Home Run Derby: I'll Play Till Extra Innings

"You want the scars, but you don't want the war / That's just hardcore. / These kids are clever to the core."

-"Chicks Like Status," b-side, The Hold Steady

These three lines can be taken several different ways. They may mean, "You want to look tough, but you can't handle the fight." They may also mean, "You want to fight and get scars but you're opposed to fighting" (The War in title case, maybe).

The image of a tattoo comes to mind in either case. A tattoo is a scar you get without fighting. It's self-inflicted, too, which means the bearer had to make some specific decisions to get it.

----

An acquaintance of mine has many frightening tattoos on his biceps. He also has no body fat to speak of, and he's written about starving himself to look beautiful. He worked for a famous and highly intellectual publication for some years. He chews gum manically and speaks in a clipped tone.

Because of his connections to the New York publishing circuit, he's often invited to such fancy wine-and-cheese events as I occasionally attend. He wears wifebeaters and skin-tight pants to these functions. In short, he looks wholly different from just about all the slouching, tall, thin boys who are also in attendance. The tattoos are on prominent display. He talks for a couple minutes to friends but cuts conversations short to talk to women at length.

His tattoos basically say, "If you're bored with the boys you'd meet here, you might want to try me out instead."

----

My coworkers this week asked me about my haircut. I'd flip-flopped facial for head, meaning I chopped of my longish thinning mess and let my beard grow out for a couple days. One person told me I should shave.

"Haven't you heard the Aesop fable about the cat who shaves his whiskers to look handsome?"

"No, what are you talking about."

"It killed his reflexes and he couldn't catch any mice."

----

Several times this week I got the wrong change from the vending machine. One time, a Coke only cost 45 cents. Another, someone had deposited a quarter in the machine without completing the transaction, so I put a dollar in and got 75 cents back.

A vending machine with only one quarter in it. Did the person run out of money? Get distracted? Or just forget that he was there for a soda and move on with his life?

----

When I lived in New Hampshire, from ages four to seven, I had a forest for a backyard. There was an abandoned maple house out in the forest, and some older boys and I would go out there with wood they took from their fathers, some hammers, and nails, and try to fix up the maple house so we could use it to plan adventures. I took my dad out there one time, and I think he told the older boys' parents where their hammers and nails had gone off to.

----

I was drinking coffee in the park this afternoon. A father walked with his son, and the son climbed to the top of a green cement thing that looked like a defunct water fountain. When he got to the top of the thing he did a "Suck It!" hand gesture a couple times and then jumped off.

----

In a book called Arkansas I read recently, a main character, Svin, gets a plus sign and a minus sign tattooed on each shoulder. That's a pretty corny move.

----

I'm still learning the ropes and rules of professionalism.

----

Last night I attended a standup comedy performance hosted by kids who had attended college together. I thought it was funny, but at the end the emcee apologized "for all the inside jokes." Now I'm not so sure it was really funny.

----

I took a cab home from midtown last night.

----

I made a promise to myself when I was 17 that I would not change certain things about myself, but I've forgotten since what was so important to me at the time.

----

I watched The Cable Guy (with Jim Carrey, not Larry the Cable Guy) today.

----

In other countries, people put Alhamdoulilah on the sides of their taxi cabs. I think that they do this so that they'll be protected from crashes. In America, some people put pictures or statues of saints on their dashboards to protect them. I wonder if hanging dice in the mirror is just a more mathematical or casino-oriented version of that idea.

----



I saw "The Kiss," by Gustav Klimt, and I think it's my favorite painting.

----

A friend of mine has a good joke on his away message most of the time: "Fool me 34 times, shame on you."

----

At the comedy show, one guy did some lefty songs with small jokes in them about how scarily conservative Mike Huckabee is. His voice actually sounded at times like that of Phil Ochs, one of my favorite protest singers. But after the show when we went out to drinks my friends and I were all pretty mad that he'd done political humor. His songs were pretty cheesy.

Phil Ochs has a good song about that feeling, called "Love Me, I'm a Liberal."

----

I was reminded today of a man who'd frequent the bar in Tacoma. He was old and had been in the navy. He remembered those days fondly, saying that he and his buddies would just party all the time when he was younger. He was one of those drunks who has a life philosophy to share, at length. The kind of life philosophy that winds its way in circles and includes phrases as "We're all different," and "But we all gotta live together." Also a lot of curses.

Another talkative customer was Three Finger Jack, former owner of the Tides Tavern who eventually became Tacoma's most famous street performer. He played guitar, sang, and sold CDs outside performing arts centers and would live off whatever people would throw at him. On his strumming hand, he was missing three fingers but could still hold a pick. He had contempt for homeless people that begged him for money after he finished playing. "I work for this," he said.

Another customer with a deformity was named Dave. He had written songs for some famous performers in the 1980s and was living off the royalties and making more by continuing to make modestly successful solo albums. He was born with a deformed right arm that was frozen crooked at the elbow. He didn't have a forearm but had a small, thin hand shaped like a mitten nestled right into the crook. The day I met him, I held out my right hand for him to shake. He grabbed it firmly in his mitten-hand and looked me right in the eye. I admired him for that, but when he stopped tipping me after a couple of weeks I got tired of seeing him.

The last customer I'm going to write about right now was a single mother who came into the bar after being kicked out of one down the street. She was hammered and had been fighting with someone, maybe an ex boyfriend, and was sitting at our bar either hiding or waiting for a ride. The cook got off work and began buying her drinks. She showed me a picture of her eight-year-old girl then gave me a kiss on the forehead before falling off the stool and showing the owner's girlfriend a tattoo on her inner thigh.

----

Crack! Goes the Bat.

----

Another painting I really like:



"Mont Sainte Victoire" by Cezanne.

----

In Children of Men, the hippies are right, for once, about the need for revolution, but they still seem crazy to the regular people going about their business. The people who stand the best chance of tearing down injustice may want to replace it with something unreasonable or stupid, but that doesn't make them wrong about current evils. It makes me wonder if at some point we'll need to listen to the people on the fringes and start throwing rocks.

----

I've started listening to Soundgarden again, specifically "Pretty Noose." In high school, a friend talked about how surprising Kim Thayil's tremolo picking was on that solo. "Surprising."

----

I ordered some new trucks for my skateboard.

----

A French poet named Georges Perec one time sat in a cafe at Saint Sulpice and tried to write down every possible thing that happened in that spot for a given span of time. He'd note the time of each event. First liveblogger.

----

A guy I knew who dealt drugs once had a gun in his face. He lived, but he bought a gun after that.

I don't buy guns.

Milwaukee High School Art Rock Soldiers On

On the unfortunately named but talented Darma Bumz:

Patrick: http://www.myspace.com/animacrackers
me: this is good!
Patrick: haha yeah
they have so many shows too right now
it's pretty fun
i love when theres two people singing
at the same time
me: it's pretty cerebral
a little too much
it was better when it was just rock
Patrick: yeah they're like that
yeah they get all their inspiration from ap english
me: lose the synth
hahahahahaha
that's hilarious

The Kids Are Alright

Enrique Lorenzo's Song in Round 2

For eight years I've wondered what beautiful Spanish song Enrique Lorenzo skateboards to in Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song: Round 2. The answer is "Como tu ninguna" by Niña Pastori. If there was a straight YouTube of the thing I'd embed it. But for now we'll just have to deal with hyperlinks to the montage from Round 2.

What a load off my mind. I love the kids singing in the chorus.

de aquí­ p'alla se mueve en la cuna
de aquí­ p'alla como flor de luna
de aquí­ p'alla se mueve en la cuna
y al compás como tu ninguna

This means, from my limited Spanish ability and some help from AltaVista, "from here to there it moves in the cradle from here to there like the moon shines from here to there it moves in the cradle (here's where I really lose it) and to the compass there's no one like you."

Apparently it's flamenco. Maybe that's not even Spanish. Maybe it's Catalan. Now Catalan, that's a language I can get behind.

Here's the h-link as promised. The chorus happens at about 3:30.

I haven't heard any more of the song than what you get in that clip. A problem to be regulated.

Sell Out in a Different Way

In Moveable, which is the last book I read, and yes I read it more than a month ago, Hemingway gets angry at Fitzgerald for prostituting his writing out to the booksellers to finance his lifestyle and otherwise get by.

Not that I'm either of them but I do wonder about how writing within certain constraints limits the imagination. I write a fair amount every day, probably between 1500 and 2000 words, maybe more, but mainly I put a lot of sentences together that say, "'The subject did the verb,' he said." I'm certainly very confident in my ability to write that kind of sentence, more so than I was when I started this job, but how valuable is that?

More worrisome, perhaps: There are a lot of writing conventions at this place that I disagree with. I don't like phrases that start with "amid" or clauses that start with "as." I've managed to steer clear of the former, but the latter has been fairly unavoidable. In journalism, you don't want to say something is caused by something even if you believe it to be true, because that ruins objectivity and accuracy. So people pretend like they're not drawing a causal line (even though they are) with these words.

There are other examples. Gerunds get a bit too much play, although not for any particular reason. And people get hooked on stringing sub clauses and modifiers one after the other in stream-of-consciousness fashion. I can't tell if hating those moves is just a personal stylistic quirk of mine, but it concerns me a bit that I might be on the many-gerund path.

Overall, though, can't complain about getting $$ for having my fingers on the home row. I just got a little nervous when my grandmother asked me the other week whether I was still writing for myself, sending fiction off for publication. I told her no, that my priorities had realigned, and that I liked the writing I was getting paid for. It occurs to me now that liking it and being proud of it are two separate ideas.

But that's what blogging's for, I guess.

Straight to video, as Sulks would say.

Sell Out

A friend reminded me of this song by having it in his away message. For some reason the song starts at about 1:45 after some completely worthless jigajag. Nevertheless, its good stupid fun, like it was in high school.

We Were Fans Back Then

Every day for the past year or so, my once-rampant Pearl Jam fandom continued to reach new lows. The enthusiasm hit bottom the day before yesterday, because yesterday I decided I should look at some YouTubes of "Corduroy." Little of this, little of that, and soon I was on "Yellow Ledbetter."



The song, like "Release," I think, showcases lyrical improvisation. From what I hear, Vedder just one-taked the vocals on the studio track, and the song has served as a blueprint for continual revisions since. Eddie rarely sings it the same way twice, although he sings it in very similar ways every time.

[interlude]

In this way the song is a cousin to "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Summertime," songs that bear the marks of traditionals in that they can be continually revamped and twisted into different instrumentations and even lyrics without losing their base appeal.

This song is different, though, because I think Pearl Jam has to play it each time. They're free to take some serious liberties with it, but mainly it has to bear their stamp and they can't even screw with the structure too much. Anyway, "Ledbetter," "Whiskey" and "Summertime" are still in the same extended family.

[/interlude]

"Ledbetter" embodies what I loved about Pearl Jam when I really loved them. The song is just a simple one-five-four and the guitar solo is wholeheartedly pentatonic. Pearl Jam is often characterized as simple, but I've never seen a band trump their chemsitry live, and it's in the simple songs they expand the farthest.

Beyond the sense, live, that the band really is (was?) capable of flying on the seat of its pants and bringing the audience with them, though, I am attracted to Pearl Jam for their desire to be loved. Their songs and live performances almost beg people to sing along, to wonder whether McCready is going come up with something just slightly different on the next solo, to see what Vedder's going to do after the last verse is done. The message was, "It feels good for us that you love this. Love it some more." And people came on board.

The historical-biographical problem quickly crops up; it might just be that my brain chemistry was such that I bought in to the stage antics and the simplicity and the earnestness back then, and other bands have it now but I just can't see it. "If it's too loud, you're too old," etc. I'm willing right now, though, to indulge the idea that I had something special on my hands from about 1998 to 2003.

And just for fun, "Untitled/MFC." I listened to this every day before school in Senegal with headphones on and would sing on my host family's balcony. They made fun of me because I am not a very good singer. But whatever, fuck em.

Salut, Tin Tin ou bien Sandrine

I hope you're doing well and thanks for looking at my blog.

Shadow Boxing, Not the Song

The construction site next door has floodlights overlooking the courtyard, which has a pool or a fountain in it.

Standing in my backyard, I saw the shadow of the security guard cast against the entirety of a five-story condo as he stooped to pick something up. I have two ideas because of this:

1) A shadow boxing match between two thirty-foot-tall opponents would be worth watching.

2) A reenactment of the tent scene in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, or even some actual silhouette sex, would be much funnier on such an enormous scale.

Mega Maid

In the wake of the Brazilian invasion, I decided to tuck a meter back on the site, off to the right, where it wouldn't get hurt by such eventualities as me blogging too much or me widening my blog (which somehow has hurt little sitemeter in the past).

So be warned, we'll be checking ideez at the door from now on.

Going Brazilian (With Hugs!)

An engineer helps with the Internet infrastructure buildout in Sao Paolo.

One of the zero South American readers Sitemeter has been telling me about commented on my last post about crack spreads (which, for better and worse, makes me think of Brazilian crack spreads). Here's the comment:

Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the MP3 e MP4, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://mp3-mp4-brasil.blogspot.com. A hug. (emphasis added; also note the use of two distinct smiley faces)

I'm big in Brazil, bigger among one-off mp3 gadget blogs in Portuguese. It might not seem like much now, but I hear it's a growing, warm market replete with topless beaches.

I'd feel weird promoting this because it may just be the kind of spamming of blogs I did for Radar's Web site back in the day, but we (Brazil and I) are in this together. And if Tulio, the foreign exchange student I befriended in 2001, is in any way involved, I have to help. Tulio was an excellent ping-pong player, and once told me he was the prince of Brazil. I asked him how many servants he had.

"186 million."

Thanks for reading, Brazil. You're in the "Friendlies" section.

Update: I was being spammed.

Another Finance Term That Gets Me Giggling

Crack spread

How to Carry On Skateboarding

Opening onto the center of a playground there is a yellow hexagonal bench that serves as the base of a flagpole. Skateboarders occasionally do tricks on this concrete structure, and this wears off the paint.

Someone - probably a maintenance person - occasionally emerges from the elementary school with a can of yellow paint to fix the minor tarnishes and conceal the exposed gray underneath. This, incidentally, reslicks the surface, rendering it once again skatable.

On this playground there are three other permanent structures that make the spot appealing to skateboarders. Because the park is below sidewalk level, the surface banks slightly uphill from the hopscotch courts toward the chain-link fence at the entrance. A skateboarder can ride up this shallow bank, do a trick, then ride back down. This is a good way to practice new maneuvers. The other two permanent structures are platforms, one at each set of firedoors that opens up onto the asphalt. These are useful for practicing manuals or for just jumping on and off.

The most useful obstacles, or at least the ones I find most appealing, are whatever debris has been discarded or forgotten on the playground. I've at times employed a fallen branch, a construction cone or boxes used to transport produce for the simple purpose of jumping them. None of these objects are impressively high, but I am not an impressive skater.

When it rains or is wet outside, it's unwise to skateboard, because the moisture will warp the board and make it soggy, which makes doing tricks more difficult. Also, getting mud on the grip tape makes it lose friction and creates problems of board control. It's also difficult to skate during the winter because falling on the pavement in the cold is recipe for injury, particularly when you are not young and light.

When the sun comes out, though, there are very few excuses.

Their Minds Were All the Same and to Conquer Was Their Goal

I've shot guns on one occasion. I decided today that guns are fun and all, but what I really want to shoot is a bazooka.

Slushy Funds 2

The Sequel

Down to the last ten-note on the initial withdrawal, I grabbed another hundred last night, but left it whole the entire evening.

----

Craig Finn's basic reason for writing is that people are shooting for fun and widely missing. He gets the most angry and mean when someone does something he knows is wrong, or at least doesn't want to do.

----

I was at a DUMBO office for a party last night. The large windows looked on the Manhattan Bridge, which shone its lights on its way into the city.

----

I may literally be starting a career as someone who points out mistakes.

----

Had a good conversation with some very respectful and beautiful elders last night. We talked about the old days of Esquire and The Observer, when reporters started stories with anecdotes and taking down the big boys was a matter of course.

----

Remember "We're Only Going to Die From Our Ignorance"? Addendum: The title might actually be "We're Only Gonna Die for Our Arrogance."

Didascalies

That's the French word for stage directions.

A: She said you're a bon vivant.
B: A what?
C: You know, you've got joie de vivre.
B: Oh! Joie de vivre.
C: Didn't you used to speak French?

"Timing Is a Bitch"

It was Thanksgiving weekend, I think, either one year ago or the one before. My mom's side of the family had congregated at a Leesburg, Virginia restaurant to eat steak. I was standing outside of a filling station across the road with my sister, smoking a cigarette.

She tried to flick some ash.

"You lost your cherry."
"What will they think of me."

Race Against Benadryl

Benadrill? Benydryl? WTF!

Never Don't Go

He sniffed.
"How you feeling? Better?"
"What, with my illness? Better, yeah. Mostly it's bad in the midafternoon. I shouldn't go out tonight, but."
"Just don't drink a lot. I'm not going to drink a lot."
"Yeah I won't drink a lot."
"But that said --"
"I'm gonna drink some."

Billy Stewart vs. Pixies

So probably other people know this but I just observed that Frank Black lifted "Your daddy's rich, your mama's a pretty thing" from "Summertime."

You can hate me now, but I won't stop now.

Summertime

PuffyShoe came across this at some point in the summer of 2006. From that point it was constantly in the rotation along with "Make It Rain," "Kickstart My Heart," "Hate Love Songs," and of course the entire Hold Steady thing.

Howard Huntsberry - "Higher and Higher"

The aforementioned Ghostbusters II song. YouTube slideshow.

Oh wait here's the scene itself. "We're gonna squeeze some juice from ya, Big Apple!"



"Don't worry. She's tough. She's a harbor chick."

Slushy Funds

Since December, I believe, an envelope sat in the top drawer of my bureau. In that envelope were six hundred-dollar bills, the fruits of my efforts at a poker table in Atlantic City.

Until today, the contents of that envelope had been set aside for investment in a quarterly journal several of my friends had spoken at length about starting.

This morning I woke up and did some busywork, got in the shower, dressed, and slipped one of the hundreds out of the envelope and into my wallet. Today I invested part of that capital in a foot-long steak and cheese sandwich from Subway and some more of it in two slices of pepperoni pizza and a Coke.

----

When I lived in Tacoma one of my friends enjoyed very much the sentence "That's not my problem." One day after I had behaved badly to some of his friends (so badly, in their eyes, that they never wanted to see me again), I asked him why he couldn't stick up for me and convince them to give me another chance. "Why is it my problem, what they think of you?" he asked. I remember that after I'd asked him this favor his face lit up a little bit, as though finally an opportunity to use his favorite phrase had arisen.

The day I left for New York, he told me to call him when I got there. I have not.

----

Eliot Spitzer this week was exposed as a patron of prostitutes. I can't say I feel bad for him but I can't say I'm on the side of those that are talking him down either.

----

I can't seem to find the knit cap that fit my head, so I'm back to wearing the Mariners beanie that rides up.

----

A friend of mine, Robert, moved to Hawaii for several weeks on a ticket his ex-girlfriend had bought for him. She had thought at the time that they would move there together, probably to get married. He dumped her before they could implement that plan and eventually realized he could still use the ticket.

On his return he told everyone at the bar that they should come join him in Hawaii. "You can get a job so easily there," he said. He was an electrician.

----

"The city exploded into power and property and pleasure. Expanding only fast enough to avoid recollapse."

----

My roommate from freshman year in college sent a letter to a mutual friend in Montana the other week. The envelope was the frilly kind one uses for sending wedding invitations. Our friend's mother was delighted that my roommate might be getting married. As it turns out, though, he was just being frugal by reusing an envelope that had been sent to him some weeks prior.

----

In D.C. this weekend several friends discussed the merits of the Ghostbusters II song, the one during which the Statue of Liberty comes to life and saves New York from the flowing ooze of negativity that brought the evil demon Zul to life.

I heard that song on "Mad Money" at work today. I tried to tell my boss about Ghostbusters II but he was pretty uninterested.

----

One post I deleted had a picture of a girl that had appeared on Facebook. The caption read, "Hi! I'm cute. [...] I am also handicapped."

I had written below it, "You have a choice. Things can either be funny, or sad."

Today I slipped on a banana peel. Okay not really.

----

Remember MarioKart?

Brief Lapse

This is probably already a joke, but this is probably just a blog.

A woman stood on Wall and Broadway today holding a sign that said "You Have to Be a True Catholic to Get to Heaven." Who would want to spend eternity with a bunch of uptight assholes?

Three Things About "Modern Girls"

One is possibly true: The Strokes are old-fashioned men and Spektor is a modern girl.

One is possibly false: The song has been at times called "Postmodern Girls and Old-Fashioned Men."

One is almost definitely false: Julian Casablancas and Regina Spektor were married for a few months.

Grindhouse

Went to the grindhouse this weekend, by which I mean I saw Planet Terror and Death Proof. Both were pretty awesome and did a good job of throwing in some surprises that helped them transcend the problem of basic homage. For instance, the anachronism of the cell phones was pretty jarring, as was placing a washed-up stuntman from the 70s into present day. I even liked the transitions from one kind of film stock (is that what that is?) to another. (I've dug the motif of anachronism since Ghost Dog I think, even though its brand of anachro is different.)

It's too bad those movies are expensive and that, from what I hear, the Weinsteins were pretty pissed off because they didn't make enough in the theaters. Sorta frustrating, given that the 70s movies Tarantino and Rodriguez were "doing" had pretty low budgets, if I understand things properly.

Markups

There's a scene in A Moveable Feast where Hemingway meets a literary figure in a cafe. He describes the man as "marked for death," and even says something along the lines of "go away with your marked-for-death-ass face."

People seem to like Hemingway for his stoicism, so it's a little crazy for him to be unwilling to deal with the face of a man marked for death, particularly after the war.

Also, it's hard, having read that, not to start dividing people up into the ones that are marked for death and the ones that aren't. It's hard to know how to feel about the ones that are.

Ways of marking things for death:

-Buying Crayola brand death marker (non-washable, toxic)
-Using a laser site
-Blogging

I Worry

That they're getting their little bums dirty.

Brutal

Bumcakes: what's your quote from?
Sent at 11:27 PM on Sunday
me: lifter puller song called "nassau coliseum"
Bumcakes: I'm always worried about professors or someone seeing my quote
me: hehe
i don't have those
and i just let it fly anyway
freedom of speech, bro
Bumcakes: yeah.
although that quote is pretty brutal
me: yeah
i felt kinda brutal when i put it up

Coughin Up That New York City Cool

and we all woke up at the airport
in the arcade on the western concourse
that's when she said that we should do this all over
she wipes the blood from her mouth with her shoulder
said i could use a little diet cola
or maybe just a little lifter puller

Circumstances led me to DC this weekend. The city is much the same as it ever was. I'll be back at the helm of this behemoth after the tack is complete.

La Vie Continue

Guys? ... Guys?

Sitemeter sticker has once again fallen off. Only this time, it's taken all the viewers with it.

According to its calculations, no one even visits the ideelz factory by accident anymore! Surely there is some kind of conspiracy afoot here.

Okay time to go for a jog.

Keep in touch baby!

Jolene

A couple years ago in DC I still thought I could sing and play guitar. One song, Dolly Parton's "Jolene," inspired me. I learned the melody and sat around going do mi, do mi, etc., trying to learn to sing with my mouth open and my throat open, but I don't even have one octave's worth of range out there. So I gave up guitar and singing and moved to Tacoma.



Parton feels old-school in that she cracks actual funny jokes, she gets up there and smiles real big for everyone and tries to give some joy back to the people watching. She performed at the Oscars or the Grammies a while ago. I think the song was about God and love. Anyway, Dolly Parton is real.

Prior to that flirtation with the idea of performing, I'd repeatedly listened to another song named "Jolene," by Cake. Cake is a band no one is supposed to actually like. The horns and the lead singer's delivery feel cheap most of the time, and the humor in their music probably doesn't grab people. "The Distance" probably turned a lot of people off.

Anyway, a woman I was crushing on who was from Philadelphia and a fucked-up family sent me the mp3 of Cake performing Jolene live. The girl was into coke, I think. She at least had been a member of the "coke set," a group of Georgetown kids who were rich and existential enough to party hard and try to fuck themselves up enough that they would somehow squash their sense of privilege. This group may or may not have actually done coke and may have existed more in my imagination than anywhere else; I never went to any of their parties. Okay, all I know for sure is she was a member of the Cake set.

But anyway the girl, who was also petite and French and looked like she needed a friend, got me into "Jolene" and I've always grudgingly respected Cake as a result. In the live version, the singer tells the lighting guy to turn off all the lights and instructs everyone to hum along with him during a breakdown. You believe, listening in, that the audience is with him. It's easy enough, he asks them to sing "oohs," and I think he picks three notes in a row, do re mi, so even the worst singers can get in on the game.

Later, he does a James Brown thing too where he yells for the horns and guitar to come back.

So yeah, here's Cake's "Jolene." Not the live version that I fell hard for but you might still get the idea.



Eventually, the French chick stopped wearing short skirts and cut her hair. She took a gig as a bicycle messenger and may have become a lesbian -- she at least started reading Mexican anarcho-feminism, and she participated in the hunger strike to help get Georgetown's cleaning crews a living wage. To protest the war in Iraq she joined a tent city in the main square on campus.

I hate to press the point too hard to the paper but it's fun to think that it's the same Jolene that Dolly and Cake are singing about. They both sort of love her but they can't get her to behave.

Clean Up, Go Home

One of my favorite scenes is from Heat, when De Niro catches Ashley Judd in the motel room and tells her to give it one last shot with Val Kilmer. He says "Clean up, go home." And then he says it again.

It's mean but De Niro's trying to do the right thing.

I Made a LOLcats

These people make it easy.

Forward, March!

It's March now.

Muska in 'Fulfill the Dream'

I think, by the way, that the rail he boardslides into the bank is in Ocean Beach, San Francisco. I think also that I stayed at a friend's apartment that was like 100 yards from that spot.

Sometime right around 1998, Chad Muska became more than just a gnarly skater. For several years after 1998, Chad Muska became God to millions of young teenagers worldwide.

Muska liked Rap music and did kickflips in skateparks while wearing a backpack and toting a ghetto blaster. When he first set out, these gimmicks didn't look like gimmicks so much as antics. Antics of a young man who knew he had charisma and talent and who could blow people away with his skating.

After "Fulfill The Dream," Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the complete explosion of Shorty's Skateboards, the tide turned. People started hating Muska. Muska stopped skating and started making music. When he did film a trick, the footage reeked of half-stepping.

Transworld's "Videoradio," which documented the C1rca team's Euro tour, market the peak of Muska ridic, when hundreds of kids mobbed the dude at a demo and he couldn't even move.

Amid the hype and backlash, people forgot a simple thing about Muska. He had, at one point, made a seven-minute part in a video that was crucial to skateboarding's cultural self-awareness. He starts out just ollieing over things as he rolls through streets, skating the way everyday people skate. He ollies three massive sets of stairs. He destroys everything.

It'd be too bad if no one took time to remember that before this,



there was this.

These Shoulders Hold Up So Much

Dan Feehan has a story to tell about Dick Cheney. It is a very good story.

A Little More Gaddis

I'm not sure I'm happy about this, or other things like it. Still, kind of cute.

Deny the Reader

This is from William Gaddis' Carpenter's Gothic.

When the telephone rang she'd already turned away, catching breath, and going for it in the kitchen she looked up to the clock: not yet five. Had it stopped? The day was gone with the sun dropped behind the mountain, or what passed for one here rising up from the river.

Gaddis evades the typical obligation to make definite statements. "What time is it?" the reader asks. Gaddis introduces the possibility that it is "not yet five," only to immediately cast the notion into doubt with "Had it stopped?" The same gambit happens with the mountain. "What is that thing we see in the distance?" The answer Gaddis gives is *shrug*.

Without letting on to any definite sense of time or space, Gaddis still gives the reader enough to go on. The time must be one that is mistakable for "not yet five," and the thing in the distance must be mistakable for a mountain. In spite of the wiggle room he leaves, Gaddis still pins himself down to a specific realm of possibilities. The mountain can't be a crabcake, for example.

This narrative style is aggressive and unnerving but makes the audience nervous enough to want to resolve the uncertainty. There's more, though; even if the reader knows he's being fucked with, there's very little to be done about it except to try to win Gaddis' game on his own terms, by prying some meaning from a text that pretty much overtly says, "I'm not giving you a damn thing."

See also.

It's Pronounced "Differently"

me: what's becoming jane
transgender thing?
Bumcakes: what?
no
its the movie about jane austen!
you're thinking of transamerica

Coming War Part 3

-A picture of Obama in a turban
-A media flap over the seemingly tactical deployment of his middle name, "Hussein," by Republicans
-Rumors he is Muslim have some kind of impact, maybe

Another chance for the American electorate to prove how easily it is tricked may be right around the corner.

Book Titles That Are Improved By Removal of One Word -- or Several Words

Love the Time of Cholera
The Grapes
Slaughterhouse
The Unbearable Lightness Being...?
Still Life With Pecker
Confederacy Dunces
Little House, Big Wood
As I Lay [or, better yet] As I Dying
Down, Moses!
Bonfire Vanities
Potter and the Prisoner

Oh Blog, I Couldn't Stay Mad at You

Mission Viejo

I'll be taking a blognap for a bit. So just chill.

I Belong to the Blank Generation

Drop it in the vacant lot.

I Need to Make My Blog Wider

But I am scared of losing it.

The Old Notebook

Notes under the heading "Technique & Craft," dated 12-11-07.

Shaking: -most effective way to mix indredients
-chills & slightly dilutes the drink
-never fill more than halfway w/ ice
-shake until drink is cold

Stirring:-marries flavors
-doesn't cloud the drink like shaking

This morning as per usual, Sulks and I and the Dasher went out for some Bloodies over on DeKalb, but there was a new bartendress there. The one we liked had short hair and was friendly and was hippie-ish with regard to undergarments, if you know what I mean. We (Sulks and I) were so taken with her that we went so far as to say she made excellent Bloody Maries, despite that the mix was premade and so the steadiness of her pour only had so much to do with our assessment.

The new lady, perfunctory and preoccupied, asked for our i.d.'s and then went back to doing prep work rather than pour our drinks. She gave us little candies after we paid the bill and Sulks asked, "Are these gum or candy?"

No response.

She must be new to the trade or else is so experienced that she has hardened and does not care whether several new boys on the block will come back.

------

There is an odd element to having been a bartender, which is the feeling that one is in position to judge the social and drinkmaking skills of other bartenders. To compensate for the wrongful feeling of entitlement, it is wise to tip amply.

This is what makes customers who have been in the business too long indispensable but insufferable. I am now one of those customers.

Ornette Coleman Throws Boulders Like a Snowman

Not much, just taking the sunlight in through the back window, listening to some "Congeniality" from the NPR Web site. Yeah it's sort of too bad, especially with the Sirius Satellite Radio ad at the beginning, but no one's YouTubed the mess so I'll take what I can get.

What Did One Mental Patient Say

To Another Mental Patient?

"I don't like your mind."
"Yeah, well I'm not here for a pedicure."

from Charles d'Ambrosio. "Screenwriter." The Dead Fish Museum: Stories. New York: Knopf, 2006.

It's Eight in the Evenin' and I'm Already Heavin' -- The Bacon Movie

I've blogged about Bacon Skateboards before, lauding them as one of the top companies to look semiserious and cruise safely under the radar. As Ryan Sheckler and Rob Dyrdek sally forth on MTV on an apparent mission to make skateboarding into Bonfire of the Vanities as co-authored by Paris Hilton and whoever writes "Flavor of Love," some Northwestern durables keep breaking out footage that feels the same way skateboarding did on Sunday afternoons when homework could wait until tomorrow and it was too damn sunny out anyway.

For anyone who's been in the mood for just popping over manhole covers and not even trying to learn any new tricks, for anyone who still has love for the game, the entire Bacon full video is now available for free download via Skateboardermag.

Thanks, Bacon!

I've Abandoned My Boy!

In honor of the Oscars and a film I have not seen, but whose previews consistently give me a chuckle, here's a facile laugh.



It's not super funny, really, but finally someone else realized "IVE ABANDONED MY BOY" is one of the great one-liners of our time.

I Leaned Right Over the Counter Just to Kiss You

Early on in the ongoing Brooklyn days, a friend of mine met a girl and got her email. After a few exchanges, she mentioned a Hold Steady show was going on in the next couple weeks, and asked whether he wanted to go.

Big reveal: He'd never divulged his HS fandom before, so it was clear she'd gotten her data somewhere else, likely an FB photo gallery with lyrics in the captions. No harm no foul, right? It was pretty much funny that this girl had been faced with a decision: "Do I ask him about the Hold Steady and let him in on my FB stalking?"

My guess is that this kind of behavior is only going to get less and less awkward. For now, though, it still merits a giggle or maybe a quizzical look.

Last night I got called out for doing some similar (but different, I guess) Internet tomfoolery and the shame was bananas. I guess these things happen but it is telling that blogs and Facebook have become a way for people to try to understand each other. Which is fine and all but there still remains a lot of explaining to do after you find out about the messy breakup or the flirtation with addictive chemicals via a Livejournal or whatever.

It's nostalgic, but maybe also somewhat productive, to remember a time when people were by and large more or less forced to speak with one another, out loud, to become friends.

Getting drunk together helped and still helps.

Stuff White People Like

A friend indicated to me that Stuff White People Like is no longer just a series of stereotypes; it is also a blog.

Let's just get it out of the way that white people, as defined by this blog, like this blog.

Moving on: this is the sort of unimaginative conception of race that actually winds up hurting us. Example: "Difficult breakups." Really? I guess the theory behind the humor there is that white people are self-absorbed and self-important, and that we, i.e. white people (yeah I'm white! Hi world!), are too dramatic about love or whatever. Still, I've never heard anyone say "White people care too much about relationships." That is patently not a phenomenon. But this blog wants it to be, so it is.

But as opposed to whom? Asians? Black people? Hispanics? Where is the redeeming quality in race-baiting satire (which I often find funny) if there isn't even a palpable referent? This blog appears to do little besides create new stereotypes.

Another one: Expensive sandwiches! You could make a class argument here, but I'm not really seeing the chi chi turkey swiss get turned down by a lot of people, fishbelly or otherwise.

Admittedly, this site is a little cute. But I'm having trouble imagining what kind of person I'd be if I checked back regularly.

Valentine for Jenna

This is what my friends have been up to.

Two Things

First: Strokes w/ Regina: "Modern Girls": I don't even feel a little guilty about this one.

Second: Puffy Shoe is dispatching the local paperboy to throw resumes on the porches of New York media outlets. If you know anyone looking for a video editor, funnyman, food-taster and/or semiserious journalist, holler. (For once I do not refer to myself.) Please help out, the dude will make a good neighbor.

Is It Like This?

It is like this.

Mainly the hat part.

Discarded Words, Phrases

It's not uncommon for a person to adopt a phrase or word only to let it fall away after excessive, repetitive and gratuitous use. A word or phrase that appears sufficiently unique will serve as a mark of distinction, at least until enough people ask what it means.

Here are some of the phrases I've dropped frequently and then dropped altogether.

"A veritable cornucopia" - don't really miss that one.

" ... or something" - used to hedge when giving an especially harsh opinion. I give fewer harsh opinions now (or maybe I just do less hedging).

"Sad business" - a sad state of affairs, used as a direct object. I still like this one, but I think I still wore it out.

"Bad business" - basically sad business.

"Shut up you dumb idiot" - probably not hard to imagine why that one didn't last.

"(verb) the pants off (noun/pronoun)" - a coworker actually told me that one was inappropriate!

"I make it rain" - 2006.

"I roll like a boss" - 2005.

"Get pumped" - There was a time when I felt it was important to encourage people to get pumped as often as possible. I'm not sure when or why that time ended. It was a good time. Getting pumped is almost always a good decision.

"Strong move" - Still in currency but soon to be tossed in the heap.

"There are 6 million women in New York" - I mean, come on. Honestly.

Got your own discarded phrase? Drop it in the comments below! I'll read it! And say it. For you.

Pentathlon Upshot

The 'thlon was a success. Too great, in fact: I will not denigrate it to blog-post status.

However, I will mention that Daniel has restarted his own blog.

To conclude:

"Je ne veux pas aller au service militaire, je ne veux pas faire la guerre pour un morceau de terre."

-Solaar

Good luck to all.

Coming War Part 2

Out in Texas, I'm being chewed out by an Obama campaign constable and sometimes friend for not having voted in New York. Turns out, even if I had, I might not have.

According to reports from several Obama staffers who worked the Nevada campaign and an official filing by the campaign's lawyers, New York is not the only place where shit's a mess.

If it keeps up like this, come August, I'm going to Denver, and I'm getting arrested.

Shhhhh!

Be quiet now.

Coming War

"Cheat to Win"

--An old friend

This reminds me of a book I once read.

The superdelegates factor, coupled with the Democratic party's oddball screwup of Florida and Michigan - two notorious swing states that have been the center of America's frightening political battleground - means we may be in for a serious brawl come summer.

The Dem convention itself shows potential as an old-school 20th century affair. Shysty hucksters will prowl around and both candidates will pursue any back door cut to sneak into a nom.

As in the past, this may mark occasion for true lines to be drawn. The badminton net is being cast, the poles shoved in the ground. Pundits will say that peepants scaredycats line up behind their mother figure on one side while the fresher types give a chance to a darker shade of idealizm. Thing is, the pundits might for once turn out to be right.

2000 and 2004 emphatically displayed to everyone the imperfections (to be delicate) of the U.S. general electoral system. 2008 may blast us back to an era when there were evident and frightening moral chasms to conquer in the mere primaries.

Unlike in olympiads past, though, it's starting to look like the kids might have something to say this time.

"They were wasting those longhairs / I just happened to be there."

Nanananananana

-At a work function last night, I shook hands with a multi-millionaire, and we discussed Texas Hold Em, briefly. It was a true "slobs vs. snobs" moment! Just kidding. Well, kind of. Okay yeah I'm kidding. But not about the shaking hands part. I did do that.

-From where I lay, I can see the constructors building the beginnings of a cement wall. I wonder if they will vote for Obama.

-Two people have said "Happy Valentine's Day" to me today, and Sulky hasn't even woken up yet!

-For reasons unclear, this week has failed to end in a sufficiently prompt manner. I'm currently lecturing it on the importance of punctuality.

-The Feehan pentathlon approaches. Prepare for rip-roaring accounts here and perhaps a full-on docudrama on HBO (okay probably YouTube).

-Sometimes you just gotta walk in the rain and see the size of the city you're in. Other times you just gotta wear plaid pants with a plaid shirt. In both cases, it helps to have a plane ticket out of town in your pocket (or on the Internet).

-Everything is not so bad!

From the Sis

Feel-good:

hey hey,
i'm wondering what you have to say about writing a letter of intent. do you have a sample one of yours?
mom met a rwandan who works on water management...long story short, he told her he wants to hire me. all in a trip to chile. go figure eh?
talk soon

Cowardice

In college I had a roommate that no one in my house liked. We found him on Craigslist and he was a graduate student. He was a Democrat and watched Fox News after a day of classes. He had Swiss citizenship and cooked meals for other international students (girls) and then took them down to his room to sleep with.

I lived in the basement across the hall from him and another roommate lived down the hall. We all shared a bathroom that no one cleaned.

After several months, the carbon monoxide alarm began going off in the basement. Eventually I got tired of the noise and so detached the alarm from the ceiling and placed it on the front stoop.

Several days and nights passed, and everyone in the basement slept quite soundly.

Coming in through the front door one day, the Swiss roommate finally noticed the smoke detector. "Hey, why is this out here?" he asked.

I was playing video games. "Because the CO alarm keeps going off."

"How long has the detector been outside?"

"Since Sunday."

He did not pick up the smoke detector or bring it back in the house. He just walked back to the kitchen to make some pasta.

He almost never washed the pans.

Insanity

I read somewhere once that insanity, the kind where people do things like yell strange words in the middle of a park with their pants around their ankles, is actually pretty simple.

An otherwise healthy person develops (or convinces his brain he's developed) a positive response to the emotions he feels when he's suffering humiliation. So, for example, when most people fall on their butts while they're giving a presentation in front of a group of respectable citizens, they feel ashamed and sad because they know their audience's derisive thoughts.

A crazy person, on the other hand, falls on his butt and, seeing the haughty smirks, decides he likes seeing those smirks and carries on falling on his butt. It's sort of understandable and probably a little liberating to pursue this course.

This theory at least explains why people who are not crazy are made so uncomfortable by the presence of the insane; the insane are unbounded by the restraints that sane people still have to deal with. Their lives are unmistakably sad; we know that and they know that. The pain is real - they may often be hungry or lack shelter. They feel that another kind of human contact and fulfillment eludes them. But underneath those surface differences, the regular people are nervous and scared, because they are frightfully close to feeling the same inclinations toward self-destruction.

Also, it may very well be that a person's degree of insanity varies with his or her environment. I'm not talking childhood here, either. I mean on an instant-to-instant basis a person will feel more or less affinity to the humiliation impulse based on who or what happens to be around.

If that is true, everybody be careful.

Pentathlete Profile: Steve Thomas

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.




Pentathlete #6: Steve "Even Keel" Thomas

Hails from: Buffington, Connecticut; Snobberton, Delaware; The Street.

Get to know Steve...

By Day: drifter
By Sport: Bandwagon Boston-area Teams, Cockfighting, Dueling

Pentathletic Strengths: Intimidation. Steve is equally intimidated by each event. Ergo, he is well-balanced.

Professed weakness: Steve is a sucker for Hillary Clinton speeches. They stir him so much that he will abandon task or team to listen to her.

Intangibles: Which Steve Thomas will show up? The raging alcoholic drifter, the disciplined mustachioed Academic, or the uncompromising neoconservative we've all grown to tolerate?

Quotable Steve: "When do we get the freakin' guns?"

Did you know?: Steve has successfully posed his way as a Georgetown student through 7 semesters.

Pentathlete Profile: Wade Greenlee

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.




Pentathlete #5: Wade "Thunder" Greenlee
Hails from: Chicago, Tokyo, Central Tejas

Get to know Wade...

By Day: Wade herds cats in the US Army
By Sport: Cricket, Sand-Pounding, Hot Dog Eating (for enjoyment's sake, with relish)

Pentathletic Strengths: Wade is strong.

Professed weakness: After a beaning in Tokyo League Baseball in 2002, Wade can no longer speak English.

Intangibles: According to his trainer and the Mitchell report, Wade is fueled by liquid anger, injected intravenously. When confronted with this accusation, Wade smash camera.

Quotable Wade: (loosely translated) "Consider please honor in competletion. Feel Enjoy! Thanks four corporation."


Did you know?: Wade does the Super Bowl Shuffle to entice his wife, romantically speaking.

Finally!

It finally occurred to me to embed Len's "If You Steal My Sunshine" on this blog.



There is an insidious movement among people wanting to impress others with the eclecticism of their taste. Its (the movement's) followers profess to like any number of songs for shock value. I am not being coy. I have not even made a point yet.

And I am done discussing. Enjoy yourselves some Len.

Pentathlete Profile: Brendan Boundy

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.




Pentathlete #4: Brendan "Doubting Thomas" Boundy
Hails from: The District of Columbia, The Philly, The Newtown Square, PA

Get to know Brendan...

By Day: Brendan is a whip for the party, the pants party, the party in his pants.
By Sport: Crew, Gerrymandering

Pentathletic Strengths: Brendan fouls really hard on the basketball court to compensate for shortcomings in skill. This may not translate to the pentathlon, but watch your knees.

Professed weakness: Brendan sucks.

Intangibles: Brendan's lankiness is an unknown, whether it will help our hurt his efforts or lack of effort.

Quotable Brendan: "Watch your knees."


Did you know?: Brendan's recent Obama campaign contribution was rejected because of his romantic links to a "pimped out" Chelsea Clinton.

Self Stroking

How acceptable is it to live in New York and suddenly relate powerfully to Strokes songs? I'm guessing it's a shameful disgrace akin to the one I feel for enjoying "The Office."

Art that convincingly replicates life carries with it a danger. If the art convinces you, it's won, whether it's right or not.

I AINT WASTIN NO MORE TIIIIIIME

aka

PAM LETS GO ON A DATE I AM SUPER TALL! OUR BOSS IS ANNOYING!

Just a Quick BQ

"All these veteran heads keep telling me to get off the speed because it's dangerous, but every time I have something to say to them late at night, they're passed out."

HST

"Fuck My Balls"

Sulky: dude, "Fuck My Balls"
is 11 minutes long
me: fuck my balls
hahahaha
that would hurt!
Sulky: "do you wanna fuck my balls!?! / yeah i wanna fuck your balls"
me: hahahaahhahahaha
Sulky: i can hear u laughing
11:47 PM
me: fuck my balls
Sulky: fuck my balls
me: that is the stupidest thing
Sulky: like why didn't they just say suck
me: not extreme enough
Sulky: LETS SAY FUCK
me: fuck me in my balls
girl
Sulky: FUCK MY BALLS
me: fuck both my balls
Sulky: fuck my balls
me: fuck my balls!
do you wanna fuck my
balls
yeah
i wanna
fuck your balls
Sulky: OK
me: fuck my balls
Sulky: I am
me: what are you waiting for
Sulky: : )
me: you
you fucked my balls!
Sulky: : ) : )
me: fuck my balls!
Sulky: i'm imagining him saying it
11:58 PM
me: i think i should be allowed to blog this convo
Sulky: go for it
just leave out the beginning
me: yeah
Sulky: and maybe don't use the name
me: i won't use the name
i'll be tactful

It's Funny

I'm reminded today of a subway ride a few days back. A Chinese guy was on the train but didn't know which way we were headed. I told him, with gestures, that we were going to Manhattan.

A few minutes later, another man who had watched the incident came over to me and told me he thought the Chinese man was confused and we should get a cop. To avoid involving the cops in what looked like a basic problem of language, I made the Chinese guy come over to me and point out his destination on the map. Flushing! No problem.

The woman who had to move her head so the Chinese guy could point looked at me and said with not a little contempt, "I think he knows what he's doing."

I didn't say much to anyone for a while after that, even when I'd been at work for several hours. Instead I made myself several cups of tea and concentrated on the Internet.

Playwright's

The only thing to do after suffering a humiliating defeat at English was to make an effort at self-betterment. Here are the fruits of that effort.



Wright is a Middle English word meaning "worker." All is forgiven, bar. You are probably a fine bar to drink at and to refer to in proper English. You are certainly not a failed attempt at a joke. My bad!

Playwright's

I am an idiot and playwright is spelled that way so feel free to slap me or just go ahead and read the below post and laugh at how much of a dummy I am.

In other words, RETRACTION.

Playwright's

There is a series of pubs in Manhattan. These pubs call themselves "Playwright's."

I'm all for misspelling words for some specific purpose. Kids' Korner, for example - replacing the C in Corner with a K creates some visual interest by making both words start with the same letter.

With "Playwright's," though, there's no discernible joke - not even a really korny one - to justify the misspelling. The only reasonable excuse would be if a Mr. or Ms. Playwright were the proprietor or prorpietress. If that's not the case, Playwright's is one of the worst names for a location I have ever seen.

For the Blogroll - Holy Fucking Shit

Holy fucking shit Lux is finally blogging. All it took was a global Internet disaster.

I Was There for This

Just thought I'd mention.

Pentathlete Profile: Pat Feehan

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.



Pentathlete #3: Pat "Expat" Feehan
Hails from: Mili-waukee, County Cork (Ireland), Minnesota

Get to know Pat...

By Day: Pat is an internet conspiracy theorist with a specialty in refuting email "hoaxes"
By Sport: Snow Shoveling, Lottery Scratch Off Games, Getting Frustrated by Minnesotan Teams

Pentathletic Strengths: Experience and moxy. This man is a pentathlon legend, winning both the 1967 and 1995 events in rural Minnesota.

Professed weakness: Known to settle disputes violently in a Burr-like "duel"

Intangibles:
Pat claims his experience (read age) will make up for a loss of hand-eye coordination (he's lost one hand and an eye, not the coordination).
Pat's trash talk is infamous, routinely forcing his competitors to fall upon their swords (see 1967 Pentathlon).

Quotable Pat: "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines."

Did you know?: Pat is now a citizen of Ireland. He routinely conducts clandestine operations against his former home, Wisconsin. Wisconsin does not seem to notice.

Further Editor's Note: I was drunk when I did this, so if there are format errors, I'm sorry.

While We're At It

I forgot to mention the Twix bar.

Also, fittingly, this is post #200. I'd like to thank Mom and Dad, without whom none of this would be possible!

On the Frequent Need for a Suitable Sixer

As I was walking up DeKalb toward home I knew I was going to buy a sixer at the Halal place by Washington Ave. As I got past the park I started to worry, because normally by then I would have decided the brand or at least the yeast. But it just wasn't coming to me.

Certainly not a Blue Moon - those are clear, mild and easily understood. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a mainstay but mainly for celebrations. Budweiser tallboys get to work fast but I had done that the other night and didn't feel like dealing with the wide mouth. Miller Lite is always out of the question. No one sells High Life in my rounds except the Chinese guy on 8th between Broadway and 6th Ave (obviously I'm not sure where exactly).

The worry had matured into sincere disorientation by the time I opened the door to the mart. Luckily, the ghost of King Lear or my great grandfather or someone whispered in my ear, "Don't worry. You'll know what to do when you get to the fridge."

The old man was right. Sitting behind the sliding door was Lagunitas IPA of Petaluma, Calif., a vestige of the Tacoma days and a brooding, gritty beer that could chip your teeth. Perfect for the silence of my empty apartment.

Tomorrow there will be another. But tonight, I've got Petal Town's favorite lady on my lips.

Lou Dobbs Gallery for Two, Please

Time to clear the air. It may be obvious that I'm not Lou Dobbs' biggest fan (he is).

At any rate, Los Blogueros are badass.

Kickflip Over BMX Double Hump

Wheeeeeee!



From April 2008 Skateboarder Magazine cover. Did I mention that's a kickflip?

Pentathlete Profile: Ed Marion

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.



Pentathlete #2: Ed "Moves" Marion
Hails from: El Paso, TX , Dirty Jerz, Nineveh Province of I-Rock

Get to know Ed....

By Day: Ed is the wheels and cogs of the US Army. Literally.
By Sport: Street Ballin', Dance Dance Revolution, Celebrity watching

Pentathletic Strengths: Alcoholic tolerance

Professed weakness: Poker. Known to declare, "My stars, what a hand" when bluffing

Intangibles:
Ed's attention span. When focused, Ed's a machine. When distracted by bright colors and moving objects, Ed tends to wander. Literally.
The incorporation of his infamous dance moves into the events will make or break his team.

Quotable Ed: "Homer Simpson: Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try."

Did you know?: Ed won the first (and last) Mosul Idol competition this past July.

Tomorrow's Featured Pentathlete: Patrick Feehan

Sitemeter

Sometimes my sitemeter disappears. This is disastrous for me because it means I don't know whether any more writers whose stories I like are stumbling onto this blog. Plus I need to know whether my employers have found this thing yet.

If you see my sitemeter please email it back to me. It must have peeled off or something.

Pentathlete Profile: Andrew Tein

Editor's Note: In honor of the upcoming inaugural Daniel Feehan Pentathalon - a grueling three-day athletic competition testing some of the nation's best and brightest in the fields of Jenga, Texas Hold 'Em, Frisbee Golf, Foosball and Ping Pong - Ideelz, in conjunction with the event's namesake, is publicizing the vital stats of each competitor as part of an ongoing series. The event is to pop off Feb. 16-18, 2008 in Belton, Texas.




Pentathlete #1: Andrew "Yangtze" Tein
Hails from: Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, Houston

Get to know Andrew....

By Day: Tobacco Lobbyist
By Sport: Equestrian Golf, Synchronized Swimming, Dogfighting

Pentathletic Strengths: Jenga

Professed weakness: Frisbee-related events

Intangibles:
Andrew can carry a conversation.
Andrew has a history of ankle issues which should not impact his performance.
Andrew has never won anything athletic, but he is willing to start.

Quotable Andrew: "I just hope everyone has a nice time."

Did you know?: Andrew has been tasked with removing the smog from Bejing for the upcoming Olympic games.

Tomorrow's Featured Pentathlete: Ed "Moves" Marion

Why Not?

Every publication everywhere should endorse a presidential candidate. It's fun!

Money in the mouth:

Republican candidate: Mike Huckabee - Once fat and funny, now funny. Hard to beat that.

Democratic candidate: Barack Obama - If he added an apostrophe in there and had been born a mere matter of centuries earlier, I'd be reading about him in Wars of the Irish Kings. He's a little lean, but looks like he could handle a rapier. Plus: he makes young people crap their pants in excitement.

The World Is a Different Place Today

I've been pretty resolutely on the fence about the whole election situation and through negligence and ignorance did not register to vote on this most Super of Tuesdays. However, many of my friends who know something about politics and ideas have been pretty forthright about their support for Barack Obama, a young senator from Illinois who, as near as I can tell, is running on hope, change, and the idea that the Iraq war never even looked like a good idea. I guess I can get behind each of those. Not that it matters right now.

Okay on to the video above, which made its YouTube debut Saturday.

Yes, the BEP are and have been ridic since basically when they came out and for them to make a video endorsing a presidential candidate is also a ridic idea. But it taps into something a friend of mine told me on New Years Eve about Obama's speech at the Jefferson Jackson dinner: "See? The fact that he can make people like us care at all about what happens is what makes him so unique. We're not supposed to have feelings about politics."

Yes, politicians are rarely inspiring and I am not predisposed to caring one way or another about whether someone wins unless they are complete knuckleheads who put my friends in a desert to be shot and blown up for no justifiable purpose.



But the worm feels as though it's turning in my loins here. I kind of get a tingle when I hear Obama's voice and I almost want to believe that he really would make the country better.

I certainly like that the Black Eyed Peas made a video of him talking and them singing and that they probably believe this will in some way help the world become a better place. It's hard to imagine any hip-hop artist doing that for Hillary or anyone else in the race (maybe Edwards, or - call me bananas - Huckabee).

And that there is a candidate who can inspire this kind of conceit - a candidate who creates a world in which YouTube exists so people can make music videos about their favorite political candidates -- strikes at my (however perverted) sense of what America should be like.

So alright Barack Obama, I'm sort of listening, and you have Will.I.Am to thank for that.

My Pal Made a Lolcat

One of the easier things to blog.

Reversal!

Various people have indicated at various times that Google is really a master spin artist. During the net neutrality debate, the search dominatrix took a tone of moral authority and violently defended neutrality as a necessary freedom. Google neglected to mentioned that neutrality was also best for its business.

The company hasn't stopped the charade. Google said today that the Internet should not be controlled by a single behemoth, which is awk, because everyone knows Google controls the internet.

The people who believe in Yahoo! - I know a guy - are probably rejoicing right now. In 2008, Google will be the dynasty to beat, and Microsoft and Yahoo! a patched-up team of proven losers.

Also, the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl last night.

Just sayin'.

Really?

It turns out I'm the same person as a lot of other people.

Link, Friend, Link Link

-Suicide Attempts By U.S. Soldiers This is apparently another result of the government's continued mistreatment of its favorite rallying flag. There is anecdotal evidence of a mounting drug problem among troops as well.

-Lawrence blogs about the DRC for Africa Matters. Also see his analysis for the Diplomatic Courier.

-Could a Will Smith movie actually seem palatable? There's definitely more to be said about this but I can't quite figure out what at present.

-Epicly Later'd stepping up its game to do a 16-part (!!!!) series on John Cardiel. Cardiel is famous for his rail- and bowl-slaying part in Transworld's Sight Unseen video and for generally stepping up to the plate harder than younger pros who should be way hungrier. The intro monologue about his brush with paralysis says a lot about him and the brighter side of the skateboarding ethic generally.

The Time for Action … Is Now?

Editor's Note: Ideelz is pleased to welcome its first-ever guest blogger, recent golden-star award winner and military aficionado Daniel Feehan. Daniel is a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and writes occasionally for publication on evite.com. He currently lives in Texas.

I am the American dream,
The rape of Africa
The undying machine,
The overpriced medicine,
The murderous regime,
The tough guy's front
And the one behind the scenes

-fiasco, lupe

Whilst my wheels spin in a boundless state, mentally retarded women are remotely detonated in loose statements of religious fanatacism. Hill-dog will look at the options, Barackus will offer white man an out, Johnny Mc will find honorable victory at the cost of dishonor, and I will battle america's identity crisis on foreign shore. Men will be brave and some men will hurt, but will Britney live?

F150s line endless highways of a land too big to understand. Cows cross roads and stare at man, also grazing. Pride is farmed in balls of foot and sold in marts of wal, and when storms come out of the east, surely this is its ow-n country.

The eyes of Texas are upon you,
all the live long day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away.

-alma mater, uTejas

The Same Person

Omar Little

Stagger Lee

Is this a new character type, or an old one?

One More, Then Hitting the Showers

A good line from ESPN.com's Mike Sando on the prospects of a Giants Super Bowl win:

The Giants might pull the upset -- Eli Manning is playing like a champion -- but picking against New England is like hitting on 18 in blackjack. You get credit for good fortune, not smarts, if you happen to draw a three.

Hi!

Per Sitemeter, someone from New Mexico got to ideelz by Googling "Evan Lavender-Smith." This is either the man himself or someone who likes his stuff too. If you are said Googler, thanks for dropping in and if you're Evan Lavender-Smith, say hi. Say hi even if you're not Lavender-Smith. Say hi even if you're not the Googler. If you're the Hamburgler, say rubble rubble.

"Appalachian Spring."

Ballin.

If you never come back, it was good while it lasted. Enjoy the weather.

Also, don't be embarrassed. We've all Googled our new friends or ourselves. It's a sign of respect, or self respect.

Similar, but Different

From Leda and the Swan entry, Wikipedia:

The subject undoubtedly owed its sixteenth-century popularity to the paradox that it was considered more acceptable to depict a woman in the act of copulation with a swan than with a man.

Those were different times (see below).

What Goes On: Modeling

From conversation:

me: hey
Speedra: yo
me: what's goin on
Speedra: not much
trying to get a new project goign in the lab
me: cool
bout what
Speedra: radiation response of tumors
trying to predict response
based on a pre treatment biopsy
using RNA microarrays which measure gene expression of the tumor tissue
basically
collect 54000 pieces of info about the tumors
and then train that data
by telling the modeling program
this is a responder, this is a non responder
me: wow
do you think you'll get something good?
Speedra: i dont know
it seems easy
like
when i first got here
i was like
oh ya
no big deal
but the analysis is complicated
and it doesnt always work
you have to try your best to eliminate any other variables in the samples
anyways
dude
i gots to run
ill talk to you later

(emphasis added, subsequently removed).

It's Life and Life Only

In a begginging of "The Second Battle of Moytura," the first story in Wars of the Irish Kings (David W. McCullough. Three Rivers: New York, 2002. 6–7.), a dispute over who should govern Ireland arises after King Nuadu loses his hand in battle. (Apparently one should not rule one-handed.)

After some flimflam, the people who decide these things settle on Bres, an illegitimate child of Eiru. The author then describe Bres' conception. Eiru is coolin out on the beach when a silver boat pulls up. On closer examination, the boat turns out to be a man who wants to have sex with Eiru.

The courtship is short:

The man said to her: "Shall I have an hour of lovemaking with you?"
"I certainly have not made a tryst with you," she said.
"Come without the trysting!" he said.

One Hour Later:

"Why are you crying?" he asked.
"I have two things that I should lament," said the woman, "separating from you, however we have met. The young men of the Tuathe De Danann have been entreating me in vain -- and you possess me as you do."
"Your anxiety about those two things will be removed," he said.

The ship-man (who finally tells Eiru he's Elatha mac Delbaith, king of the Fomoire) goes on to tell Eiru that she will bear a child who will rule Ireland and drive out invaders.

Assuming the sex was consensual (maybe a big assumption, but Elatha does have "golden-yellow hair down to his shoulders"), this passage adds to a long list of sex scenes from the sixteenth century and before where a god or king comes along and gets busy with a fine woman. Elatha doesn't have to say or do much to convince her, and the news of pregnancy either isn't a big deal to Eiru or is not discussed as such. Nota bene: she says specifically the two things that are bothering her, and neither one has to do with the act of sex itself; that appears to have gone off fine.

Instances of this kind of encounter abound. Courtly love stories in chivalric tales, Leda and the Swan, the Immaculate Conception, etc. all play with this notion of impulsive sex whose consequences are either neutral or incredibly positive. Again, the line between rape and sex here is poorly drawn. All I'm saying is it's conceivable within these stories' frameworks that the sex was consensual (so don't come bangin at me about Leda -- I'm well aware). Because the discussion of these scenes is so offhand, there's some reason to believe that the audience understood sex in a similar way.

I'm picturing a time before there was much to do but work in a field or be a landowner who had to fight to protect his land. Men and women just sort of got together and had sex, and if there was conception, they either got married or otherwise went along. The Church had ideas about feminine purity, whatever, but as a practical matter people probably did the deed a fair amount.

The coupling is important mainly as a generative act in these tales, as opposed to an act of any other kind. The window dressing around it is not that important to the narrator or to the audience; the important thing is that it did happen.

This is a very different approach to sex.