PSA

I would like to say that I am most heartily sorry for any offense taken by anyone's mother (other than my own, of course).

Jesus met GW at the well*

Did anyone else watch Frontline last night? It was called "The Jesus Factor," and it was a terrifying look into how the Evangelicals have sneaked into this administration like Ali Fuckin Baba and his 40 Thieves.

If you missed it, you can watch it online starting tomorrow. Be prepared to throw things.

(Incidentally, has anyone downloaded The Mashin of the Christ? I started to last night but it's like 90 MBs and was gonna take 3 hours on Limewire, so I gave up. How is it?)

After you watch Frontline, I'm hoping you'll feel moved to go out and vote this fall. I felt like going out and voting LAST NIGHT, actually, but I'm easily riled up. If you're not registered to vote (or if you've moved since the last election), you should go here. They'll set you in the right direction.

OR, you could come see me. Yes, me. I've just returned from Voter Registration Training, and I am eager to indoctrinate. I'll be participating in voter drives this summer, and might even organize a few of my own.

As an incentive, I'll be wearing this mystery garment, see? And if you register to vote, I'll let you put the mystery garment on your head for +/- one minute.

Win-win, people!

*And invited him to play with the blue water.

Raise your forelimbs aloft and gesture wildly, as if you were indifferent

This weekend is the WFMU Record Fair. Start making room in your milk crates now.

Love me, I'm a bat-wielding liberal

Bummed that the protest permit was denied? According to the Times, some protestors intend to infiltrate the GOP Convention by posing as volunteers.

Or, you could try this tactic.

GodDAMN the pusher man

I'm beginning to wonder if the proprietor of The Victory, a little coffee shop on the corner of State and Hoyt in Boerum Hill, puts an aphrodisiac in his coffee. Because I have fallen deeply in lust with him.

Now, the coffee itself is pretty good, if a little pricey. And he's a totally adorable guy with grey hair and tattoos and a sweet midwestern manner. And he has excellent musical taste. But it's more than that--when he hands me my coffee, I feel as though he's offering a bit of himself to me. "This is my blood, partake of it." He makes me want to be a better man, if only momentarily. I wonder if addicts ever fall in love with their dealers?

But now I'm sad, because there are rumors that The Victory might be closing. Where will you go, Mister LoverCoffeeMan?

Back to the drawing board

Your search - "dysfunctional mothers day cards" - did not match any documents.

Tell me, isn't that astounding? It's an untapped market:

"Dear Mom, Even Though I Apparently Inherited All of Dad's Family's Bad Traits, I'm Still Your Daughter"

"This Card Is a Testament to All the Wonderful Things About You, Mom, But I'm Sure, Like Everything Else, It Won't Live Up to Your Impossible Expectations"

"Mom, I'm So Glad We Have These Fifteen Minutes to Spend Together Before My Therapy Session"

"Mother, I Know You Missed My Recitals, My Ball Games, and My Graduation, But I Understand...You Were 'Tired.'"

"Happy Mother's Day! No, I Haven't Gained Weight!"

"Mother, On Your Special Day, Here's Your Xanax and Chardonnay"

And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones...

If that woman I saw at the station comes on my train:

I'm going to tell her, "I said to myself, if that woman I saw at the station comes on my train, I'm going to walk right up to her and hope it brings a smile and a little chuckle to her." I"ll say " I hope you don't disappoint me." While inside I'm thinking I hope I don't disappoint you. By this I mean I hope I am at least worthy of your consideration as a fellow human being...

Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer

Divining Dixie, A fascinating article about the Southern stereotype:

“If you grow up and live most of your life in the South, you get tired of the caricaturization,” Richard Oppel, editor of the Austin American-Statesman, told me, echoing the first complaint of many southern journalists I interviewed. “Some days,” he continued, “I’m convinced that there is not an editor in New York or Washington who isn’t looking for the story of the large, big-breasted woman with blond hair who has married an eighty-nine-year-old codger from Houston and proceeded to take away all his money.”

King of the Hill

My hometown and its outlying environs is a sorta weird mix of local Republicans who've lived there since the dawn of time, Citiots, and displaced hippies. Driving up the Taconic you'll see a trailer home next to an apple farm next to a Greek revival homestead next to some bizarre anthroposophic place.

There's this one place in particular that features a strange assortment of sculptures on the hill overlooking the parkway. Strange to the point of distracting. I mean, people apparently drive off the road while craning their necks to see the statuary. One of the bigger items is a big dumb head. I always swore that if I won a million dollars the first thing I'd do is buy that head and then BLOW IT UP so that it would send shards and boulders flying down the hill. Wouldn't that be fun? I guess.

Anyhow, I was reading Bad News Hughes a while back and I think I found my future husband. I mean, someone who is willing to nurture a 500-lb pumpkin from seedling to full-grown so that he can blow it up is clearly a kindred spirit. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of New Hampshire (aside from the wonderful fireworks that can be purchased there) but I think I could make some compromises as long as he lets me play with his guns.

Anyhow, my cookies are almost ready and I should post before my cat unplugs the computer again. So, if you're feeling it, here's another Minutemen tune called King of the Hill. It's off Project Mersh, which was kinda conceived as a joke but it's still really damned good, so shut the fuck up.

Darling Nick(i)

Yay, I got the best housewarming gift evah: an Adam Connelly /pr0nt1n65 print. (It's a print of this one, specifically.)

[insert something about zeitgeist]

Am pert near getting Harry's tattoo.

Two great tastes: Fortunate Son, by the Minutemen.

Thanks to corndogs for the soundtrack.

Mom, We're Home!*

Amazingly, The Memory Hole has managed, through the Freedom of Information Act, to get photos of military coffins at Dover Air Force Base:

I specified Dover because they process the remains of most, if not all, US military personnel killed overseas. Not surpisingly, my request was completely rejected. Not taking 'no' for an answer, I appealed on several grounds, and—to my amazement—the ruling was reversed. The Air Force then sent me a CD containing 361 photographs of flag-draped coffins and the services welcoming the deceased soldiers.

*Ring a bell?

Icicles on hell's higher hills

We all know how I feel about Vice magazine*, but this little article from Chris Nieratko (of late Big Brother fame) about his experience in the adult publishing world is rather amusing:

There was the flamboyant gay editor who could barely speak English—let alone use grammar correctly; the standard office whore; and a bitter old copy editor who had been with the company for decades. His office doubled as the storeroom, and every time he saw me he screamed, "I hope you know The Chicago Manual of Style! We don't use that pussy New York one!" For those of you who don't know, copy editors have their own shorthand, a series of symbols used to indicate paragraph changes, spelling corrections, and the like, sort of like those red marks found all over your papers in school. If you already knew that, then you're smarter than I was back then. We'd get the proofs back from the printer and I'd attack them with a red wax pencil, circling misspellings and then drawing a line from the word to the margin with a big note that read, "THIS WORD IS SPELLED WRONG."

OKC Revisited

Yeah, so I have an unhealthy obsession with the OKC bombing. I collect conspiracy theories like Hummels. It's odd, in a way, because I don't remember feeling particularly strongly about the attack when I heard about it. In do remember where I was: sitting in a college cafeteria, watching the TV, seeing the repeating reels of footage and the flummoxed anchors. I was surprised, but not really. Having followed the lunatic aftermath of Waco and Ruby Ridge, I figured it was only a matter of time before Whitey got revenge on the gubmint. (And flash forward another year, when Eric Rudolph had his fun little reign of terror and then disappeared completely: talk about Whitey On the Moon.)

I also remember what I'd been doing the night before: Hanging out with a neighbor; we were supposed to be doing color theory projects. Instead, we were playing with a Ouija board. It told us "Beware of death by crater." Spooky, eh?

Not making light of the deaths of those 168 (or was it 169?) people, but, you know, it seemed so far away from us at the time. Plus, there was the reassurance that it was just a bunch of white power crazies. It just didn't seem that they could get their act together on such a large scale again.

This week marks the ninth anniversary of the attack, and what more do we know? Well, first of all, there's this:

"Security videotapes from the area show the truck detonation three minutes and six seconds after the suspects exited the truck,'' the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.The government has insisted McVeigh drove the truck himself and that it never had any video of the bombing or the scene of the Alfred P. Murrah building in the minutes before the April 19, 1995, explosion.Several investigators and prosecutors who worked the case told the Associated Press they had never seen video footage like that described in the Secret Service log.The document, if accurate, is either significant evidence kept secret for nine years or a misconstrued recounting of investigative leads that were often passed by word of mouth during the hectic early days of the case, they said.

Nichols says his lawyers were denied critical evidence that a gang the FBI called the Midwest Bank Bandits or Aryan Republican Army assisted McVeigh. The defense contends that Nichols was "framed" by his former friend to shield McVeigh's co-conspirators operating out of Elohim City and elsewhere.

After the bombing, the owner learned the Ryder truck had been seen at a gas station next to the motel. The attendant told him a Middle Eastern man had bought a lot of diesel. He gave Davis a signed affidavit stating that the driver “paid $120 cash for 100 gallons of diesel fuel.”

American trash, too much can ruin a good time

I just found this little gem in my stats page: This white girl manages to trump the rank of Amiri "Wife-Beater" Baraka himself in this google search.

My spidey-sense is tingling

So I have it on good authority that Belle de Jour is in NYC on "holiday" this week. Meanwhile, Eurotrash is on "holiday" in England.

Has anyone seen them on the same continent? I have my suspicions.

File under: Fucking Bullshit, More of the Usual

Absolutely incredible. Pierce County sued over jailhouse rape of teenager:

According to the lawsuit, the boy was mentally slow with an intelligence quotient of 79 but was in the adult jail because he was facing trial as an adult on a burglary charge....Meanwhile, David Marshall Nelson was being held for investigation of failing to register as a sex offender.

Broadcasting from just outside my window

It's WPS1! How cool is that? (Via dong, who is apparently never coming back, not ever.)

Brickbats at the ready here in Queens

I know that everyone's probably already linked to Choire's review of "Bergdorf Blondes" in the NY Times Book Review, but it had me cackling and reading the choice parts out loud, so I'm linking it here. How they permitted him to go all medieval on Plum Sykes' ass, I'll never know, but more power to him:

"BERGDORF BLONDES'' should inspire readers everywhere to rise up and rip one another limbless. It is not impossible that such a spontaneous revolution will begin first in New York City. After encountering this novel's manifestation of cultural illness, the tribes of the outer boroughs may be impelled to march upon Manhattan to enslave the emotionally warped hoarders of jewels and neuroses who reside therein.

In all seriousness: we must build a tiny apocalypse-proof time capsule. If we can resist the temptation to burn Plum Sykes's book, we can smuggle it into the future. Perhaps the next breed of humanoids can learn from the holocaust of culture and commerce that destroyed our icky civilization

Stains on the carpet, stains on the memory

Speaking of porn, I'm sure you've all been following the HIV outbreak in the porn world. So far, only two performers have been diagnosed, but there could be more. As pedantic as this issue might seem to those who are not porn consumers, this will have wide-ranging repercussions, and I worry that this is just the fodder the current administration needs to fillibuster a whole bunch of overarching prohibition-style moralizing bills. Where the health and well-being of the performers is concerned, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of some governmental regulation of the industry (though I'm uncertain how it could be done, seeing as it's currently illegal for a company to make a prospective employee submit to an HIV test), but there's no doubt in my mind that's not the direction we'd be heading in with Starsky and Ashcroft at the helm.

And there isn't really a law we could enact to protect naifs from being abused by the industry--see this interview with Lara Roxx, the second infected actor.

“When Daniel told me that Darren James was HIV positive, it totally freaked me out,” Roxx said. “It totally made me realize how I trusted this system that wasn’t to be trusted at all, because it obviously doesn’t work....We should think about these issues right now, to change stuff around to make this a safer fuckin’ business. It isn’t a safe business, and I thought it was, and I would have not did that scene with no condom with Darren James if it would have crossed my mind that those tests weren’t good and that I couldn’t trust him or the people he’s been with. I thought porn people were the cleanest people in the world, is what I thought.”

A lot of readers might scoff at the way in which she portrays herself as an innocent. She's a performer, right? She took her chances. But she's also very young and inexperienced, and she thought she could trust the professionals with whom she was working. Plus, it seems as though she was told "You can either do double anal, or you can go home penniless." And this tactic isn't unusual. There's so much competition out there, and if you're unknown and unwilling to perform the more extreme acts, you don't get booked. It's sad and disheartening that a 19-(or 20- or whatever-)year-old without health insurance had to learn the ropes this way, and it's a pathetic statement on the state of porn.

Because I wanna know: Is double anal really a turn-on for many people? The DA videos I've seen are absurdly staged, more acrobatic than erotic, and ultimately disappointing. I mean, if you're a straight guy who gets off on watching two oily beauhunks rubbing their cocks together inside someone's cornhole, maybe you're shopping in the wrong section of the porn store.

weekend recap

As Sinead O'Connor once yelped, "I will rise, and I will return; the Phoenix from the flame." Spending a week away from blogging (more or less) was certainly recuperative for me, though I was hoping to feel a bit more refreshed, somehow imbued with new and exciting ideas. I am not.

But I do have a number of little anecdotal tales.

I'm getting used to a new commute, one that does not include the unwashed masses of the L train. Now I take the 7 (which appears to be a train whose ridership is solely short foreign bachelors) to the Lexington line. It's very fast, but more crowded. And now, for the first time in years, I am confronted with the whole Unwelcome Frottage problem.

When a train is crowded, you inevitably finds yourself sandwiched unpleasantly amid other passengers. A certain amount of rubbing is to be expected. But occasionally, it falls outside of the realm of ordinary jostling, and it shakes you to your very core--kinda like when Jerry Brown plagiarized Midnight Oil and made you realize, What a tool--because you don't want to seem hysterical, but something inside you screams out "THERE IS A DOCKERS-CLAD PENIS TOUCHING ME. INTENTIONALLY." What to do?

I found myself in this situation just last week. I determined that a)although the train was crowded, it clearly wasn't crowded enough for this man to be pressing up against me and b)no matter how I shifted, he was adjusting his stance so that he could be grinding full-bore up against me. We were passing 28th Street, which meant approximately 3 more minutes of the Unwelcome Frottage. I thought about pitching a fit. But I didn't like the idea of sapping what little early-morning energy I had. So I chose a different tack.

I farted.

Oh, and what a fragrant fart it was. Silent, graveolent, meaty. He backed off right quick.

So, what else? Saturday night I attended the party at Magnetic Field for the stupid horrible Horizontal Action. I don't mean to hate on the scene, but this zine is a piece of shit. It's like the worst of MaximumRocknRoll with a lot of crap porn from the '70s, plus the most unintelligent misogynist commentary I've ever read.* If I had actually paid the $3 cover price for this crap, I might be angrier. But there are so many other, better confluences of punk and porn out there, so I'll just point you to them.

As Reeves, S, and I sat there reading the zine in the bar that night, I scoffed at the cover interview with a band called Dirty Sweets. "You know, that tape-on-the-nipples thing is so old. Wendy O'Williams did it 20 years ago.

S looked up and said, "Ha. Someone probably did it 10 minutes after the invention of tape."

In other news, I'm currently very waterlogged, having consumed several gallons of water this weekend to cure the awful bleeding through my girl-weenis. Yes, a lovely UTI. I've spent the past two days shopping for unsweetened cranberry juice and cruising Usenet for homebrewed remedies. I found myself in groups that referred to AIDS in quotes because it's all a myth perpetuated by the government and the pharmaceutical companies. I also found myself in scary Michigan Womyn's Music Festival-territory contemplating making tea out of uva ursi and yarrowroot and cornsilk. Ultimately, I rallied with the aid of a close friend whose stepfather works in the cranberry bogs and she helpfully delivered a pound of frozen cranberries to my door. Boiling the homebrew yesterday afternoon, I felt fecund and truly in touch with my inner goddess, feelings I managed to quickly banish by cranking Angry Samoans (thanks to a mix CD from N/C, who is so virile I sort of suspect him of giving me the UTI in the first place).

All the cranberry juice in my system helped me finally put up the curtains in my bedroom, much to the dismay of the residents of the southside of 46th Ave.

Now I'm sitting at home while I should be working because there's a guy here working on my plumbing. And no, that isn't a double entendre.

*And you know I don't throw that term around lightly, being somewhat of a misogynist myself. But this wasn't clever Jim Goad misogyny, it was the "Hey, who invited this adenoidal douchebag to the party?" kind.

Praise the Lord and Henry Ford

Shite and onions, I almost forgot to mention that The Live Ones are playing at the Continental tonight. Go see them, dammit.

Also belated, a big thank you to Reeves for doing an embarrassingly good job guest-blogging this week. I hope he'll come back again someday, like when I have my next ibogaine treatment.

The End of the Affair

It’s true. We’re through. I’m taking back all my Graham Greene books. Keep the Ministry CDs; I don’t give a shit. Gimme back my combat boots and I promise I won’t email you anymore. And those letters I wrote you, fucking burn ‘em. Please burn ‘em. From now on, when we pass each other on the street, you and me, we’re strangers.

That’s right. I’m breaking up with you. I just can’t handle the pressure. I mean, what do you expect from me? We don’t have to see each other every fucking day. Don’t you know that absence makes the heart grow fonder? You demand too much of me. Endless words to chew on, endless things to keep you occupied. It’s a drag on my time, my life. You’re just taking too much out of me. I need some time alone for a while, to get back to being just me, you know? I need to rediscover the real Reeves.

Really, it’s not you; it’s me. I’m too much a dilettante to keep this up for long anyway. Your dependence on me is stifling. So I’m setting myself free. Why don’t you find some other stud with a killer blog to blog all night with? That’s really what you want, right?

Look, I’m not trying to be mean. I think you’re great and all, but this relationship, it’s just going nowhere. Aww come on, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t cry [although when your mascara runs like that it’s fucking hot]. It’s not your fault. And who knows, maybe one day things will be different and you and I could be friends.

Like I said, it’s not me, it’s you.

Yeah, it’s true. We’re fucking through.

Ciao, bella.

Reeves [last name redacted] is a writer, editor, actor, historian, philosopher, conspiracy theorist, noted astrophysicist, and proud Brooklynite. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning self-help book You Suck, I Rule, as well as the almost Pulitzer Prize-winning titles Down with the System, Up with the Peeps!, Kick It!: The Long History of Bad Soccer in America, I Sorta Wish I Was a Brit: Confessions of an Anglophile, and the upcoming Drinkin’ and Joggin’: The Reeves Way to a Better Body. He is the founder of the American Institute of Conspiracy Theory (or is he?), the recipient of fourteen MacArthur Grants, and he doesn’t like cats very much.

Meet Reeves—in the flesh!

He'll be at Magnetic Field on Saturday night. Punk DJs, cheap-ish beers, and—who knows—maybe even a free copy of Horizontal Action magazine, which apparently involves both porn and punk rock. And no, I can't link there 'cause it's too dirty for me to access from where I am right now. [ED NOTE: Here it is. And don't it against him that he's in Hoboken right now.] If you're a girl who likes boys, you should come out, not necessarily to meet me, or even the Undeniable Eric, who rocks the Sparks like nobody's business, but just to help even out the numbers. You know how porn and punk brings out the boys...[ED NOTE: and me, of course.]

"Talk about embedded."

This is too important for me to belittle with more bullshit words.

And this is so ironic that I'm a little bit speechless.

[Whoops. I misread it. It's actually not ironic. Just dishonest. But I'm pretty sure, somewhere along the line, they did a poll that showed that people wanted a president who didn't make decisions based on polls.]

It's footie time!

For the other ten real football fans out there: The Scum are coming.

Embarrassing as it is, through happenstance and geography and my big-big-love for the losers of the world, I’m a Metro fan. And that means that every year I’ll get excited when we start well, only to watch us fade away at the end of the season, as attendance drops, as discipline breaks down, as media disinterest takes hold.

But not this year.

Okay, probably this year.

In any case, the Metro does look good, what with excellent young talent like Mike Magee and future supastar Eddie "the Streak" Gaven, the fleet-footed and always tricky Amado "Che" Guevara, and the continually over-achieving John "Woly" Wolyniec. I don’t know enough about new additions like Argentine/Colombian goal machine Galvan Rey or super-pacey Jamaican (or is he Trinidadian?) forward Fabian Taylor to pass judgment. So I will. They’ll be great.

And of course there’s the added incentive in getting to see 14-year Freddy Adu, future American World Cup winner.

I’m just a little bit stoked. Kick-off is at 4pm and the buses start rolling out of the Port Authority for the Meadowlands at 2pm. Don't forget your gear and your tall-boys.

We've got a bigger problem now

I'm not officially returning until next week, but I just had to share this with you: When the Russians are likening your president to Hitler and Satan, it means you are truly an asshole in a nation of assholes.

Internal monologue at Ponys show.

Sparks sure does give you some thick spit. But I’m awake now. The Ponys rock. He’s channeling Thurston Moore quite well. Jesus, who farted? Am I only attracted to the bassist because she’s a bassist? And why do I feel a strong desire to snuggle with her? Shouldn’t I be thinking about doing it? She is snuggle-able though. I should buy this record, most definitely.

$3 is a little steep for a PBR. Didn’t I just buy a PBR a few minutes ago? I should just buy two at once.

That was awesome. The only way they could have been better is if they’d smashed up their equipment during that prolonged feedback at the end. Must definitely buy this record.

Hey, the bassist is selling CDs herself. Should I bring up snuggling? No, I should just ask for a CD. These rock stars live such itinerant lives anyway. What’s the point? Could I be a roadie? A groupie? Do they even have boy groupies?

My god these people are young. Holy shit it’s crowded. Did somebody just cop a feel on me? Sweet.

Wow, I want to chew on your hair. It looks like the most delicious food. Can I growl at you? Maybe I should just look at the ground.

Did I miss a band while I was outside on the phone? Chromeo? I thought it was just noise from the PA.

That is the cutest fucking nose-ring.

The Unicorns aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be. But what’s with the ponchos? I could use a poncho. But they aren’t terribly flattering. I don’t think I could work that into my official outerwear rotation. The parka is waterproof anyway. But maybe I should add a lighter waterproof jacket to the lineup? The blue leather coat smells like rot. The black one’s buttons have all fallen off, which is definitely a plus, style-wise, but a negative on the whole practicality front. The green one is awesome, but you can’t fit anything in the pockets. So maybe there is room in the rotation for another jacket. I haven’t bought a coat in, what, four months?

These guys must be kinda dull, even with the pink capes, if I’m thinking about my coats. I’d better just go home and start thinking about which jacket to wear tomorrow…

“Obligations are so passé.”

First you sucker 'em young.

Then you brainwash 'em.

Then you march 'em off to foreign lands without any kind of plan other than to just kill whoever they happen to run into.

Where they die (out of sight).

Unless they decide to do something else.

Gimme that paper! Bet your horns I'll sign

That I have once again popped up to post a link during my "sabbatical" is in no way a reflection on Reeves' abilities, which so far appear to be greater than my own, judging by the hit counts. Sheesh, is there no fealty among you people?

Anyhow, I come here not to praise Reeves but to post a link to my friend Ian's book Sound of the Beast, recently out in paperback with a NEW chapter that you can read here, which touches on, among other things, heavy metal in the Middle East. You simply must check it out.

Ian rocks in perpetuity even without his long locks.

"I got a peace you can blow."

Truly, it must be quite a challenge for transcribers to recreate this sort of creative sentence structure and punctuation: "This is—these are people that have—the leaders have made the decision to put peoples in harm way—people in harm’s way for the good of the world."

It might require a log-in, but here is your illiterate, childish President in full-on idiot mode.

Good god, what the hell does this mean? "I was having dinner with Prime Minister Koizumi, and we were talking about North Korea, about how we can work together to deal with the threat. The North Korean leader is a threat. And here are two friends now discussing how—what strategy to employ to prevent him from further developing and deploying a nuclear weapon. And it dawned on me that had we blown the peace in World War II, that perhaps this conversation would not be taking place."

Yeah, George, had we lost World War II to the Japanese, things might be a little bit different. Is he trying to argue that removing our troops from Iraq would be to "blow" the peace? What "peace" George?

And there’s more ridiculousness:

"Q: Will [Iraq] have been worth it, even if you lose your job because of it?

"A: I don’t plan on losing my job. I plan on telling the American people that I’ve got a plan to win the war on terror."

Oh yeah George, you’ve got a plan, have you? Now might be a good fucking time to tell us, you dipshit!

Another gem:

"A: After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say? And what lessons have you learned from it?

"Q: Hmmm. I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I’m sure historians will look back and say, Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way. You know, I just—I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet."

Think this press conference was just maybe a little bit scripted? Just a little?

"One thing is for certain, though, about me, and the world has learned this, when I say something I mean it."

Yeah, kinda like "leave no child behind," huh? Kinda like "Condi can’t testify because of executive privilege"? Kind of like "these tax cuts help the middle class"?

Here are some Latin words you might like to learn, George: Sic semper tyrannus.

A typical conversation with Bill

“Do you have the funds and/or the inclination to go out and drink yourself to death and not meet any interesting people tonight?”

“No f’n way, Billtastic, have you looked out your window? It’s like walking through the ocean out there.”

“Aww, come on, that $250 must be burning a hole in your pocket. That could buy literally dozens of pints.”

“That is true.”

“Hey, and maybe you’ll fall down and make an ass of yourself.”

“Could happen.”

“Did you see Lua Lua’s celebration this weekend? He crawled to the corner flag on all fours, then pretended to piss on it. I didn’t get it. I guess he’s a dog-lover.”

“Who knows? Not very classy. Not like when Fowler tried to snort the sideline like cocaine, thereby confirming his affinity for the stuff. He also pulled down his shorts once and mooned Grahame LeSaux on the field.”

“What a prick.”

“But he’s funny. And he looks like his nose has been broken thousands of times.”

“Yeah, why are there so many fugly English footballers?”

“I think you just answered the question.”

“Did you see Henry’s hat-trick?”

“Did I? Of course I did. He should have his foot bronzed. Fuck, he should have his whole body bronzed.”

“If you could be any person in the world, would you be Henry?”

“Of fucking course, how could I not? Is he not the physical embodiment of god’s own footballing talent? If god could make the perfect footballer, wouldn’t it be Henry? If you were a hot French woman, who else in the world would you wanna sleep with? Zidane? Give me a break! You know that commercial where they spray the hair out of the aerosol can onto the guy’s head to give him fake hair? That’s Zidane in that commercial! No shit. No models date him. They probably have a whole hang-up about Algerian men too.”

“Yeah, losing a colony will do that to you. The Algerians probably aren’t effete enough for the French model types.”

“Not like Becks…”

“Dude have you seen the tabloids? Becks isn’t gay, he’s a player! He rogered his personal assistant, according to someone or other.”

“Wait, are you calling Henry effete? Don’t call Henry effete, man. He’s like the god of football. That’s not effete..uh..ness, it’s French-ness. Why can’t I be so arrogant?”

“I can think of some reasons: you don’t have those pouty lips of his, which are good for pronouncing the French, which you can’t speak, though you pretend to. Also, you aren’t a slim, six-foot-tall man with [a giant dick and] millions-upon-millions of francs.”

“[How do you know I don't have a giant dick]?”

“[You'd be more arrogant].”

“[How do you know] Henry [does]?”

“[Cause he'd be less arrogant].”

“Christ, that’s just unassailable logic, dude. It’s genius. Look, I’m supposed to be writing some copy for this For Dummies book, not imagining a fake conversation with you, which is like, by the way, so totally accurate, right down to the whole valley-girl accent thing, that it’s downright scary. You should really read it.”

“So are we going to the bar or what?”

“Do I have to give you that money I owe you for the contraband cigarettes?”

“Is that what this is all about?”

“No, no, I really am scared of humidity. It’s why I left the South. And as far as I know, rain is really fucking humid.”

“Pay me whenever.”

“But not tonight right?”

“What did I just say?”

“I really don’t think I should. I kinda have these taxes that need to be paid…”

“So?”

“About nine?”

"It's like mental Judo."

Self-preservation, that is, especially when you’re a single, sensitive young man with a heart of gold. When you’re halfway through this, you've learned something about self-defense:

"Both outer sleeves were torn to the elbows, and when the last-legger raised his arms—he looked like a bat shaking its wings. And on his feet were boatlike rubber overshoes glued together from red automobile tires.

"Why was he dressed so warmly? In the first place, the summer was short and the winter long, and it was necessary to keep everything he had for the winter, and where else could he keep it except on himself? In the second place, the principal reason, he created by this means a soft and well-padded exterior, and thus did not feel pain when he was struck. He could be kicked and beaten with sticks without getting bruised. This was his one defense. All he had to do was be quick enough to see who was about to strike him, drop to the ground in time, pull his knees up to his stomach, thus covering it, press his head down to his chest and embrace it with his thickly padded arms. Then the only places they could hit him were padded. And so that no one should beat him for too long at a time—it was necessary quickly to give the person beating him a feeling of triumph. And to this end Y. had learned to howl hideously, like a piglet, from the very first blow, even though he wasn’t hurting in the least."
—Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Which is why, at least in metaphorical terms, one might understate one’s position, one’s own opinion. Sometimes dishonesty is a legitimate defense, a little mental Judo to redirect runaway momentum, to deflect wild energy, to prevent one from having to say “uncle” just yet. One has the right to be a little bit cagey, no?

On the third day, I rose from the dead

OK, technically I'm on sabbatical, and this probably would've been more meaningful had I posted it yesterday, but here is a paper entitled On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ (PDF), the *very* paper that Mel Gibson used for his movie. For those of you who wanted to play along at home.

On a related note, Maud considers similar punishment for rude L-train riders:

I may be short, but I'm a high kicker. I flush public toilets with my foot, even in restrooms with those auto-flush buttons halfway up the wall. So you might want to brush those bangs out of your eyes, "new wave" Williamsburg gentlemen, and get your jollies some other way.

OK, back to my hollow log. And kudos to my substitute blogging babe Reeves, whom, I hasten to add, does not have bangs. Keep on keepin' on.

"You've clearly been mishandled by other men"

As it turns out, that’s a pretty effective line there.

Also, it turns out, there’s nothing in here about how to pick up two girls at once. Not that I’m into that sort of thing, but last night there were two attractive young women flirting with me on the Q train and I really could have used a crib sheet. So I haven’t learned any new tricks (besides the penis puppetry, of course), but I did learn this:

"Studies have shown that the more evenly matched partners are in their attractiveness, the more likely they are to stay together.

"But evaluating your own attractiveness may be difficult. Research has shown that many women have a poor body-image, and often underestimate their attractiveness. Some recent studies indicate, for example, that up to 80% of adult women believe that they are too fat, and try to achieve a figure that is around two sizes smaller than the body-size men find most desirable. If you are female, the odds are that you are more attractive than you think, so try flirting with some better-looking men."

So, it turns out there is a scientific reason why beautiful women get involved with me.

…maybe next time they’ll do a scientific study on why they end up hating me so fucking much.

The Weekend in Review

I saw Starsky & Hutch this weekend. It stars a car and two guys who seem to be getting less funny every day. The car was awesome though.


Seriously though:
Hostage-taking has become de rigueur in Iraq. And in Japan, at least, it's forcing a political debate on the appropriateness of Japanese troops engaged abroad.

And if this isn't a warning, I don't know what is. Of course, hindsight's 20/20 and I don't fault the Bushies for not doing enough about terrorism (they did have culture and class wars to start, after all), but to say that this is not a warning is to say that up is down.

And if the Times doesn't cough up an apology, I will lose all my faith in the news media. Wait, that already happened.

I never could finish that biography of Guy Debord either, but I know he had something to do with this. And that's all right with me.

Declare Guerre Nucleaire!

"Had an atomic bore, in 2004,
Did some atomic tricks in 2006,
Got out way late, in 2008,
Let's do it all again, in 2010,
And for 5, 7, 9, and 11, best guess is yours."

Happy nuking everyone!

So it turns out, I'm a bad, bad man.

"We expose ourselves recklessly. We wreck ourselves carelessly."


Have you ever antagonized someone so much that they made out with you?


And then I got up this morning and I’ve either suddenly become left-handed, or this is a woman’s shirt I’m wearing. Maybe it’s just my own perception that’s askew after that happy hour that went until 2am. Either way, last night proved that you don’t have to go all the way to Harlem to get punched by a girl. And thank bog for that.


Speaking of perspective, the Post and the Daily News have slightly different takes on the Baroness of B.S. today. Really now. She’s either a liar or she’s not. And to be honest, when you consistently catch someone lying to you and you continue to trust them, then you’re a sucker.


Meanwhile, somewhere between pages 47 and 199 of Orwell’s 1984, Michael Powell’s FCC threatens their friends over at Clear Channel with a $500,000 fine for running Howard Stern’s crap show. How convenient. What fucking country is this? Iran?


In other news—does anyone have any fucking money? I’m waiting on four (four!) checks of considerable size from three different bureaucratic entities. And my rent check remains undeposited, like the other shoe waiting to drop. It’s bad news, really, because I’ve got plans:


Friday: Oneida at Maxwell's in Hoboken. They rock and they don't sound like anyone else. Their latest comes on two CDs! It might be painful, but it's the kind of pain that feels good.


Saturday: The Black Lips at Sin-e. They play fun punk rock type stuff that all the seriously cool kids enjoy...according to Eric, who has excellent taste in both music and clothes. Here's a sample.


Sunday: Go hide some funny colored eggs in the backyard and send the kids out to dig around for a few hours. While they’re at it, you can hit the bong and watch the 2pm replay of Chelsea vs. Middlesbrough on Fox Sports World. And pray for Middlesbrough to pull out a win, for the sake of Gooners everywhere. Oh, and there’s also some sort of flavor-of-the-week religious festival going on. Or something. I don’t care; real people are existentialists anyway.


So, uh, where’s that money you said you’d loan me?


But back to the business at hand. I’ve got some things planned for you people, including thorough discussions of the state of rock criticism, our culture of propaganda, how punk rock saved my life twice, and whether or not the current global instability is a direct result of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I'm dead fucking serious.


And if these links are broken, it’s your own fault.

The intro and the outro

I want to introduce my incoming guest blogger, Reeves.

In addition to being a voiciferous member of the commenting squad, he is also, as you might imagine, politically astute, funny as all get out, southern-gentlemanly* without being a goon about it, and in all likelihood smarter than I am. He's a pool shark, a card sharp, and a screen-printing artiste. AND he loves the Minutemen.

He agreed to do this guest blogging thing because I promised it would get him laid. Can I have a member of the audience come to the stage please?

Come on, ladies. How could you refuse these eyelashes?

Incidentally, I'll be back sometime soon. And I won't be far away, so behave.
*How many times has he picked me up off the floor of a bar? More times than I wish to recount.

If you got some big fucking secret, then why don't you sing ME something?

G. Beato (aka TMFTML sugardaddy) has an excellent take on the much discussed CRACKDOWN ON PORNOGRAPHY, a scourge more worrisome than terrorism, environmental catastrophes, the environment, or our failing school system. Xtreme Measures--Washington's new crackdown on pornography:

This dire take on the situation isn’t particularly novel. In 1873 Anthony Comstock, America’s first great vice hunter, lamented the state of the union in his diary. "Why is it that every public play must have a naked woman?" he complained. "It is disgusting; and pernicious to the young. It seems as though we were living in an age of lust."

Fun Fact!

Oh, Lindsay? He's mine, all mine!

Don't say my car's topless, say the titties is out

Aw yeah, it's the first real sign of spring and the coed hotties be rockin' they mams in the nonstop haltertops. You forget how much you miss that until it returns.

Also I'm spotting the frosh girls who've shaved their heads for the first time. I can almost remember far enough back to when *I* thought that was cool. I can also almost remember when I thought *anything* was cool. Now nothing is cool and everything sucks, go shit in your hat.

Actually, one thing is cool: The Thermals, whom I saw last night. They were so much fun to watch and listen to, and so young and cute and full of verve.

bmarkey was the one who turned me onto them* and he once mentioned something along the lines of, "Just wait till you see them in person; they're cute as the dickens."

He was right, as usual.

See, he knows a lot about music. In fact, right now, he's got an excellent post all about Blue Oyster Cult, and if you're rolling your eyes at the idea of "excellent" and BOC in the same sentence, it's all the more reason for you to go read it.

Apropos of nothing (aside from the fact that it's a story coming out of the general geographic vicinity as both the Big Green House AND The Thermals...you can draw your own premature and wildly inappropriate conclusion here), check out this truly bizarre story of The "Wild Boys" of British Columbia.

In general maintenance news, I'm just not feelin' it so much these days. So posting may be erratic for a while, unless I can sweet-talk a certain someone into guest blogging for me.

*Incidentally, folks, he makes the best mix tapes ever.

I'm thinking.

I got nothin'. Why don't you go click on those folks in the sidebar, most of whom I only link to in order to curry favor.

This just in!

Cobain still dead, Love still murderous cunt.

Hate and war

While I was busily unpacking my 300 teapots this weekend, people was gettin' blowed up all over the world. Yay Jesus!

I pretty much have been jerking off to the fantasy of the George Bushes and Bill Clinton getting tried at the Hague for war crimes. I will probably be dead before that happens, blowed up by my own hand trying to light the GODDAMNED pilot in my stove.

In the meantime, since I have nothing of value to offer of my own, for a limited time only I present to you two Live Ones mp3s! Yay-yuh!

(Note: Titles are approximated as I never got the song list.)

We're the Ones
Got What You Wanted

Bon Appetit.

Chewin' 'baccy and reading the Paw Paw Times

In many senses, LaVonne Snowden is the literary world's Grandma Moses:

The dream, at first, was to get a high-school diploma. She would frame it and hang it on the wall for all the grandchildren to see.

But another idea came along to distract her: What about a novel, loosely based on her life during the Depression?

"I fell to writing, and all my schoolwork flew out the window," said LaVonne Snowden, 86, from her room at Madison House, a Kirkland retirement home. "It's the most wonderful thing, my book is."

I managed to find another article about her here, but there's maddeningly little information about this book. I'm sure that it's not destined for literary shortlists, but I'd be curious to read it.

(Via Stephany, Maud's ever-reliable Friday guest.)

Bring it on!

Women needed for Wrestling /Fighting Shoots.

I need a little extra cash. And everyone knows how fond I am of Apartment House Wrestling. And lord knows my political career went in the shitter after that dildo-spokesmodel fiasco in '96. I'm never doing tradeshow work again.

Be there be there be there! MUDBOG!!!

What are you doing tonight? I have a suggestion: Go see The Live Ones at Trash, the Monstrosity formerly known as the Hideousness Toybox formerly known as the Heinousness Luxx. There's OPEN BAR from 8 to 10. Frankly, I'd attend an accounting conference if there was an open bar, and you know you would too. And besides, it's going to be an excellent show, as the sound system there is pretty damn good and the boys have a WHOLE BUNCH of new tunes. (I was actually planning on posting some mp3s off their new 9-song demo but it, like pretty much everything else in my apartment, is still packed away somewhere.* So maybe tomorrow or the next day I will.)

I am almost ashamed to admit that I was at Trash last Saturday night. They were doling out PBRs hand over fist at the open bar, which made me think, Dude, it's OPEN BAR, order a frickin' Heineken at least.

Question: Isn't the whole "white trash" theme *so* 2001? Isn't it time we moved onto some other disenfranchised socioeconomic group? My suggestion: Sierra Leone Child Warrior Refugees. I'm thinking generic white sneakers, too-short Rustler jeans, those off-market wildly patterned Caldor sweaters. Accessorize with a bible and amputated limbs. Don't tell me I'm not onto something here.

Actually, an unexpected highlight of the evening came in the form of Kid Casanova, who are all so frickin' cute I expect them to supplant the White Stripes** on M2 any day now. I liked 'em: They had a Jam/Clash/Buzzcocks/Elvis Costello sound. And a girl drummer who was very fun to watch.

Anyhow, so tonight, The Live Ones, at Trash. BE THERE!
*I'm going on Day 4 with my pants, as a matter of fact. And I DEFY any of my cow-orker motherfuckers to call me on it, biznatches.

**Are the White Stripes still popular? Will someone with cable TV weigh in? If not, just assume that White Stripes=variable_cute indieband.