|
|
Thursday, June 10th, 2004
| |
1:26 am
|
What if you accidentally, truly accidentally stumble upon a secret you're not supposed to know? And wish you didn't?
current mood: Uhh..
current music: Tribes of Neurot
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Monday, June 7th, 2004
| |
8:28 pm - Sometimes I love rural Nevada...
|
Sometimes I forget that this is a big state, and Las Vegas is only a small, highly differentiated part of it.
Here is an example.
10 Days of "Intense Grazing?" This was linked to the front page of the website, no less.
This woman and her crack team of mercenary goats are all that stands in the way of White Pine County's certain doom.
current mood: Intense Grazing.
current music: Waylon.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, May 26th, 2004
| |
3:41 am - Little Neddie Goes to War.
|
I'm trying to figure out just who all has their fingers in the Draft Reinstatement cookie jar.
We're part of an entire generation - a good 3 decades that have grown up without forced conscription. It'd take a Reichstag Fire of immense proportions(I'm not putting anything past these goons, unfortunately) to really turn that around, and the Keystone Korps routine going on in good old Sumeria doesn't help. It's not like all but a few people living under a rock somewhere in Akron, Ohio don't know the place is a Grade-A disaster area.
The fact of the matter is, I really doubt it will pass. If it did pass, whoever is remotely in power at that point can kiss their sorry rhetoric-flinging asses goodbye.
current mood: n e c r o y e t i
current music: Not Necroyeti.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| |
3:23 am - Vae Victis?
|
"Because Rome aspires to universal dominion, must men therefore implicitly resign themselves to subjection? I opposed for a long time the progress of your arms, and had I acted otherwise, would either you have had the glory of conquest, or I of a brave resistance? I am now in your power: if you are determined to take revenge, my fate will soon be forgotten, and you will derive no honour from the transaction."
-Caractacus, in captivity, addressing Emperor Claudius, c. 50 A.D.
current mood: Hmm.
current music: My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Sunday, May 16th, 2004
| |
6:27 am - Flagging energy.
|
I was going to write a long, wordy piece on Lynndie England and her friends, but am falling asleep, so I'll save it for another time. Instead, go read Springheel_Jack's bit on it. I was going for a completely different take on this anyway, and his was just that good.
current music: SFA - Gwreiddiau DWFN Mawrth Oer AR y Blaned Neifion. Yeah.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, May 11th, 2004
| |
7:56 am - Well that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
|
The Beavis and Butthead episode where the "Crackin' Up" video comes on is just priceless. Even that dance is perfect.
current mood: WHAT'S IN THE BAG?
current music: Crack rock n' shit.
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, May 5th, 2004
| |
5:32 pm - Fuck you. You started it!
|
Taken from The Dead Fish Army
Put your current play list on shuffle. Then, skiping instrumentals and songs who's only words are the song's title, write down your favorite line(s) of the first ten songs. Avoid using the song's title.
See if your friends can identify the songs without cheating and Googling lyrics, unlike fatherbingo when he was answering dontuhatepants's.
I've got a couple thousand songs on this thing, mostly complete albums, so if you get stumped, use Google. I'll give you that much leeway.
1. "Distorted pictures and dizzy dizzy people rush by me at the speed of thought/They sit at the tables and throw us the scraps for Christ's sake leave me something/Remember they can erase you at the flick of a switch How long will it take now there must be something wrong, boys"
2. (Skipped Ulver's H0yfjelsbilede because I don't know how to spell Norwegian merely after translating from ear. Heh.)
3. "Show us the way to the next Whisky Bar/Show us the way to the next little girl/No Don't ask Why"
4. "She ruled the Toads of the Short Forest/And every newt in Idaho/
And every cricket who had chorused/By the bush in Buffalo/She said she was a Magic Mama/And she could throw a mean Tarot/And carried on without a comma/That she was someone I should know/She had a snake for a pet
And an amulet/And she was breeding a dwarf
But she wasn't done yet"
5. (skipped PWEI's "Cicciolina" because it's basically an instrumental with some Italian futbol announcer yelling and a chant with the title in the name)
6. "Strange how the scale forms/in tiny patterns on my antenna/
and the Five O'clock Show, hello hello/Brooklyn is crawling with famous people/I turn my vehicle beneath the river, West from South"
7. "Let rage and hate of races run from Adam down/The magic of our science shines brighter than a thousand suns/Liberty in new dimensions ruthless and spectacular/Obliteration shall be poetry of Golden Dawns"
8. "If I walk down this hallway tonight/it's too quiet so I head through the dark/and call you on the phone/push your old numbers and let your house ring"
9. "Taking it all, cut from a sack that you got on TV/Paid for it all taking it back 'cause I wanted it free/Wanted it free now, you just want it to be just like me"
10. "Libido in Limbo - Legs Akimbo/Never even ever read a word of Rimbaud/The walls of my stomach think they're JERICHO/I'm about to meet my MEXICO/Make mine a double TEXACO/I'M THE DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DADDIO
I'se coughin up blood on a nice clean shirt/Nose eyes ears throat roads are blocked/Can see the light at the end of the tunnel/and I'd rather die young than diurnal/I'm the one Ralph Nader had to recall/My BACK BACK BACK'S up against the wall/Put me outa my misery - I'm dying to get away from it all"
All right, get crackin'.
current mood: Still the NECROYETI!
current music: That would be telling.
|
|
(8 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
4:54 pm - Coachella, or, "How the Desert got its name."
|
I just got back from the sweltering pit of the west coast that is Indio, California, in the middle of the Palm Desert.
Two days of sweltering 100+ heat sandwiched between some dubious time in a dubious place called San Bernardino and too much fucking driving and I'm back home.
But really, I had a good time. Seeing Kraftwerk probably the last time before they have robotic walkers(or robotic legs) was one of the many highlights, as was seeing Frank Black and Kim Deal on the same stage without acts of physical violence between them.
I didn't write down any set lists, but here were the acts I saw/heard in entirety(or part of):
Erase Errata (ten points for John Zorn involvement here)
Five seconds of And You will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead until I nearly puked and ran away(until I realized they sound like a bad numetal band covering a bad Britpop band like Oasis)
The Pixies
Radiohead
Kraftwerk (The strangest stage show I've ever seen but these guys radiate class from start to finish)
Muse(Enh)
I think Belle & Sebastian were on when I was half-asleep in the grass at the other end of the festival when I heard them but that's the point of them in the first place, right?
The Flaming Lips - The bubble r00lz
The Cure - (I didn't believe this one was going to be as good as it was).
More on this later - I'm still tired and I feel like I made a mistake by giving my blabbermouth mom my phone number...
current mood: NECROYETI!
current music: Awaiting The Blasphemous Abomination Of The Necroyeti!!
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, February 26th, 2004
| |
12:23 pm - Christ!
|
|
| Friday, October 3rd, 2003
| |
12:33 am - Bad Car Alert:
|
|
A semi-rusty, semi-primer colored mid-90's Honda Civic with all identifying make and model indicators removed and replaced with "Subaru Impreza" or some such nonsense. These kids kill me.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| |
12:04 am - Various things.
|
Today I saw "American Splendor" and the Sofia Coppola flick, "Lost in Translation."
The former reminded me rather ruefully of the Goodman St. gang back in Rochester, just by the neighborhood and lifestyle(although these guys were delightfully less reclusive). Interesting to note was the fact that apparently Cleveland was not hip enough for "Revenge of the Nerds," yet Toledo was. There is a message in here if one cares to look for it.
"Lost in Translation" was a different beast altogether. I was simply blown away by one aspect of this film for petty personal reasons. One of the leads was an American who spent a great deal of time wandering alone throughout modern Tokyo, which I did as a child one year. The puzzling thing was, many of the exact sights and experiences I underwent myself, when I was ten. Shrines, festivals, and a rather nightmarish experience in a hospital while dealing with a rather huge language barrier were all present in the film, bringing a smile to my lips.
Modern Japanese culture has more oddities(which are commonly poked fun at - seethis link if you are not at work if you need an example) and examples of bizarre behavior than you can swing a dead muskrat at, but I feel like there's a subtext that most people aren't getting. Your average American looks at these folks and laughs at a nation of clowns, and I just get disheartened. I get disheartened because the old culture that existed for centuries was not compatible with modernism, not compatible with industrialization, and not compatible with the C-word. The odd relic of tradition Japan will pop up from time to time in ceremony and ritual, but what worked in America just doesn't create a healthy culture in a crowded, community-based nation. They went insane, and I just want to shake my head at it all.
At any rate, last night I discovered that there is another Ian roaming the bar/club scene here. I apparently need to behead this guy and steal(ahem, reposess) his soul. He looks just like someone I used to know which is even more bizarre.
Strange Bus experience:
As if enraged midgets and neurotic Ex-Serbian soldiers obsessed with translating the Voynich Manuscript to discover secrets of lost alien technology were not enough, I discovered that I had a shared sighting the other day with a friend. This fellow was a real specimen: A middle-aged black man wearing a Star Trek baseball cap, a black robe that looked more like a trash bag if one were made of cloth, covered in other Star Trek insignias, pins, patches and tchotchkes. In addition he had a large wooden cross hanging around his neck, a wooden crucifix attached to a rosary at his belt, and work boots underneath. On the bus seat next to him he had copies of the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Torah, King James Bible, and some Trekkie Klingon dictionary.
I really wanted to strike up a conversation with this guy, but didn't know what to say. It was the fucking Book of Mormon that put me off, really.
Oh well, at least it wasn't "Dianetics."
current mood: puzzled
current music: Star of Ash - iter.viator
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Friday, September 12th, 2003
| |
5:53 am - Someone else is doing all the work.
|
I'm not going to post links to pictures, news stories, anything like that.
Johnny Cash is gone, and it seemed like he was dying for a long time. Him and Warren Zevon in the same month, though - that's a bit much. Rest in Peace, guys.
What I am going to bitch about, though, is the fact that I found out about John Fucking Ritter first.
current mood: Definitely not Three's Company
current music: Can you guess already?
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, August 7th, 2003
| |
7:03 pm - GET TO THA CHOPPER!!!
|
The political circus that is the California gubernatorial recall is now entering full swing. Heightening the ridiculousness is not only the long-forseen entry of Mr. Hercules in New York himself, Ah-nold, but also Gary Coleman, the overexposed eighties tv icon who is definitely not a midget.
What bodes for California generally bodes for the rest of the country, although the stuff that gets exported beyond its borders is almost invariably one of its negative aspects. Silicone boobs, walking-handbag tans, bottle-bleached hair, big fucking SUV's driven by people who don't have the skill to maneuver a Honda Civic, let alone a vehicle the size of a handicapped bus, no-smoking nazis who can't understand that the smog-ridden air they breath is 100 times worse than second hand smoke, my fat-assed bosses, Irvine...You get the picture.
Is it any wonder why Joey Buttafuoco left the scum pit that is Long Island for this place?
Representative democracy, if it ever really was alive, just was delivered a death blow and this piece of mockery tells us just how far the ship has sunk. If everything else has become just transient entertainment, why not transfer that to politics? Name-recognition has long been the biggest arbiter of those who actually vote, so we might as well start flooding the field with celebrities.
Still, if Arnold recites the Riddle of Steel upon his inaguration it might be worth a half-hearted chuckle.
Still, Gary Coleman? I just read that he has a strong following in Oakland, but all the same, my jaw drops at the implications. Who's next - fucking ALF? Dana Plato? Blair Warner? TOOTIE?
Despite his background, a small part of me hopes that Larry Flynt rallies. For no other reason than his "National Day of Prayer for the Death of Bill O'Reilly." It's refreshing to see someone not pull punches in the name of tasteless, pure, honest hatred. That's a man after my own heart. Unfortunately, O'Reilly is so low on the totem pole of evil that he's missing the point.
We all know who's going to win, though.
Ah well, better Arnold than Diane Feinstein, I suppose. Sad. If only Hunter S. were about 30 years younger right now.
current mood: Watcha talkin' bout?
current music: Killing Joke - Asteroid
|
|
(12 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
| |
10:43 pm - It's the start of something new!
|
So much for my long absence. I've finally decided to put this thing back into motion. Sorry to all the people that dropped me from their friends list. I'm not dead - just disinterested. Or I was.
I just attended Danielle's brother's high school graduation.
I have become acutely aware in recent months of the fact that I really have no family. I mean, I have some, bits and pieces here and there, but hers has largely filled the void left by the absence of mine. This is weird. Very, very, very weird, but not thoroughly upsetting, I suppose. I've never been big on la familia for any number of reasons that don't bear repeating at this time.
What did strike me as funny is the utter vapidness of high school and just how little it means in the grand scheme of things. I could have sworn that admist the majority of the speeches and the PG-rated(*) performance numbers that I heard the "We will change the world" schpiel dropped about five times.
Not likely. You'll graduate high school, and you'll go down one of many paths. Most likely, you'll end up just another fucking tool like the rest of us.
Some guy was talking about Plaid Cymru in the bathroom. Heh.
(*Rated PG for Patriotic Garbage).
current mood: Honey Brown Lager
current music: Opeth
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
1:16 am
|
|
| Sunday, March 2nd, 2003
| |
9:49 am - Stupid Yankee, go home!
|
Somehow I didn't consider the possibility "Rampant NASCAR Fandom" would be bigger than Bugsy Siegel in Las Vegas before I moved here when I was sitting there in Upstate New York.
More the fool is me.
current mood: Clint Eastwood, not John Wayne
current music: Ennio Morricone
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, November 18th, 2002
| |
10:26 pm - A belated concert experience.
|
Last month I was fortunate enough to attend not one, but two Chameleons shows in Hollywood for a measly $15.00 at the Knitting Factory. These guys look rather, er, old right now but they ever never all that glamorous.
That was never the point. They're absolutely amazing live - all the studio tricks, delay, etc. translated beautifully to the stage. In addition, I've never seen a more hard-core audience. Never mind that a lot of the people at the show were obviously following the band around the country - the atmosphere was equally perfect.
Anyone who was there recall the cover at the end of the second show where Mark Burgess jumped into the audience?
One of the best shows I've seen in my life.
current mood: Caffinated
current music: The Chameleons - Fan and the Bellows
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| |
6:31 pm - Whine whine whine. Yawn.
|
One would hope the Democratic party maybe learned something from their dismal failure of a 2002 election but I am not quite willing to place money on this prospect. Nevada's political climate is becoming increasingly reflective of the national scene at large.
There has been a lot of crying over spilled milk when the best I've heard about a majority of the candidates fielded this year on the side of the Democrats was "Well, he's not as bad as the other guy."
Stick a post in it, pal. That's just not enough. That just isn't a selling point for anyone not carrying a banner with that ungainly donkey on it. Their unwillingness to differentiate, to offer a solution that countered the G.O.P. agenda or even state "no, what you're pushing for is a flawed principle" relegated their entire vanguard to "me-too" status. While they likely would have lost out anyway given the state of the nation's voters(which is another issue all its own) at the very most, almost every candidate the Dems fielded was aiming at a very slight re-interpretation of what their opponent was pressing. At the very least, adopting a much more different stance would have captured a different segment of the vote. Likely some more seats would have been won, and if nothing else, they could have a justification for bitching.
When you let your opponent define the rules - you lose the fight.
My congresional district in central Las Vegas showed something slightly amusing as it was the one solid Dem victory in the state.
Shelly Berkeley (relatively average Democrat) - Winner by a large margin
Lynnete Boggs-MacDonald(formerly known as the woman who thinks that outlawing lapdances will somehow make the world magically better) - substantially less of the vote
Some clown who calls himself "Captain Truth" - 2%
My boss - Green Party candidate - 1% (sorry, Lane. I told you to make a Laibach-style campaign video supporting the weed ballot question on late night TV in an attempt to scare more stoners into the going to the polls but you didn't listen to me).
Captain Truth was running on the Nevada IAP ticket, commonly known as the "Fucked-up suburban cracker Mormon Godboy" ticket. But who cares about that - It actually said "CAPTAIN TRUTH" on the ballot!
Nevada is actually an interesting place to be right now. I can't wait until Dr. Doom has a spot on the ballot in two years. Either that or "Bizarro Lynnette Boggs-MacDonald"(BIZARRO LOVE TITTY BARS AND BEER! BIZARRO SAY BUY MORE LAPDANCES!) and "Bizarro Kenny Guinn("BIZARRO AVOID LINING HIS OWN POCKETS!")
Maybe we can export Bizarro-candidates throughout the country. I'd like to see a Bizarro Sen. Clinton("BIZARRO ACTUALLY VOTE AGAINST WHAT SHE DENOUNCE!"), Bizarro Trent Lott("BIZARRO NOT KNEE-JERK DUMBFUCK REDNECK !) or Bizarro Feinstein("BIZARRO ACTUALLY HAVE SOUL!").
I think I went off on a tangent somewhere.
Most of all, I'd like to thank the overwhelming majority of voters in this election who reminded us what America truly wants. It's very difficult for me to "blame the system" at this point when it has been made abundantly clear that democracy hasn't failed the people.
The majority of American people have spoken. What we got is what they want, isn't it?
I'm going to go party like it's 1986 again - snort some coke, hop in my Camaro and watch the space shuttle blow up. If we have a hard enough flashback to the 80's, Al Jourgensen might actually stop releasing shitty albums. Maybe this will be the age of "neo-Thatcherite" discontent in America.
Who am I kidding?
current mood: Bizarro Tax Hike!
current music: Steroid Maximus - Quilombo!
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, October 5th, 2002
| |
4:07 pm - I'm the granite man!
|
I have this ridiculous urge to make Las Vegas seem far more interesting than it really is. For example, every time I drive behind the Flamingo I'm half-expecting to see a dead body in a zoot suit hanging out of a dumpster.
Alas, Park Place Inc. doesn't seem to agree with me.
current mood: Hahahaha
current music: Foetus - Bedrock
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, September 11th, 2002
| |
8:34 am - I forgot what day it was.
|
And I started to read. And had my ears and eyes nearly seared off by the media circus.
The most annoying part about all this is that I could forgive them all if they were only upset about the people.
Not about two fucking buildings.
current mood: Yawn.
current music: Schaft - Fetid Air
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|