San Jose

San Jose
Originally uploaded by mutant moth

1000 ft of portapotties.

Tahoe

Tahoe
Originally uploaded by mutant moth

I went to Tahoe and it was awesome. Not just because it was so close to Nevada, but that was a big part of it. Here are pics of me and things prettier than me.

the polyphonic spree on lithium

Other than not going to Comic-Con this year like I wanted to, I also didn't get to go to Lollapalooza like I wanted to, and, predictably, I missed out. I hardly ever hear Nirvana covers, and I think this is the only one I've ever heard that's any good. You can really hear how beautiful the melody is when it's played on pianos and sousaphones and whatever else the Polyphonic Spree plays...Plus Tim DeLaughter just puts so much heart into it. What you can't see, unfortunately, is the crowd losing their shit. Oh well, maybe next time, right?

Here's a better sounding version from the El Rey in Los Angeles from July.



And while we're at it, Tim DeLaughter with his old band Tripping Daisy from Trees in Dallas, TX, way back in the day, filmed by Texas filmmaker Jeff Liles.



I hope to post something more substantial soon, but I've been actually working at work and I don't have the WEBS at home still. I sit and stare out my window a lot, but I can't see anything because the TV's in the way.

awesome

awesome
Originally uploaded by mutant moth

Panko-fried cod with broccoli and baby corns sauteed in garlic and olive oil.

we almost kinda coulda had san diego

This past weekend was San Diego Comic-Con, aka the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. It's the only time people who look like me get to mingle with one another, share our nerddom and also mingle with those who are much more physically attractive than ourselves, and the only time those people have to acknowledge us.

I didn't get to go to Comic-Con this year, though I did send a writer. I really wanted to go. I asked my boss. Last year, when they didn't send me, they said that they'd made a mistake and that I would definitely go this year. Instead, I came into the office and helped an intern move, and as a result, I missed my Rendezvous with Alba.

I can already see how it would've went. I would've been perusing long boxes for Zatanna memorabilia and copies of "Kraven's Last Hunt," the greatest Spider-man story ever told (I already have it of course in single issue form, but they're in New York, and it would be nice to have some extra copies--just in case). Maybe she would be looking for issues of Sin City to bone up on her Nancy Callahan character for the sequel, or perhaps her involvement in the comic book movie world would have sparked her interest in sequential art and she would be looking to expand her comic book horizons.

Our quiet searches would've caused us to accidentally bump into one another. "Oh! I'm sorry!" she would've said. I would've gotten sweaty in response. In my haste to shield myself from her overpowering sexy lasers (its' been a long weekend), I would've stammered something illegible and tried to move away, but she'd have labeled me a savvy comics vet because of my Sandman hat, pants and T-shirt and would've asked, "Are these any good?" She would've been holding a couple copies of Love and Rockets and I would've heard cello music.

From there, we'd grab a pick bite to eat so she could "pick my brain about comics." I'd suggest Al Aqua 2 just a few blocks away. I'd tell her that I'd eaten there the last time I was at Comic-Con in 2005, and I thought it was great. We'd head over there in her Prius. I'd order some sort of fish thing. ...I haven't really thought about what she'd get. Then she'd put it on her Amex card and I'd give a big sigh of relief, because that shit was fucking expensive. On the way back, the conversation would turn to other things: work, stress, Icanhascheezburger, you know, the important things. She'd tell me she just became single and was hoping to get her mind off things. I would've silently cursed the false claims of my "all day dry" antiperspirant.

Of course, upon our return to the convention center, reality--or as reality as the Comic-Con would get--would soon set in. Her pocket PC would've been raging with messages and she'd say something like, "I almost forgot about that press junket," or, "I can't believe I have to take that photo op with Dain Cook. He's such a tool," or, "I have to meet up with my manager so we can catch our plane out in a few hours." Or something like that. We'd wave and say it was nice to meet you, and I'd become just another balding 30-something fat-ish man in the Comic-Con crowd. Back where I belong, with my brethren. If I'd gone to San Diego.

odaijini

I've officially become a patron of the arts. The other day, I got a print by Audrey Kawasaki, who's one of my favorite artists right now. It's not like it's a very long list; I'm not very astute when it comes to following artsy stuff. Still, I'm extremely excited. When I ordered the print, I wasn't sure that I got through in time. Four weeks later, when I was pretty much sure that I hadn't gotten it, a well wrapped package appeared at my office and I hopped from desk to desk showing it off. It's not very big--just a 10" x 8" print--and it only cost me $55 all together with shipping, but I've never really owned a piece of art before. The print is on archival paper and is number 9 of 200, which makes the comic collector nerd in me get a stiffy (OMG!!! First TEN?!!11). Right now, she's off being framed (on the company's account) and I'm already scoping the walls of my little studio for the perfect spot. I may have to sell the car to get more of this stuff.

more flies with honey, i guess...

Earlier in the month, I decided, since I would no longer have cable, to subscribe to just about any YouTube channel that interested me in hopes that I would be getting the Internets back soon. One day at work, I was surfing the 'Tube for meatier stuff, newsy stuff, since I wouldn't any longer have access to The Daily Show. One of the featured videos that day was a beautiful, intelligent woman with a clipped accent and deep, dark eyes who implored viewers to leave comments and video responses for something. It didn't really matter what. I clicked subscribe. Turns out it was Ghida Fahkry and she's a news presenter for Al Jazeera English. I can listen to her say the world "English" all day. Also turns out that the channel has some really interesting stuff about places I'll probably never go to and people I don't really understand. Unfortunately, they haven't posted any more of Ghida other than the above thank you. Instead, there are actual news items that bum me out like this:

off the grid

I'm not dead. I've moved somewhat off the grid, meaning that I am now living in a studio apartment without cable or the Internets. I have rabbit ears and comic books and Battlestar Galactica on DVD. It's really fucking good, and that's got almost nothing to do with this or this. But they both help.

Yesterday I was at a Jack in the Box, here in downtown just half a block from my office. I stopped there to grab a quick bite to eat before heading over to see Queens of the Stone Age (they rocked). Unfortunately, the concept of fast food seems to have escaped this town's understanding. It's shitty burgers at low prices served up sorta warm and really quick. I should have my burger before I finish picking up the change.

Now, I'm a patient person, but it was just taking forever. I was sitting at a vaguely clean booth with two flies flailing through their final death throes on the table. I didn't say anything. I don't like to get uppity with people handling my food, and it turns my stomach when someone talks down to a waiter/waitress/server. I've stopped being friends with people because of it.

I just sat it out. At the tables behind me was a Christian men's group talking about the scriptures. I wasn't really paying attention, but only because they seemed to be speaking in some kind of code. I wish I could remember the word the leader kept using. Proclivity? It's lost to me. I figured I had to be in the know. I had to be born again. Or initiated. Or something. I see the group in there all the time, and I always wondered why they chose to meet in a Jack in the Box. I would've at least sprung for a Carl's Jr.

Eventually, my name was called, and I retrieved my tray of food: a Sourdough Jack and a small curly fries. It's about as good as it sounds.

I finished up at the same time as the men's group. While I was at the garbage can dumping the paper wrappers, the leader came up to me and introduced himself. His name was John. He said the group met there every Tuesday. He kept looking at my shirt--for a local metal band--that had a minotaur on it. He asked me if I had a relationship with God. I told him I did "in my own way." When I said it, I felt like a douchebag. A simple yes or no would've sufficed. I just thought a definite answer one way or the other would've led into a deeper conversation, and I really just wanted to get drunk and see a rock show, and I was lucky enough to do both. I've become increasingly proficient at giving answers that aren't answers. It sounds like it could be an answer, but it's so open-ended and esoteric that it doesn't really say anything. It seemed like a good enough response, though, because all he said in response was, "I understand." I'm glad one of us did.

eye candy

Since I saw the first trailer, I was pretty amped up about the Transformers movie. I figured it'd be either one of the coolest action movies ever made or the worst piece of shit since the American remake of Godzilla. Over the past few months, my expectations wavered across the spectrum. But I was crazy about the toys and cartoons when I was a kid, and my love for nostalgia is just too strong. I just got back from Transformers, and I think I'm still a bit shaken up. I'm not trying to say that this was a remarkable piece of cinema that will change the way you feel about life. I mean, it might. And if it does that to you, I'm sorry; but what I am saying is that the last half hour or so left me rather shaken and in a paralyzing state of awe.

If you took a shot for every explosion in this movie, you'd die of alcohol poisoning before the second act. There was a scene where the lead character's father takes him to a used car lot to buy his first car, and even then there's an explosion. And if things weren't exploding, there were car chases, but those scenes usually just led to more explosions. I think in years to come, people who have seen the movie in theaters will end up being diagnosed with some kind of disorder like Post-Transformers Stress Syndrome or something like that. Symptoms include loss of hearing, chills and involuntary trembling.

Honestly, it was really good. It was pretty much the perfect summer blockbuster. The dialogue was triumphantly cheesy, Shia LeBeouf was kinda funny, Megan Fox held down the Sexy and the story moved right along very crisply. Even John Turturro was hilarious in a small role. I won't go into the story, because it was pretty basic. I mean, if you couldn't figure out what was going on from the trailers, you're beyond my help. All you need to know is that these robots pack a serious ass-whoopin'. A few years ago, computer animation had ceased to impress me, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy seemed to take all that shit to the next level. Though the third Spider-Man movie was a bit disappointing, I thought the computer effects were the best I'd ever seen. Transformers raised the bar even higher, because not only did the robots look amazing and interacted seamlessly with the human characters, but they also had a lot of personality which really sold the film.

My favorite was Bumblebee, because he was my favorite as a kid. I remember having the toy and transforming him so much that one of his legs fell off, but I wouldn't stop playing with him, I just had to stand him very carefully and keep him in car mode a lot. In the movie, Bumblebee's an old Camaro instead of a VW Bug, but the effect is still the same. He's still the little Transformer that could. He gets captured, he gets his ass kicked, but the little guy has a lot of heart and just keeps going out there, fighting the good fight. I mean, I suppose that could be considered just plain stupid, but "heroic" has a much nicer ring to it.

shades of gray

Some lazy afternoon when most people are at school or work, I was home. Maybe I was sick or maybe I just didn't have anything to do that day. My mother and I ended up watching some guy behind a desk giving a monologue about the trials and tribulations he faced trying to cure his macular pucker. We both really enjoyed it, and it seemed that every time I was at home when most people are at school or work, the film starring the fast-talking, paranoid-delusional and poignantly insightful gray-haired man was on IFC. It was sure better than sitting in the class room.

The movie was Gray's Anatomy, and it introduced me to one of the real treasures of New York City, Spalding Gray. He was an actor and a writer--he had roles here and there in movies like The Killing Fields--but he made a name for himself with his monologues, in which he talked candidly about his life as a writer, actor and later husband and father. I liked his sardonic sense of humor and how he blew up even the most mundane things into bigger-than-life experiences. His voice was very expressive and still bore the remnants of his New England upbringing. Other than Gray's Anatomy, two other films of his monologues are available: Monster in the Box and Swimming to Cambodia. A few years ago, he killed himself by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry. He had been missing for quite some time. His body was found washed up on the shores of Brooklyn.

Gray had a tumultuous life. His mother committed suicide. He cheated his wife and longtime collaborator with the woman who survived him and is the mother of his children. On a trip to Ireland, he was in a car accident that almost killed him, but left him scarred. Unable to cope with his injury and suffering from complications, he fell further into depression and eventually took his own life.

Monster in the Box is probably my favorite of the three. I just saw it again this evening. It's about his journey as a writer to complete his book Impossible Vacation, a mammoth 1,900 page manuscript about a New England man whose mother commits suicide while he is away on a trip. The monologue recounts Spalding's travels from New York City to Los Angeles to Nicaragua to the former Soviet Union and back to New York where, while playing The Stage Manager in a production of Our Town, he finally finishes his manuscript. (The published novel is only around 230 pages, though. I would've hated to have to edit that down.) Through out, Gray chronicles the internal and external distractions that impeded his progress on the book, and since at one time I foolishly tried to write a book, I guess I can relate to some extent.

Considering trying to figure out how to wrap this up, I've spent the last half-hour watching videos on YouTube, I guess the distraction thing really hits home. I wanted to find a quote from the movie; it was his description of his Los Angeles apartment and the ever-present California sun, but Google betrayed me. You can blame technology. RIP Spalding.

counting backwards spirit totem

You know you've hit rock bottom when you're sending out MySpace bulletins about needing room mates. I've officially run out of people I know in town. Luckily, the response has been mediocre. If this fails, I'm hoping there's a comfortable place to squat nearby, or at the very least, I can live in my cushy new car. Less expenses would be welcome, though I'm not sure how one goes about living in a car. I would ask the dudes who used to live in the van at the end of my cul-de-sac, but they've moved on. Such is the life of the nomad. Work sucks, my personal life is in turmoil, I'm not sure what my next step is. Right, you've heard it before. Like most people, when things get tough, they turn to the spiritual world, but even the picture of my boy Jesus that lives on my key chain's even giving me a look like, "Dude. It's summer. Grab a beer and chill out." He's probably right. He always is, but that's not what I need right now. Thanks to sites like Icanhascheezburger.com, I've found comfort in the animal kingdom (but not in a dirty way) and it made me think about my spirit animals, of which I have three, and I thought I'd share them.

The Owl. I've always been something of a night owl. Being active in the daylight hours really fucks my chi. Even as a young pup (there's no doggie in my totem, but I am a friend to all dogs), my parents never could get me to go to sleep. I remember laying awake in my bed thinking of all kinds of crazy shit like the Satan under my bed and the ghost in my closet. I don't think I really believed in these things, but I thought about them enough to convince myself of the possibility. Ever since Bubo from The Clash of the Titans, I've always been a friend to the owl, though only in the same way you're friends with someone you'd like to be friends with but have ever actually met, which is to say you're not really friends with them. But I'd like to be. If I ever met an owl, I'd say, "Yo, guy. How are you?" and I figure we'd hit it off from there. According to the Holistic Shop Dictionary, which I hold in the highest regard, owls represent wisdom, clairvoyance and magic. Clearly, a perfect fit.

The Turtle. When I was younger, I had a turtle. I named him Raphael after the Ninja Turtle. I didn't know how to take care of a turtle so it died. I killed Raphael, and I hate myself. His remains are buried in a shoe box (pet reptile coffin of choice) in my back yard beneath a pear tree. I think he would've wanted it that way. Holistic Shop Dictionary says turtles represent completion and protection, but for me, I think of poor Raphael and feel only remorse and regret. I am a terrible shabby person. But mostly, I kinda look like a turtle. Especially when I'm sitting down.

The Koala. You won't find him in the Holistic Shop Dictionary because Native Americans probably never seen one of these noble beasts. They live far from America, but thanks to Outback Steakhouses, I can eat myself into a stupor and gaze upon pictures of their contented visages. I used to watch a cartoon called Quickie the Koala, or something to that effect, and I even had a stuffed koala toy that I'd gotten at a flea market who I called by the same name. I like their fluffy ears and their weird noses and that every time you see a picture of these things, they're always asleep or eating, which are just about two of the most pleasurable things one can do with their free time. I guess this is what I aspire to be: small, gray, fuzzy, lazy. Godspeed, brave koala.

I get the feeling I did one of these before, but maybe with different animals, or all the same animals except one. I don't know. I just felt compelled to write something and on my way to get a tuna melt sandwich for lunch this afternoon, I couldn't stop thinking about owls. I don't know either.

our friend, meg white

I've spent just about all the work long day listening to the new White Stripes album, Icky Thump, and except for one song, I'm thoroughly pleased. Elephant ruled, the one after that I was pretty eh about, but this one may even be better with than the former, which kinda caused me to fall in love with The White Stripes, and also, Meg, who has been bestowed with the best ta-tas in rock.



I'm tired of hearing smarmy indie rock nerds scoff at the group because they make simple music and say that Meg's a shitty drummer. First off, it's rock music, and you don't have to be Bernard Purdy to make rock music. It's all in 4-4 time. All you've gotta do is look cool and keep the beat, and she does both of those things just fine. The new album's the rock, so if you're lame enough to think music should be fun, you'll probably like it. If not, put on some more of your boring ass Tortise albums and watch your fingernails grow.

Party @ the Thunderbird!

Party @ the Thunderbird!
Originally uploaded by mutant moth.

Act like you know.

the star

The days since taking home my car (I still haven't named her; I liked the Esme suggestion, though I prefer the full Esmerelda, but it just doesn't seem right) have been difficult ones. One of my best friends in town moved away, another is leaving, and another still may be leaving the office (and maybe even more). On top of that, my godmother died back home, and on the same day, a cousin out here in California also died. They passed within hours of each other. My first trip in the new car was to drive to a wake. I was there when the family first saw the body. The husband nearly collapsed on the coffin, the children wailed and cried. They hugged each other almost as if to keep themselves standing. I left the room.

I called my cousin "aunt," which is pretty common in my family if the cousin is older. I never spent a whole lot of time with her, but the time I did was great. She had a great sense of humor, and she was really kind. My godmother--my mother's sister--was very important to me. She went into a coma and passed away a few days later. She was one of the few who still called me. She even sent me birthday cards. The last time I saw her was at my sister's wedding, and I also called to wish her a happy mother's day. She'd been in and out of the hospital for a while. At my cousin's wake, the family expressed their sympathy for me. I wasn't able to get a flight back east. My mom asked me to go to Napa to pay respects in her place. I probably would've gone even if she hadn't asked.

I've been pretty out of it the past couple weeks. Everything that's been going on has been pretty overwhelming; it was just a whole lot at once. I've been mailing it in at work... I haven't been able to concentrate. I watch a lot of baseball scores and blog on my magazine's site and send a few e-mails or make some phone calls. I feel like I'm slacking--probably because I am.

But tonight was good. My roommates, a couple of friends and I drove about half-an-hour south of here to grab Indian food at this smaller town with a large Sikh population. I'd never actually had Indian food before, but everyone up here has a pretty big hard-on for it. Telling people I never tried it before was met with the same fear and suspicion as my admission that I hate avocado (I mean, really, it's gross). But I like Thai cuisine a lot, and I heard Indians use a lot of lamb, so I figured there was a good chance I'd like Indian. Plus I'm always down for a road trip.

The restaurant we went to was called Star of India, not to be confused with Taste of India, which was also in the same town. A couple of things tipped me off that the place would be good. First, an Indian friend of one of my dinner buddies said the place was the real deal. Second, the parking lot was packed. Third, we were the only white people in the restaurant. To top it off, they were hosting a party for a couple of high school graduates, so not only were we the overwhelming minority, but everyone there also knew each other. I would've felt really out of place if the owner of the restaurant--a man who looked kinda younger than I imagined his true age would dictate--wearing a red turban and dark bushy beard, came to greet us at the door with firm handshakes. He said he had a table for us, and gave us menus and water.

I drank two Dansberg beers, which the bottle claimed were made with Himalayan water, and they were really good. Then my samosas came out, and they were awesome. Later came the main course--lamb korma--along with steaming plates of basmati rice and naan. The sauce was so rich, and the level of spices were so complex, they kinda confused me, but god it was good.

Meanwhile, the party was reaching its peak. After the graduates gave a speech, the music began to blare. It was loud the whole time we were there, but now it was amazingly so. A DJ cranked music with male and/or female vocalists hollering passionately in a language I don't understand and dudes with drums, who were there at the party, pounded out infectious beats. When I walked past the party, women in bright colored dresses whirled together in a tight-knit group, and the men danced outside their circle. There was drums, whistling, screaming, stomping, clapping. At one point the partition that separated the general dining area from the private party rattled loudly. We turned to see a man peek over the top.

"Sorry about that," he said. "We're just a bunch of drunk Hindus."

Rolling.

Rolling.
Originally uploaded by mutant moth.

What I signed my life away for. She still needs a name.

american spirit

The guy at the liquor store isn't a friend of mine, but he might as well be. I see him more than most of my friends. Every time I see him, he gives a big smile and a hearty hello and he's always curious about what beer I'm going to buy. I get a lot of the weirder stuff, a lot of the stronger stuff, which he takes pride in stocking. Once he told me that he wished all his customers had the same taste in beer as I did. I said well, yeah, because it's more expensive, but really, he just seemed bored with the seemingly endless parade of Coors and Budweiser 30 packs that are slapped on his counter. Maybe my sixes of whatever broke up the monotony of his day. I don't know.

Like I said, we're not really friends. I don't know his name. I never ask people's names (I figure they'll tell me if they want me to know), but I do get weirded out when I see someone else working the counter. I think the guy's from the Middle East somewhere. I heard him talking to a younger guy who also works there in a foreign language that could've been Arabic. I'm not a linguist, but he's definitely not a white dude. Today, I picked up a six of Moose Drool and got in line behind these two guys. I wasn't paying attention. Shit can happen right in front of me without me noticing. Once my mind gets going on something, it's really hard to get my attention. It's not usual for the place to have a line, though I know it must do good business. It's just that people usually go in, get what they want, and leave. It's all very efficient. I don't know what grabbed my attention, but I could tell the dudes in front of me were riled up about something. There was a third guy too, ordering American Spirits, but I don't think he was with the two in front of me. The liquor store guy asked him if he wanted a pack or the pouch of tobacco you can roll. That's when one of the guys in front of me piped up.

"You know what he wants," he said.

I was in my own world till just about then. I have no idea what transpired before that even though it was right in front of me. But there was something about the way the guy said it that got my attention. Then I noticed his shaved head, his white wife beater, his pasty complexion and the tattoos on his large triceps that read "white" and "anger" left to right respectively.

Him and his skinhead buddy kept shooting underhanded comments at the liquor store guy, but nothing overt or all that offensive. They'd get snide, and the liquor store guy would just kinda laugh them off. He looked completely indifferent to their comments; he just kept smiling and laughing. After they paid for they're tall boys, the talkative one dropped a penny from the change on the table hard, kinda just tossing it at the liquor store guy, but not so much to hit him with it and said something else I don't remember (I know, I'm doing a great job of telling this story), and the liquor store guy said chuckling, "That's ok, I'll forgive you this time."

I thought he handled it all very well. When I got up to the counter, I joked around with him and told him that I didn't realize the storm troopers were in town. He laughed and rung me up, but the whole time I was standing in line and looking at these guys, I couldn't help getting really angry. I wondered if one of them would notice me and think I was Jewish, because I get that a lot, and try to start shit with me in the store, or wait for me outside. I thought maybe I should hit one of them with a bottle. I figured I could get one real good before the other one pummeled me something awful. As I walked home with my six pack, I got increasingly more angry, like I should've done something, even though I didn't know what or why. Any shouting or bottle clubbing wouldn't have solved anything. They'd still be racist pricks, and I'd still be a whiny liberal (but with some whiny liberal bruises). And even worse, all that hate and anger would've made me just as bad as they were.

go ask alice...i think she'll know

I was doing some searching on Netflix for Kate Beckinsale movies, because even though we're madly in love (I sent her a letter about it, and since I haven't received one back, I'm going to assume that my feelings are reciprocated), I've only seen a few of them. I saw an Alice move on the list and moved it to the top of my queue. I guess it was made for British television, but it had a really good cast (Ian Holm, Steve Coogan, Ms. Beckinsale, and a few other really good British actors who I've seen a billion times but don't know their names).

It was very childish, but in a good way. It was obviously made for kids, but even the most saccharine portrayals of Lewis Carroll's work kinda freak me out. I told this to my roommate and she said that the Disney cartoon gave her nightmares when she was a kid. I still get an eerie chill when I think of some of the scenes in that.

What I like most about Carroll's work is his poetry and how he mixes it into his prose as if they were nursery rhymes passed down through generations. Ian Holm gave a beautiful reading of this poem in the telefilm, and it really got under my skin.

`I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
"Who are you, aged man?' I said.
"and how is it you live?"
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said "I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
"Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread --
A trifle, if you please."

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, "Come, tell me how you live!"
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said "I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rolands' Macassar Oil --
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
"Come, tell me how you live," I cried,
"And what it is you do!"

He said "I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom-cabs.
And that's the way" (he gave a wink)
"By which I get my wealth --
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour's noble health."

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so,
Of that old man I used to know --

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo --
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.'

I'm not quite sure what I think about it yet, but I love the rhythm of it, and the way Holm read it made it all seem really poignant. Maybe it was the accent. Not that I'm trying to be all "tell me your feelings" but if anyone of the four of you who read this have any thoughts about it, I'd like to hear it.

As if the Mets taking two of three from the Yankees wasn't enough to get the coming week off to a good start, I'm also going to sign my life away on a 2005 Scion xB. I got a pretty good deal on it and the payments are pretty low. I'm just really excited about having a car again, even if it means I won't be able to afford taking it anywhere. The one I'm getting is white, which isn't my favorite color (you know, it gets dirty real easy), and I'm not sure what I'm going to name her.

it had to be you

I've been playing this game with myself lately. I ponder whether I should stay up late and do some work at home or just try to get up early and take care of it in the morning. Usually, I opt for trying to get up early. Over the past week, it's worked once. Friday, I was at the office by 9 and finished a story on The Meat Puppets. I wasn't as happy with it as I'd hoped. I kinda wrote it long form and should have been more mindful of my word count. I thought I set the scene pretty well, it just took me a long time to do so. When you've only got 800 words to describe an experience you'll tell your grandkids about, you've got to make them count. You've still also got to make it relevant to others, because no one cares about your sentimental crap. I think I stumbled on that last bit, but I'll have another chance to rewrite it. Today, I brought home a stack of CDs to review, but I'm just going to take care of them in the morning. I decided my evening would be better served with sports and Chinese takeout and my last bottle of Moose Drool. I've gotta run out and buy another six.

When it comes to sports, I'm really loyal and super picky. I haven't been able to get behind another team since I was a New Jersey Devils fan. That was about 18 years ago, and the affair lasted till I moved to California. Now it's just the Mets and the football Giants. For the longest time, I've tried to get into a local team, but to no avail. I tried to half-heartedly cheer for the Sharks, but they're not really local, and I don't know anyone who's into hockey, so that ended that. The A's and the Giants are out, because my heart bleeds Mets; I hate the Raiders and the 49ers can go to hell. The closest team is the Sacramento Kings, who are kinda folk heroes up here, but their fans are so fairweather, and I've never really been much into basketball. However, over the past month or so, I really got into the Golden State Warriors and their unlikely playoff run, which was ended today by the Utah Jazz.

After they upset the Mavericks in round one, I was pretty hooked. Watching the game on TV from the Oracle Arena, where 20,000 fans were standing and screaming and chanting, "Air ball," was a total rush, so I settled into the unfamiliar role of frontrunner, and I enjoyed the ride for as long as it lasted. I mean, with plays like this, I doubt there's any sports fan who wouldn't be stoked.



At I saw the game slipping out of the Warriors' hands, I figured I'd just shrug it off, but I felt that familiar bubbling of frustration--a feeling you grow accustomed to cheering for the New York Mets. I began cursing under my breath, then out loud, and then muttering hateful things at the opposing team. It could have been the heat of the moment, but maybe I've finally found my local team.

my new car

Over the past week or so, I'd been planning to buy a new Toyota Yaris. The car's small and really good on gas and kinda spunky looking which were all the things I was looking for. I found one with the right color and options and just today handed in my credit application. I was excited.

"This is exciting!" said the agent at the car buying place who has been working with me over the past couple weeks.

"I know!" I said, because it was.

I waited all day to hear back whether or not I got the 6.9% financing that would make my payments manageable. I got a really good quote from GEICO on insurance--I even got an e-mail with the gecko on it--and had figured that even though I'd be eating Ramen and table salt for the next few years, I would at least be able to sit in my car and pretend I was going somewhere. I'd already planned to take a trip up into this podunk foothill town that has a really good Chinese restaurant with really nice owners. While I was there, I could pick up the office dog and bring him back down for the weekend. Perhaps I'd also a trip up to this little town further north in the valley that has a burger stand that sells tater tots and frostys.

I thought maybe I'd take a drive to the coast some weekend or do a day trip to Reno and play penny slots with the mug full of change I have in the living room. There must be at least $30 in there.

I don't need a car. I've lived here over five years without one. I don't need it to go to work; the office and all the bars worth going to (though they're not so much worth going to anymore) are all in walking distance. I'm over all the restaurants around me, but there's really nothing to exciting outside my walking distance. I've even hoofed it to the supermarket on a few occasions, though having a car would make those trips a lot easier. Mostly, I just wanted a car. When I was talking to my mom about it she told me I should have something besides work. It's true, I guess. All I know is, this morning when I woke up, I actually wanted to get out of bed so I could drop off my credit ap, and I haven't had many days like that lately. It's why I haven't been writing much, because I'd rather get over myself in private.

I got the call around 4 or so that my financing didn't come through. My credit's good. I knew that. I've had plenty of credit checks before. But I got a lot of debt because of school loans and credit card bills that I ran up when I first moved here and so I could take regular trips back home. I thought I'd budgeted it out, but seems like somewhere around 81% of my income goes to debt. The agent told me she could get me a rate that was around 8.9% which I guess is still really good. The payments would go up a bit, but I was going to be scraping by as it was. Hearing back about my credit report was pretty shitty too. I don't need another bill. I've never been much of a morning person anyways.

get it right the first time, then you wouldn't have these problems

The Mets dropped two of three at home to the fucking Braves. It's early in the season, really early, but it feels like 1990whatever - 2005 all over again. I can stomach losses to just about any other team, even the Yankees, but I take watching the Mets/Braves rivalry extremely personally. When the Mets lose to the Braves, it makes me want to throw a battery at a motherfucker.

I called my parents to bitch, but they weren't home. They called me 10 minutes later from my grandma's house to bitch about the same thing. My father used the word "fuck" liberally and then passed the phone on to my mom. She wasn't too happy about it either, but she doesn't use "fuck" too much. We said some snippy things to each other and then started laughing about it. It's only April, we reminded ourselves, we've got a whole season of aggravation to look forward to.

All day I've been putting off rewriting this cover letter and resume. I'm putting it off now too. I got some help editing it. I'm afraid of a few things: death, spiders, deadly spiders; but my worst fear is failure. Probably because I feel like I've failed at just about everything. The only reason why I'm applying for another job is because I feel like I've done poorly at this one, and another project I've had a significant hand in is struggling to survive. This doesn't make me happy. I wanted this to succeed more than anything. It still might. I don't know.

This other job seems like a good opportunity. It'll bring me back home, probably get me a bit more money, and allow me to keep doing what I like to do without a lot of the responsibility. But this folded piece of paper--the edited cover letter and resume--sitting in front of me on the desk is giving my stomach fits.

This whole weekend has been like this. A bit of a waste. I didn't do anything on Saturday. It rained all day, and I stayed in bed to read the new run of Wonder Woman comics. I only stepped outside to go to the mailbox to see if my new Netflix movie had arrived. It had. It was Art School Confidential, and I really liked it. Before that, I watched this Woody Allen flick called Anything Else. I didn't realize it was one of Allen's until I got it home. I'd only put it in my queue because Christina Ricci's in it. I liked that one a lot too, though Jason Biggs was a bit annoying. The only reason I left the house today is because my roommates invited me to go to the park. There was cheese, crackers and beer involved. This one type of cheese smelled like ass. I've washed my hands five times since, but the stench is still there. It didn't taste much better either.

I got a little buzzed at the park so we headed to Safeway for more beer. I got a bottle of wine too that I'll nurse at night before I go to bed. I also got ice cream, White Castles from the freezer section and Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream (it's tasty). All of the items were frivolous, so I put them on my credit card. I've really got to get this letter done.

how i learned to love by sitting on the toilet

Or, "Mortimer likes to watch me pee"

My lack of fondness for spiders is well-documented. I believe there's even a journal about it (other than this one, something much more academic); but much like my love for my fellow man and sex drive, my fear of spiders has begun to wane, though not nearly as much as the aforementioned.

Right next to my toilet, since returning from my trip to Vegas, lives Mortimer, a daddy long legs. He hangs from a web between the wall and the counter top and is just below my eye-level when I'm seated on the throne taking a dump. He hardly ever moves. And since I'm completely obsessive about keeping insects out of my house, he must rarely eat. Other than his bizarre hobby of watching me conduct my private business, he seems like a good enough chap.

Daddy long legses are the only spider that has made the cut as far as my arachnophobia is concerned. Mostly because they're relatively tiny, a sort of cartoon-y caricature of what a spider should look like and are almost entirely motionless. Plus, I sort of feel bad for them, because whereas other spiders got sexy nicknames like the black widow, or exotic monikers like the tarantula, the daddy long legs sounds like an old, Depression-era euphemism for a retarded circus clown that has now become frowned upon in polite conversation.

Over the past two months, Mortimer has become a sort of pet. I look forward to seeing him. He's really low maintenance too because all he does is sit there and he doesn't come looking for affection, which is a good thing because I'd probably shriek like a girl and lurch away if he ever came in contact with me. However, this week, for a couple days, Mortimer disappeared. On Monday, I figured he was just attending to spider business somewhere. By Wednesday, when he still hadn't returned, I actually started looking for him, but to no avail. I thought maybe the lack of flying insects in the house had finally starved him, or perhaps he'd found another more bountiful perch to occupy. I worried that he might have wandered into my bedroom which would have ended our friendship in bloodshed.

Luckily for both of us, Mortimer has returned, seemingly no worse for wear from his journey. He's once again hanging on his little web hoping for an errant mosquito to make a wrong turn, and I once again have someone to talk to when I urinate.

Maybe I should start going out again.

you can't cross the wall...nobody crosses the wall...

Spider-Man 3 is the best movie of 2007. I haven't seen it yet, but I don't have to. The trailers give me chills. Seriously. I think about the movie and my nipples get hard. I don't even have to go see it. In fact, I might just buy tickets to it and never go. It's already really fucking good in my head, and I wouldn't want to ruin it. That being said, there will be other movies that will tickle my fancy (I have a fancy to be tickled) this coming year. Ninja Cheerleaders for one. Also, the Transformers movie. That should be good. But the best of the bunch after The Best Movie of All Time Ever may be Stardust, based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, both of whom I've met, so I count as close personal friends.

(OK...on a side note, here's how I think Spider-Man 3 is going to go. At first, I thought it looked like putting Venom in it would be too much, because there's already Harry Osborn taking the mantle of the Green Goblin and the Sandman as Uncle Ben's killer and I figured they couldn't do that all in one movie. BUT, then I started thinking about it: So, Spidey finds out this new supervillain is really the mofo who offed his uncle, so he seeks revenge and fucks him the fuck up. This rage causes bad feelings to swelter which opens him up to the new black suit symbiote thing. THEN! Harry Osborn is all uppity so Spidey serves him something fierce, but they were tight homies so Spidey is all bummed. He realizes the suit's making him do bad things so he tears it off and then it finds Eddie Brock and becomes Venom and then Spidey has to engage in a metaphorical and actual battle against the rage that consumed him. And he makes out with Mary Jane a bunch of times. And I'll probably lose my shit in the theater and scream "FUCK HIM UP SPIDEY!!!" I've put a lot of thought into this.)

Anyway. Stardust. Here's the trailer. It stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, Ricky Gervais and Claire Danes, who I thought was super dreamy back when the graphic novel was originally released.

In other movie related news, rumors have surfaced that Kate Beckinsale may star in the Barbarella remake.



Squee.

so it goes...

RIP, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007).

i'm alive, if you want to call it that

Over the past month, I've had a host of interesting and wonderful and frightening experiences.

1. I went to Texas for South by Southwest, the music industry's biggest schmoozefest. I drank a lot and saw a ton of cool bands. I interviewed some of my favorite artists, including the Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood, who took me to his house for the interview and we hung out for almost two hours. When we were done, his brother Cris gave me a ride back downtown. It was an amazing experience to hang out and speak with artists who had made such an impact on my life and it was even more amazing that they weren't dicks to me. I also go to see them live for the first time since I'd seen them play a free show for Earth Day at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. I think I was 14 or 15 years old, and it was the first time I was ever in a mosh pit. They put on a killer show in a medium-sized, packed club in the middle of the day. I drank a bunch of free drinks and stood in awe of Curt's guitar playing. He can just fit so much into a song that doesn't seem like it should be there; somehow, he makes it all work. They played mostly new stuff, and I found myself liking it even more than some of the old stuff, though their version of "Plateau" gave me chills. A couple days later, I got to speak with Paz Lenchantin, who in addition to being amazingly beautiful, is also one of the most talented musicians in rock music. She was extremely nice and open and I got to meet her dog. Later that night, I checked out her band and they put on the best set I saw at the festival. They're called Entrance, and if you get the chance to see them live, you should probably get off your ass and go see them. I also had to stay in a hotel room with about seven other dudes for a week. That sucked. But the BBQ was good.
2. My sister got married. My baby sister. I flew to NYC and attended the wedding in NJ. I was a groomsman and ushered my new sister-in-law down the aisle. I'm stoked that she's apart of the family now because she was really funny and can drink me under the table. It's weird having in-laws, and I'm excited that my family's larger, but I just wish I was closer to everyone to actually enjoy it.
3. I interviewed Tori Amos a couple days ago, and I was really nervous about it. It was just over the phone; in-person probably would have driven me nuts. I'm not as much a fan of her as I used to be, but when I was a big fan, I was completely obsessed. People who'd spoken with her before informed me that she was a great person and a great interview as long as you asked good questions. That little caveat got me working harder than I have in months to make sure everything went well. I read and researched and listened to albums for four days. The interview went off 20 minutes later than scheduled, which in the rock world is pretty much right on time. Tori was funny and friendly and really passionate. I was pretty happy with how things were going, but 12 minutes in, the publicist got on the line and told me that we had to wrap it up. Then Tori said, "No, I want to give him more time," which is the first time any artist had ever done that for me. I was honored. We talked for another 12 minutes before we had to wrap it up. When we were done I thanked her and said I really enjoyed the conversation, because I did. She said to me, "Well, J. You got a lot more out of me than most people, because you're so darn sweet." Swear. I giggled and hung up. Ten minutes later, I got an e-mail from the publicist that read, "Tori absolutely loved you." I added the italics, but you get the picture. I'm pretty fucking awesome.

I've spent a whole lot of time away from home and am slowly coming to grips with the fact that I don't have anywhere to go or any major thing to do for quite some time. I'm pretty bummed about it. It's hard to go through all this crazy activity and then readjust to your regular boring life. It's not helping that the climate at work is getting more and more tumultuous, and I'm not sure where that leaves me. I'm kinda nervous about it, but I've been pretty good about checking all the usual sites for jobs just in case. Nothing's really jumped out at me thus far. In the meantime, I'm trying to treat myself as much as possible, mostly in the food department because the bars are getting pretty boring. I made the best T-bone steak I've ever had on my barbecue, and made killer shrimp fra diavolo for Easter. My roommate chipped in on the latter by making fresh pasta with black pepper mixed into the flour. Afterward, we checked out this Pavement movie and I remembered how awesome I thought they were. I've had these two songs playing in my head ever since. I think it's time for a money-grubbing reunion tour, guys.


Pavement - "Cut Your Hair"


Pavement - "Shady Lane"

domesticated

There was a dusty cobweb hovering over my head as I watched Barbarians II in bed this morning. Yesterday, my roommates' room was open and I saw how nicely neat it was. I switched over to the Food Network and caught Nigella Bites. All of these things (even the barbarians) inspired me to clean my room. I threw out the garbage, riled up the dust, put away the clothes, vacuumed and Febreezed.

It's nice in there now, but I haven't spent much time there since this afternoon. It was the first noticeably nice day of the year. The temperature got somewhere in the 80s, and since we got to turn our clocks ahead one hour a couple weeks early this year, we were afforded an extra hour of warm day time. I really hate having to "spring forward." I'm a night-dweller by design and have never had much use for daylight hours. They're usually associated with working or going to school or running errands or other things I find tedious and unpleasant. Not like night time when I can drink beer or type blogs or go to rock shows.

After cleaning, I took a trip with my roommates to go food shopping. We went to Trader Joe's for sexy stuff (good meat, swank meals in a box, sea salt crystals in a nifty container with a built-in grinder, cold cuts), a local natural food store for tofu (them) and strong beer (me), a decidedly more ghetto supermarket for cheap canned stuff, frozen chimichangas and bulk pasta, and then Target for housewares and the like. I got a colander, AAA batteries, some to-go lunch Tupperware and aluminum foil. When we got home, we unpacked and I made myself grilled turkey breast and artichoke hearts. It was my first meal of the day, and I used too much salt.

My roommates told me about this show they were going to at a cafe around the corner, so I decided to tag along. There were three singer/songwriters playing acoustic and a band that rocked out a bit more. One female performer had an amazing voice that seemed to completely mesmerize the crowd, and the frontman of the band turned out to be an intern at my office who usually plays drums in other people's bands. He played covers of '50s/'60s pop and rock songs and did a version of "Dock of the Bay" with an older black gentleman who had a really soulful voice. A lot of fun for a Sunday night, made better by the pints of Redhook ESB.

When we got back home, it was more beer, snacking from all the food we'd bought and the Food Network. While watching Bobby Flay get in a meat loaf battle, the conversation turned to Ms. Lawson; my roommate heard she had some backlash from feminists regarding her image as a "domestic goddess." I'm all for ambitious, career-driven women. I don't think women belong in the kitchen, but I don't like the view that somehow domestic work is menial. Cooking a meal for myself or others is a hell of a lot more fulfilling than anything I accomplish at my job. Maybe I just need another job. I don't know, but Nigella's got a killer rack.



If you're wondering why things look different around here, it's because I re-did the layout. And I even made that swanky header graphic all by myself in Photoshop. It took me about two hours. And yeah, I know it's super basic looking, but that shit was hard so fuck off. I also resurrected the old "<" icons created by Strange Things' domestic bombshell/makeover artist R. who also did a lot of work on my last Magritte look and never got the credit she deserved because I'm a thoughtless person and a terrible friend who only cares about himself.

led astray

Now that LOST--which kicked major ass this week--has moved to 10pm, my entire TV-watching schedule is out of whack. I'm left to aimless surfing during the 9 o'clock hour and that has opened my eyes to a whole new world of bad television programs. Tonight, my misguided prime time idleness found me wandering to the "new" CW and its litany of schmaltzy reality programming; I was lucky enough to catch the last half-hour of The Pussy Cat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, which I guess normally airs on Tuesdays.

Since the Pussy Cat Doll brand has many forms, I wondered what exactly this new Doll would be used for. Would she be a sexy croupier at the Caeser's Palace Casino in Los Vegas? Would she be one of the dancing ladies at some Los Angeles nightclub? Or would her fate lie as window dressing/underling for ALPHA DOLL Nicole Scherzinger in the platinum-selling manufactured pop group? Clever detective work (i.e. checking out the official Web site) revealed that it is to be the latter, though I'm not sure if that means they kicked one of the other automatons out or not. Regardless, the show is the brainchild of Ken Mok, who was the genius who gave birth to America's Next Top Model, which also features scantily clad women saying mean things about one another, so it just had to be good.

And it was! By the time I tuned in, it appeared as half the Dolls-in-training were afflicted by some vigorous stomach ailment that caused the sick to vomit profusely. However, as the 18 hopefuls were set to be whittled down to nine, mere illness would not be seen as an excuse for poor performance. This shit is serious, yo. You want to be a Pussy Cat Doll. No. Maybe you didn't hear me. Do you REALLY want to be a Pussy Cat Doll?! Then get up on that stage and shake that thang girl. We don't want no pretenders here.

The show wasn't heartless though. As the rag tag group of nervous, vomiting, partially undressed females made it to the stage, they were met by their Angel of Mercy, none other than cheeseball singer-turned-plain ol' cheeseball Mark McGrath, of Sugar Ray "fame." He was greeted with giggles and melodious hellos from the girls. He regarded them kindly and reminded them of the importance of this audition. There would be cuts, and those cuts would be final. He acknowledged that some of them were ill. He's a compassionate man. "There's a doctor on-hand." Cut to doctor. "And medicine." Cut to IVs and various medical implements. "Now go get 'em." I'm paraphrasing. Then McGrath introduced ALPHA DOLL Scherzinger, who told the girls to follow their hearts and be like the mighty eagle, soaring in the sky, and never give up. Never. And she sat and joined the judges.

The girls danced and performed songs by the Pussy Cat Dolls. They were broken up into three teams of six. Finally, it was sadly time to eliminate half the contestants. It was your usual reality show elimination fare: worry, elation, sadness and relief--all jazzed up with clever editing. But then the sassy, husky-voiced Sisely was called to the fore and the emotions got very, very real. The judges praised her with the kind of tempered reassurances you'd expect, but ALPHA DOLL Scherzinger would have nothing of it.

"I love your essence," she said. "I love your rawness."

And then, finally, "I love you."

I guess I finally found something to watch on Tuesday nights.

canned frosting + face = $$$

As awesome as The Daily Show is, Jon Stewart's greatest gift to pop culture is perhaps Stephen Colbert.

This clip had me laughing so hard I nearly threw up.

twists and turns

Ever since I found the love of my life in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, you can pretty much put that word on anything and I'll want it. I love that word. I like how it's got a "y" in it that you don't really pronounce. It makes the whole thing more mythical and mysterious. I even had this board game called Labyrinth where you had to navigate this marble through a wooden maze. There were holes in the board and it was nearly impossible. I never made it to the end.

Last night I saw Pan's Labyrinth, and it was pretty much more awesome than everyone says it is. It's a mix of fantasy and harsh reality (mostly harsh reality), and if you have a problem going to a movie and having to read subtitles, you should really get over it.

I was pretty much hooked from the first shot, and that wasn't the whiskey's work either. Beforehand, my friend and I went to this bar across the street called, fittingly enough, Last Call, where we got our own dose of harsh reality. It's pretty much the final resting place for this town's many lost, drunken souls. Everyone was chatty. As soon as we walked in, everyone had a story to tell and they were eager to share it, even though we were complete strangers. I bumped into another guy from Staten Island who said he ended up here when he took "a wrong turn on the freeway." He would turn and speak with me, occasionally looking up from the lottery scratch-off games he and his girlfriend were playing. Later, this other guy rambled about how fun that particular bar was the night before. He mumbled something about a band and women, and how he was supposed to be jamming at someone's house right now. I realized it was 8:30 and wondered how everyone was already so wasted.

The final act was a dude with a fresh knot in his forehead. He talked to us about the ease of getting chicks downtown, which is easy for everyone but me apparently. I mentioned something about lines, meaning lines of people, and he instantly took it to mean lines of drugs. He told us that he'd been clean for a while, but just did a few lines of crystal meth the night before. He said he knew what his triggers were, like he couldn't be around straws. Then he confided that his first baby was due in 10 days, and he'd heard about it while firefighting. He told us that he didn't want to be a father, but was going to make good on it. When the mother called him to tell her she was pregnant, he told her that he wanted her to keep the baby. "I'm a Christian," he said. "I don't believe in abortion." It's always unsettling when you're face to face with a stereotype.

sea creatures

I check my site traffic once a week at Stat Counter. I don't have any good reason for this other than my slight megalomania. My favorite feature of the Stat Counter site is the recent visitor map because I'm a bit of a map nerd--in addition to the 40 other types of nerd-dom I subscribe to. This is a screen shot taken from my most recent visitor map, which I think proves that either dolphins have the Internets or that some other kind of unknown sea beasty is able to use its powers of telepathy to scan the World Wide Web for pictures of chicks. If you are the unidentified sea creature who visited this site for 2:45 looking for a "groupie" picture, please make yourself known. For me, and for science.

Oscar party how to

Oscar party how to
Originally uploaded by mutant moth.

Just add self loathing, delusions of granduer & drunken snarkiness.

synchronicity

Ever since I was introduced to the term in my parapsychology class (I used to smoke a lot of weed), I've been a wholehearted subscriber to the phenomenon of synchronicity. Like most ideas championed by Carl Jung, it just made sense to me. Once I was introduced to the idea, I began seeing instances of synchronicity all the time in my own life and in the world around me, and that's even after I stopped smoking a lot of weed. Today, synchronicity struck once more in the form of the impressively foreheaded and increasingly sexy-fied Christina Ricci.

I've liked Christina since she was in The Addams Family (not in that way because she was just a baby) and have more or less enjoyed her career since. If for no other reason, she's managed to transition from child star to adult actor with out too many bumps in the road or time spent in rehab (though I could be wrong about the rehab thing, it's hard to keep track lately). And in Buffalo '66 she managed to star alongside Vincent Gallo without vomiting or showing visible signs of nausea. She didn't even have to give him a blow job like some other skank. Now if those aren't signs of a true professional, I don't know what are.

But today was a particularly trying day of work in which I actually had to be a manager and man up to my boss about how I thought things were going. I had to conduct meetings and get people to contribute, which they did, and the talk went okay, so I maybe I'm not all that bad at what I do, though I'm still not at all convinced. Luckily, there were Hershey Kisses in the candy dish and these pictures of Ms. Ricci from the Black Snake Moan premier to help replace my self doubt with some good ol' fashioned lust (which is a much better thing to be mulling about, I can assure you). I don't know when Christina got so bangin' (technical term), but I'm sure glad it happened. And wouldn't you know it? When I got home, I found that Cursed, a kinda shitty werewolf movie, was playing on Encore, starring none other than Christina Ricci. I watched it happily over peas and pork chops. The Universe sure is a wacky place.

In un-Christina Ricci-related news, I went to go see Ghost Rider tonight, and it was about as good as it looks in the previews. It definitely could have been worse, especially as comic book movies go. I'd place it better than Ang Lee's Hulk, but a hell of a lot more cheesy than anything else that's come from Marvel recently. The film made me realize a few things:

• Ghost Rider is a Texan who's a motorcycle riding daredevil by day and turns into a fiery skeleton thing in a leather jacket with chains and spikes and stuff at night. Pretty much, he's a hero who appeals to white trash trailer park residents everywhere.
• I'm amazed people don't talk about Eva Mendes's butt more because it's almost as hot as her rack.
  
• Any movie, no matter how shitty (and this one was pretty damn shitty), becomes instantly cooler as soon as Sam Elliot shows up.
  

Seriously, why hasn't this guy gotten some kind of lifetime achievement award yet? Has the academy seen Roadhouse? He played Patrick Swayze's grizzled old mentor who still had a little bit of gas in the tank for a down home, bar burnin' slobber knocker. He drank shitty beer from the bottle and danced with Kelly Lynch. He was a MAN amongst men. Well, except for the beer drinkin' and dancin', he played pretty much the same role in Ghost Rider. Rough, tobacco-juice-spittin', salty, he was a man with a mysterious past who worked as a caretaker in this utterly random cemetery on the edge of nowhere and seemed to know just about everything regarding Ghost Rider's bizarre situation. He'd been there, man, to hell and fuckin' back. He bought the T-shirt and spilled shitty beer on it and used it to wipe the tears from some poor girl's eyes as she watched everything she knew burn to the ground. And he's got the best voice ever. I'm just saying. Academy, get on that shit.

what to get for that special loser in your life

now back to your regularly scheduled whining

When we got back from Vegas this evening, I dropped my friend off at his house and went inside to use the bathroom. Turned out, his girlfriend got left his Valentine's Day gifts in his room. He got a tube-thing of Toblerone (which he gave me some of because he doesn't eat chocolate (SCORE!)) and two tickets to a basketball game. I, of course, returned home to nothing. But when I checked my e-mail, it turned out that there is someone out there who loves me--Missy from Suicide Girls.

For a few short months last year, I was a proud member of the Web site, paying a scant couple bucks to peruse countless archives of photos of tattooed, pierced gothy-punky girls lounge about in their skivvies, and even completely naked. But that credit card expired, and when it did, I decided not to renew the account. I guess we weren't meant to be, but I will always have fond memories of the times we spent together on my roommate's laptop.

Since then, SG founder Missy has been trying to woo me back, making all kinds of special offers. This is the most recent attempt:

Here's what's new in the world of SuicideGirls, real quick: Our Burlesque tour is opening for Guns N Roses, some of the original SuicideGirls starred in an episode of CSI NY and Showtime is airing our newest movie, The Italian Villa.

SUMMARY: We have been having a lot of fun without you.

But something's been missing. That's right, we miss you. Seriously. Come give us another try. We'll make you a special price.

Tempting, yes, but I don't think I'll take her up on her offer. The e-mail concludes with a link to get my name taken off their marketing list, but I'm not going to click that either. I mean, it's nice to be pursued.