 90 years old."

One day I asked him for a story, and he told one about how he took a job working for a repo man out near Spokane. He'd been high on crank for several days and was assigned to unload stuff from a real bad crack house. Shortly after he arrived, the cops pulled up in the driveway and the home's owner pulled a gun on Robert and his employer.

"Whoa, calm down, bud," Rob said. "We're on the same team."

Rob then advised the man to throw the gun out the window and helped him flush the drugs down the toilet. Then he jumped out the window himself, the cops still banging on the door.

Infinite Lives

The KaZaa Rap Songs

There's a certain playlist that got generated in college dorms in the late 90s and early 2000s at Georgetown. A certain subset of people (maybe just my group of friends) discovered these songs mainly because they were available for free. Here are some that I can think of.

Tupac and Biggie Madison Square Garden Freestyle

Mos Def Knicks Freestyle

The Massive Wu-Tang Freestyle (in two parts on YouTube)

Slug Eyedea MC Juice MSE Freestyle

There's another Atmosphere one where I think Slug says something like "That's just me I got short memory / but maybe you remember me / from the first time we came out / it was last September we ..."

I'm not saying all this stuff is really that awesome now but at a certain time it was.

Rats in the Belfry

There are at least three distinct rats in the ceiling of my bedroom. They know how to party!

Last night before I went to bed I heard them scurrying and squealing at each other. The scamper noises were often punctuated by loud thuds. I imagine they squeal to get each other pumped and then one of them charges the wall. Other times there's just a lot of scratching, at which times I picture one of those dust balls they used to show in the cartoons, with limbs and random objects occasionally protruding.

A Merry Time at the Maritime

He was well versed in the marital arts. She was well versed in martial arts. They laughed over their teeny martinis.

Samurai

I keep noticing a pattern of martial art imagery in the latest posts.

To which I say: "Hi-YA!"

From My Hilarious Sister

Via email:

one thing i forgot to say:
for my film class, we're watching/analyzing "after life" a japanese indie flick. one boring old man is watching a tape of his life, and we get to a scene of him and his arranged wife to be at a restaurant. he dabs his sweaty brow as she sits cool as a cucumber, watching him be pathetic. so anyways, she asks him about his hobbies...none...she asks him about films: "which kind?...American films, French films?" and bozo-dude is piqued!! "I like samurai action and..."
no more sweaty brow. thank you samurai action films and thank you street fighter II turbo. always a good conversation starter with boys i don't know very well.

Showers

Confronted yesterday with a task requiring cleverness I, like many before me, thought of how easy it is to have ideas in the shower.

By logical extension, my place of employment should have a shower. Or better yet, I should bring a shower with me everywhere I go. I'm thinking a version like the one Daniel uses in The Karate Kid.

I haven't talked with children age 5 or so in a while. I wonder if they're as into karate and ninjas as my friends and I were back then. Also: do they watch Batman Begins or the Tim Burton movies? Shark Boy and Lava Girl? What are they up to?

Salami in Somalia

An easy fix to a difficult problem.

Songs

Pressed this past weekend for examples of the "boyfriend vs. girlfriend" idea, I couldn't come up with very many examples. Here I will try to rectify that.

Boyfriend -> Girlfriend

Dolly Parton - "Jolene"

Billy Stewart - "Summertime"

Cansei de Ser Sexy - "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" (aka "that iPod Touch commercial song")

The Who - "The Kids Are Alright"

Sublime - "The Wrong Way"

The Misfits - "Skulls"

Warrant - "Cherry Pie"

Eminem feat. Obie Trice and 50 Cent - "Love Me"

The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me, Separation Sunday

Bruce Springsteen - "Atlantic City"

Pixies - "Cactus"

Heart - "Crazy on You," "What About Love"

Chuck Berry - Entire catalog except "My Ding a Ling"

Ani DiFranco - "Both Hands"

Girlfriend -> Boyfriend

Cake - "Jolene"

Howard Huntsberry - "Higher and Higher"

Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam - "Won't Back Down" Tom Petty Cover, "Given to Fly"

The Misfits - "Last Caress"

Sublime - "What I Got"

Hello Stranger - "Her in These Lights"

Warrant - "Cherry Pie"

Neko Case - all songs

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Bruce Springsteen - "Born to Run"

Pixies - "Gigantic"

Heart - "Magic Man"

Chuck Berry - "My Ding a Ling"

Ani DiFranco - "Shy"

These distinctions might not be clear to anyone but me, but hopefully they shed some light on the matter. The Ani example might seem off-message, but I think a close listen will bring the reader/listener down into my camp. If this post clears nothing up at all, then it is like many others. Maybe we'll try this again someday.

Keep your powder dry, everybody!

Hitting the Books

I need to start reading again. Maybe some Mencken? Hunter Thompson read him and he's a Baltimore writer who gets referenced in The Wire. Maybe some Upton Sinclair. I heard the movie he made last year was good.

At any rate, I notice a pattern of spiralism whenever I don't read enough. I get bored with my own steez and my pituitary goes limp even when I'm typing at breakneck speeds. And what is writing for if not stimulation of the pituitary?

Back when I thought I wanted a PhD in Literature, I asked one of the few professors still willing to speak with me what he thought of my poetry. He took a glance at about 75 poems I'd brought to show him and said "You need to read more."

"Okay."

He basically called me a one-trick pony and said I needed to think about what poetry can do, what are the possibilities of the form. He lent me four rare and expensive journals of experimental poetry called "The Germ," and insisted I return them. I'm not going back to verse or anything but it's important for a guy to remember at various times that he's just a sideshow act.

Thanks, prof. Someday I'll send "The Germ" back to you. I haven't got it at the moment though.

Temperance Week Day 3: Abject failure. Oh well.

Temperance Week Day 2: So far, so good. Update ca. 12:00-2:00 a.m.

Temperance Week Day 1: Complete success.