Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Nebuchadnezzar's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 10th, 2003
4:55 am	A note about the last entry that went on way too long I mostly did that last entry because I was pissed off. And why? Because I realized that that's the only time people seem to enjoy this journal. I'm not sure why -- maybe I somehow blundered into getting typecast. For zany humor with zero proofreading skills, you read salaciousdrift, for astounding bitterness you read me. I'm not sure what sort of entertainment derives from it, but there you are. Maybe I'm only "good" when I'm this way, I don't know. Anyway, I was trying to say that the reason I did that last one was because I figured it out, finally, about what people are looking for. Well, you want it? You got it. And I had been planning something about my impending move to Atlanta and Official Fuck Charlottesville Month anyway. But I also wanted to write something funny. And I thought, what should I write? How about something funny? Because, I'll admit, I miss when I wrote the funny entries. I enjoyed writing them and I felt a sense of accomplishment after I had, an insane sense of having perpetrated something awesome, like TP-ing the principal's house. When I write entries like the last two it's more like a feeling of relief, like I've just evacuated something slimy and infected from my bowel. Too bad, too, I had this intense dream a week or two ago that had been the proposed topic for my "funny" (as opposed to my "angry") entry. See, a while ago the seldom-seen dragonmonkey had off-handedly said I should come visit him in Japan sometime. Which was brilliant, by the way, it's like saying to someone, "Hey, we should go hang-gliding on the Moon sometime. That would rock! We could hang out." Because, of course, the last thing you expect is for it to actually happen. Well, knowing Tokyo Jack, maybe he really meant it, he likes to throw you curve balls like that. Anyway, I guess this rattled around in my brain for a while and then I dreamt about my visiting him in Japan. It started with me on the plane and ended up with us leaving the airport, it was a lot like a buddy action movie, sort of a cross between Big Trouble in Little China and Black Rain. Maybe, maybe, someone would have actually liked it. But I didn't really feel like I could pull it off and I knew I had a better shot at going with the "angry" one. Because, really, as awesome as the whole Japan dream was (believe me, it was awesome, I wish I could dump my dreams to disk sometimes), I wasn't really in an "awesome" mood. I guess you can only release the awesome so many times until you don't have any awesome left and you have to go get some more. Maybe I'll do it eventually. Oh, look, beg, little readers, as I dangle this entry in front of you! Dance! Dance! See, I don't have people who read my journal like that. Sometimes I wish I did, but most of the time I'm glad I don't. See, the reason I don't do a lot of entries is because I feel like if I'm just going to do one of these dumb, rambling ones, I shouldn't bother. Much of the time I have a desire to make an entry without the actual entry to back it up. Rather than do like most people and instead just make an entry about how I like waffles or what I did today, I just don't bother. But it's been a while since I did one of these, and I guess the last couple of entries have made it look like I'm on a path to self-destruction. At least to some people. Well, don't worry, I could never let it go just like that. I'd be tempted to, to just slink off into that good night like an anonymous bar patron, never really there in the first place. But the temptation to make some sort of huge, terrible mark on the world would be far too much for me to resist, I think. So I just got back from Atlanta. I was down there over the weekend of the Fourth because my schedule at work got switched over, resulting in my getting an entire week of work off without really taking off work. Take out a calendar, work it out, it should be obvious. This happened to me a long time ago and I may even have something in the old archives about it. Who knows. So, yeah, most of the time I just spent lounging around the house, sort of recharging and trying to enjoy some peace and quiet. Which I sometimes got, but not often, admittedly. It was not the best weekend to have this vacation, but no matter. What did I do for the 4th? Actually, and I know this is hard to believe, I slept. Yeah, my "schedule" got fucked-up again and as a result of some food and beer provided by the Chinaman who lives next door to my family (technically he's "Chinese-American", as he's 2nd-generation, but once a Chinaman, always a Chinaman, I say), I fell asleep out on the deck as soon as it got dark. I even slept through the fireworks they were shooting off and the fireworks from Stone Mountain Park. Did I go out and do anything? No, not really. Why should I? All I wanted to do was just relax in the sun and shade and smoke some cigars and read my books. What is the point of going out? And that's not even considering the fact that we're talking about Independence Day Weekend here, probably the Ultimate Weekend in terms of everything shitty about weekends (and, I'll admit, probably everything wonderful about weekends, too). So, no, I didn't go see Terminator 3 or any other movies. I do have some movies on my list, but you know what? Movie theaters blow. Christ, I think I've held forth on this before but I could do a whole entry on movie theaters. To save you from that I'll just sum it up with this: Movie Theaters -- What Was the Fucking Point Again? Because I FORGOT. Yo, Hollywood, drop me a line when you bother making a movie theater a human being wants to go into at some point. Ciao, baby. While on the way down, the weather was shitty enough for me to stop at JR's (otherwise it would have been too hot -- I had Jasper with me), so I picked up enough cigars to last me through this month and a book that caught my eye: Daemon in the Machine by Felicity Savage. Yeah, ouch, I know. But for a woman she writes well enough. And the story and world are pretty interesting. So far the formula of "combine magic with awesome historical setting" still seems to work, though she mucks it up by setting it all in this bizarre island shit. What is this place, the Philippines? I have no goddamned idea. Everything about this book warned me off initially: woman author with hideously stupid name, fucking map in the frontispiece (that is a sure sign you are in for some shitty writing) ... but the concept of a Biplane powered by a fucking beastie got me to open the cover. And, because I bought it at JR, it was three bucks. Sold, baby. I just need to find the other parts, which will be tough as it looks like the fuckers are out of print. Well, I guess I just need to cruise through any good used bookstore and I'll probably find them. I never had any problem finding books like this when I was looking for them. And you know why? Because they're pretty much crap. They're not that great or memorable, they have strong ideas but the writing is bland and without anything generally distinguishing it. They're the "popcorn movies" of books. Any decently-sized used bookstore might as well be a book-rental store, which is why only Communists run them, because they have no problem with the concept of not making any fucking money. Any person seriously looking to buy books of value and sell them would tell most of the people who brought in these books to go to Hell. "What's this, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill? I already have fifteen copies of it, go use it to sop up the grease from your acne, nerd." Anyway, so far the book seems okay, though I have some problems with it. Like we have AGAIN the classic nerd fetishization of Japan. ENOUGH WITH JAPAN. It does not really like you. You know how it likes you? It likes you like we here in America used to like Jolly Nigger Minstrel Shows. So you're fascinated with their culture and their ancient ways? GO FUCKING LIVE THERE AND STOP BOTHERING ME WITH YOUR TIRED, BORING, "UNIQUE" LITTLE INTEREST. OH, WOW! YOU LIKE JAPAN! HOW INTERESTING, DIFFERENT AND COOL! I LIKE SAMURAI SWORDS AND GEISHA GIRLS, TOO! CARTOONS ROCK AND POCKY IS SO TASTY! I'm sick of hearing about the fascinating and exotic culture of Japan. Christ, this is beside the point, but these people stole all their best shit from the Chinamen. More to the point, it's not so much that I don't like Japan, I'm just sick of people thinking they're deep because they put up a banner that they don't even fucking know what is says on the wall, or worse, they got a character banner of something like "Truth" or "Love" or some other such bullshit. Or liking Japanimation (known to these high-strung retards as "anime"), possibly some of the shittiest, most nonsensical cartoons the world has seen. So yeah. This woman obviously thinks Japan is neat. So she should get cancer for that. Point two, more homosexuality. Look, it's not that I have a problem with homo characters, per se, but they are popping up all over the place. If books were a country their queer population would be something ridiculous like 45%. It seems like I can't pick up a book these days without some buggery going on, or at least some guy thinking about buggery. Admittedly, I bet a lot of the problem is women, there are too many women writers ("authoresses", but that's too pretentious for me) and they seem to be fascinated with ass piracy for some reason. But even then, it seems to be the style. Can't two straight, manly men go on an adventure together without one of them trying to give the other a handjob? World, I am here to tell you that the answer is, YES. YES. YES! YES, TO THE ROOFTOPS, YES! Why am I going so nuts over this? Because somewhere along the way men were sold this bill of goods that it wasn't good to be "too friendly" with other men. You know who did this? Gay Socialists, teaming up with their unwitting pawns, the Feminists. Yes, I know, the Socialists again. Anyway, by spreading this idiotic (on the face of it, for Chrissakes) lie, they were out to break the bonds of society, separate people from each other, so that it was easier to get to them, brainwash them. They would use men's natural unwillingness to be considered choad-smokers against them, paradoxically isolating them from each other so that their brainwashing techniques would work better -- so that when they were grouped back together, instead of reinforcing those manly ideals they'd once held, they'd reinforce the cultural poison they'd receieved individually. God, I have enough material here for something like three whole other entries. I keep saying that, too. Well, we'll see how it goes. It's only my first night of work, after all. So what else did I do this week? I managed to catch "Lucha de Vuelta" (sometimes just "Lucha Libre" on Galavision. That was nice, plus it was even nicer that I wasn't guiltily watching it before I headed off to work. I even got to watch "Boxeo: En Esta Esquina" right afterwards. Which, admittedly, reminded me I haven't been missing much. So they're sloppy kids. But they're hungry. I like that. Plus I just like watching the Spanish channels and wish they showed stuff besides "zany" variety shows that I don't get and soccer. The great thing about watching foreign-language TV is, you don't feel bad. It's not like I'm just lazing around on the couch watching TV ... hey, I'm learning a second language, here, pal. Plus I just generally like Mexicans and Mexican culture in general. Actually I should say I mostly like Latin culture in general as I'm also cool with the Domincans, the Puerto Ricans, the Cubans, etc. etc. Hey, as long as you're not some nigger running around calling people "vato" and "ese" with your low-rider car, I'm cool with you. I borrowed one of those MP3-CD players from my brother to use at work, because I'm sick of having 8 million CDs stacked up in my locker. These things are fantastic. I need to get one for my goddamned car, I could just take around 5 or 6 CDs instead of the 20 or so I have in there. They sound fine and you can even have directories and shit. I made two discs and already I've replaced about 90% of my music I listen to at work -- terrific. I just need to rip my CDs to my HD because I have stuff on them I want to listen to at work. I may not need a portable one after I quit this job; we'll see. But I'll definitely want one for my car. Fucking fantastic. I'm currently listening to the latest volume of my classic mix-disc series "NOW! That's What I Call Goth!", entitled "1000% Gotica", which I guess you would only get if you watched the aforementioned lucha. Yeah, I'm an asshole, I have to give all my mix-discs titles just like everyone else, except I also had to come up with a whole fucking series as well. If I was completely worthless I guess I would have made a photoshop by now so I could have my own custom liners for the discs. Having gone through Gaffney again, I have to re-iterate that I am solidly in the "It's a peach" camp with regards to the Gaffney, South Carolina water tower. Sorry, zeppo, but seeing it as a huge ass is just too whimsical. I'm not whimsical. So it's not so much that I don't see it, but that I refuse to see it. I'm sure this won't suprise you at all. I will say that I am occasionally mercurial, which is sort of the manly equivalent of whimsical. However I have not been mercurial for some time now except in bursts. A good example would be while I'm driving down 77 through the "Downstate" (I think? I know there's an "Upstate" but I never hear reference to a "Downstate" SC.), when it suddenly gets all flat and rolling and the speed limit is 70, and all at once this whole long stretch of the road is laid out right in front of me ... I just laugh. I'm not sure what kind of laugh it is. It's not that the road is funny. I was thinking the other day that I need an actual vacation. Because every time I've taken a vacation, it's always been to somewhere to hang out with someone. Whether visiting rexnortonii in Pittsburgh, or nikkomega and his pals (who include dragonmonkey, recklesswill, and adamdaedalus), I'm never alone when I reach my destination. The closest thing to a vacation I ever took was when I went to New Orleans with my ex and her friend ... Christ. Three years ago, now. But even then, it was with other people. And I'm thinking, maybe I just need to go someplace where no one knows where I am, and just sit somewhere in a cabin with the dog, and maybe wander around and look at things and just BE ALONE. Because I am very rarely alone these days, in fact most of my life as I look at it. For a lot of people, I think this would be a good thing. For me, well ... I think it tends to drive me insane. I guess this would explain why it seems that my previous "vacations" only seem to help so much for blowing off steam. But at least I did get some time to just be in the quiet, alone, over the last few days. So I feel a little better. Which I guess explains this mess I've been writing. I actually did some writing over the week; I finally finished reading Careless Love, Jake Guralnick's autobiography of Elvis (actually, it was vol. 2 of that work, I still need vol. 1), and an idea I had finally crystallized enough that I got down the first 8 longhand pages of "Tiger Man". The best part was when I talked about it with my brother later and we just started talking about it, bouncing ideas off each other. I think the best thing about living with my parents is going to be being able to work with him on something, I think we should do it. We could be like the Hughes brothers, except white. Or like the Dark brothers, except not in porn. Or like the Coen brothers, except not pretentious, overrated assholes (I liked Miller's Crossing, though). I got some ideas for more stuff for "The MacGuffin Man" but I haven't put it on the screen, yet. You know, at first I felt like a douche for basically only working on it when I had an idea, then working with that as much as possible, and then coming back to it later. But then last night I was relaxing after having arrived home, watching Charlie Chaplin in "The Gold Rush" and before the movie Bob Osbourne was talking about how Chaplin had taken three goddamned years to finish the picture, because he would do the same thing -- get an idea, shoot it (probably taking many re-takes), and then come back to it later when he had more ideas. And it's The fucking Gold Rush. You don't fuck with that. OK, true, it is somewhat disjointed because of this, though I think some of that could be because of the prints of the film available. So I guess the point is that working like that will take you a really long time but you could end up with cinema par excellence like "The Gold Rush". I think my favorite part of the movie (I watched the 1925 re-print with Chaplin narration, BTW) was when The Lone Prospecter, Chaplin, walks into the dance hall and we see him from behind. He is standing in front of the crowd, and they are a jumble around him, it's almost hard to see him. And then, we can see that the music has started, and the dancers begin to pair off and move out onto the floor. And the crowd slowly dissolves away from him, the dancers pair off together, and he's alone, and this is all from behind him so we can't see his face. Not that we need to. Fucking fantastic. I was actually standing up, applauding, and only removed the cigar from my teeth so that I could give it the highest award ever given to films by myself, which is a chorus of "Cinema! Cinemaaaaaaa!" Because it truly was that kind of moment. Oh, I saw Vault of Horror again last night as well. What a fantastic film. Not a Hammer picture, I think, but it is 70s British horror, loosely based on the EC comics of the same name. For those who haven't seen it, it features Tom Baker with this huge Osama beard -- it's fantastic. Some of the stories in the film are not so tight (like the one about the writer and the one about the painter -- Baker's character), but the others are pretty solid stuff. I don't want to say too much else about "Tiger Man" because the idea is not complete yet and, well -- it's pretty goddamned wacky. Actually, I mentioned something about it a while ago, if you'll recall, my question about whether something would make a better TV show or series of books? I think I had one vote for "what the fuck", one vote for "Genau!" and one vote for "books, because TV is bullshit". So, yeah, you'll notice I haven't done any polls lately. Anyway, so far I'm pretty excited about it, I really like how it's coming together. I will say that (if it isn't obvious) it's highly connected to Elvis, not just the factual stuff but what might be termed "Elvisiana", something of the mythology that surrounds him. The best part about doing this thing was when I suddenly realized that another I've had buzzing around in my head for a while would fit in perfectly with this thing. The idea I had for "MacGuffin Man" was something about Motorcar Kung-Fu. I figured, you can use a sword in kung-fu -- why not a car? And you can move your body in crazy ways with super kung-fu ... why not a car? The whole point of Felix Lester's kung fu is that it is this bizarre style that combines guns and kung-fu ... two things that, traditionally, are separated (even Bruce Lee said that all his kung-fu skill was worthless against some guy with a .45). The problem is I haven't been sure how to go about it, how the car should move and tricks that could be possible. I mean, try to picture a car flying around on wires and you'll see what I mean. I have seen it before, the only place I can think of, though, is the way that the girl (I can't remember her damn name) from Heroic Trio uses her motorcycle - I think at one point she's got it spinning sideways through the air. Still, it looks really odd, even in the mind.l BUT I also finally figured out, for the most part: 1)How it should end and 2)What the Hell that mystical artifact he's collecting pieces of does. Unfortunately, I know that I'm not going to be able to work much for quite a while. But I'll try to get at least the ideas down in notes for when I can finally sit down and get cracking on it. So at least the end is in sight, though admittedly it's not like I can't just go on filling in the middle. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003
5:05 am	Asshole Went Down to Georgia... ...again. But for different reasons this time. I made it official last week and by now I think everyone I know probably knows thanks to the gregarious efforts of the avuncular salaciousdrift on the C-ville end and the Teutonic rexnortonii. Still, for those who haven't heard, I have declared the month of July "Official Fuck Charlottesville Month". This will be a month long festival celebrating Charlottesville's being one of the places on Earth most likely to make you want to give everyone cancer. Admittedly, it's a little low down on the list, but it's there. There will also be funnel cake, balloons for the kids, and you can enter in a big raffle to win cancer from me. This orgy of loathing will culminate in me quitting my job and moving out of this worthless sinkhole of human idiocy. That's right. I will soon be sitting in my apartment smoking cigars and talking to my dog, but now it will be in Atlanta and the weather will be nicer. Hopefully there will be a place to get Chinese food within walking distance. I guess I could spend more time talking about why I don't like Charlotteville, but it doesn't matter. No one else who lives here except maybe the 'drift would even get anywhere close to agreeing with me, everyone else seems to think this place is fantastic. No one here will really miss me and even if they say, "aw, too bad," I will fade away, soon to be forgotten until I unleash my horde of atomic super-men on Downtown Atlanta, or become notable in some other way like getting into a high speed chase with the police while high on methamphetamine. And they will say, "Oh, yeah, the hat guy." So that is why I have declared it to be a month of celebration. For those that care, it can be a tearful "Bon Voyage", "bonchance" and "bonsoir". Kind of a small party, but hey. For those that will be pleased, they can dance all night long at the thought that no more will the wafting, fragrant aroma of their $2/pack Basics be cut into by my premium cigars, nor will their thoughts ever be invaded by talk of the Legends of Other Days. Actually, as much as I would like to think differently, that will be a tiny party as well. For the rest, who don't give a shit, or don't even know who I am; well, everyone needs a reason to celebrate. People will party to celebrate the independence of countries they aren't even citizens of, celebrate ethnicities and religions they don't belong to. So why not party to celebrate/bid Godspeed the departure of one young man? Shall you bid him Good Riddance or Good Luck? What are his Dreams, his Fears? Was he really Too Big for This Town, or was This Town Too Good for Him? Who cares? Break out the beer and the brats, it's a great time for grillin' outside. Maybe we can get Congress to declare a three-day weekend. Ah, what the Hell. Maybe it's just as much my fault as it is this town's. At least a bigger city would theoretically take longer to use up until it runs out. We'll see if that holds. Anyway, the reason I'm doing this now is because I really don't think I'll say anything more about it, except for maybe a cryptic reference to The Hunt for Red October, if only because it will be tough to use my computer when it's packed up and that's the way I always envisioned ending this journal anyway. Yeah, I might just end it there. I guess you'll have to stick around and wait. Or maybe I'll just keep it going, we'll see. Or at least, I'll see. I'm really just talking to myself here. "With the woman gone, my heart is broken. And without my guitar, I have no luck. But with the dog, and the guns, I have hope for the future." -- El Mariachi (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 16th, 2003
5:25 am	Interview with the Asshole, Part One Interview questions courtesy of cancer 1.So talk about yourself. Thanks, cancer. You know, I'm actually a pretty deep guy. I don't think most people ever get to know the real me. I mean, the deep down soul of myself. You know what they say about still waters running deep. I'd agree and add that sometimes still waters have an almost perfectly-preserved B-27 Flying Fortress sprawled across the bottom, its skeletal crew keeping silent vigil over the catfish. And also sometimes a dead pregnant woman. The point is that there is a lot of crazy shit beneath these still waters, and they run deep so I recommend you wait at least half an hour before trying to figure out what the fuck is going on down there. Anyhow, many people are not aware that I'm something of an expert on several obscure topics. I'm also sitting right in front of the Internet, so admittedly I could claim that one of these topics was the action films of the Slavic states and be thought a genius. I wonder why more people don't figure this out. But go ahead, ask me something about Mexican wrestling. Or Kung Fu Movies. 2. What do you think of the films of Chang Cheh? You know what the problem with women is? They think they have a sense of humor, but most of them really don't. Oh, sure, they can find things funny, but even a dog can find things funny (their sense of humor is a lot like that of the British, they're big on the deadpan look). No, a sense of humor involves intelligently finding the humor in situations that people without senses of humor (e.g. women, Mormons, Leftists, Canadians) would not. Here's a good example: [man gets hit in nuts] Doh! [women laughing]Let's have Cosmopolitans! And now my illustrative counter example! [woman gets punched in the vagina by Hitler] [those with senses of humor]Hah! The irony! The bitter irony! Ha ha ha! I think this makes it pretty clear. Another thing along the same general lines of thought is, why is it that I keep flipping by the HBO channels that I pay ten bucks extra a month for and see nothing but crap I've never heard of and or don't want to watch? Do they just give up until the Sopranos comes back on? At this point it's like I have a subscription to a Pay-per-view boxing channel at ten bucks an even that shows color light shows in between fights. Meanwhile, on all the bullshit channels I don't want to watch movies on because commercials during movies rot my fucking colon, are all these movies I would like to see. I blame Socialism. This menace must be rooted out before it takes over our entertainment industry like a cancer. 3. I'm just going to write something here and you say whatever you want. I'm glad you asked, cancer, because I had some things I wanted to say about that. First, I think it's important to remember to not be a fool and to stay in school. Drugs ruined my life and they'll ruin yours. Another thing to keep in mind is that if the government really did have Orbital Death Lasers, wouldn't we have used them by now? Or maybe we already did ... NO. Go to school, nerd. Finally, only one per customer, please. 4.[smoking] People tell me I'm washed up, that I'm insane. Well, I'm here to tell you that I've never felt better. For one thing my run-on sentences have been found by the EPA to contain ten times more cancer-causing agents than the average sentence, and over four times more than the average "Salacious Drift" run-on sentence. I was thinking today about that kid who got punched by the nigger. Maybe you saw it. I was thinking that if this emo bastard had been more aware of his surroundings that the video tape would have been a whole lot different. For example had it been me I would now be up on charges under a little known "Negro Abuse" statute still on the books in Rhode Island since the days of Negrownership. It just goes to show that it's not me who's crazy, it's everyone else. Everytime I leave my house, it's like the world gets a little more nuts, a little worse. There are more screaming children, more stupid cars, more blank looks, more cafe lattes with extra foam, more bottled water, more polo shirts, more loose-fitting khakis. More boring dogs. More eleven-year-old tarts. More people who left New York. More rain, more trash, more traffic lights, more bullshit. More bagels. More tote bags. More personal fitness equipment. More sitcoms about people living in New York City. More Nazis. More antique stores. More vegetarian restaurants. More "No Smoking" signs. More police checkpoints. More cars with lots of bass. More Hillary. More Bill. More Bill and Hillary. More protestors, more bombings, more fuel-efficiency standards, more sin taxes, more prescription drug benefits, more semi-automatic assault weapons bans, more long trains that aren't carrying anything, whatever it is you hate, just keep piling it on, more and more of it, here it comes, come and get it. 5. mrmustard beat you to this whole fake-interview thing. Oh yeah? Did he beat me to the part when I shoot my "fake" interviewer in the face and then leave them to be cornholed by Irish Wolfhounds? Did he already do that part? Because I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T WANT TO BE SEEN AS RIPPING OFF GAGS. OH NO. WE ARE ABOVE BOARD HERE, SIR. VERY MUCH SO. CASINO? NO SIR. HUH? WHAT? HUH? WHAT? HUH? WHAT? YA FUCK! 6. Someone oughta give Arturo Gatti a goddamned medal. That poor son of a bitch fought his guts out old school even with a broken hand. And he did it for probably ten times less money than Mike Tyson or Roy Jones Jr. get to be Fantastic Niggers who are generally Fantastic and less the type who, you know, get in the ring and fucking box some opponents who aren't total pieces of crap. Fucking Gatti whips Irish Mickey Ward and there are probably about ten thousand people watching and it's almost midnight and I'm weeping, I'm fucking weeping at this thing that these men have done, this embrace that these men briefly share before the end of the tenth round when the display their combination of scientific fisticuffs and lionhearted slugging, Gatti slipping Ward's rights and blocking his vicious lefts with this elbow, preventing Ward from giving him the Atomic Left Hook to the body that made him take a knee in the first fight, using the left jab, using the left hook, following up with the right when he needs to to keep his guard up, to keep Ward off balance. When Gatti broke his hand in the 4th, he sprung back as if he had been bitten by a horsefly, and then used up the remaining thirty seconds or so of the round dancing, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. When he went to his corner, his trainer crouched in front of him to be get him some water. He laid his head on his trainer's shoulder, weary, in pain, and said, "My hand, my hand. My right hand." His trainer asked him, "What happened?" "I broke my right hand." "What do you want me to do about it?" He trainer asked, then a second time as Gatti kept muttering "my hand, my hand." "What do you want me to do about it?" Gatti said, "I'm gonna keep going." (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 23rd, 2003
2:44 am	Big Bucks I was working on this Tuesday night, here it is for you now, complete. I love game shows. I realized this the other day as I was relaxing with a cigar watching "Let's Make a Deal", a morning ritual for me. Game shows, and consequently Game Show Network, are a popular TV pick in my lair, being as they're one of the few things that Meghan enjoys watching that don't immediately make me want to shoot my television, and one of the only thigns I enjoy watching on TV in general (I have somewhere around 20 channels in my "Favorite Channels" list). Now, I guess I should expand that statement at the top of this entry because it's more consequential than it intially seems. Game shows are universally ridiculed as the next-to-worst that TV has to offer as programming (the worst being, of course, soap operas ... 'nuff said). Mainly shown durning the day time for most of their existence, they were designed to appeal to the same audience that soap operas were -- dumb women. Smart move, as there are enough dumb women on the planet Earth that they could eat the moon if they all took a bite (tell 'em it's "non-fat"). So it's not a small thing to say that you find them some of the most enjoyable programming on television. It supposedly reveals a deep flaw in your character, an essential banality; it could also indicate a deep lack of understanding of just how dumb being "postmodern" is and, again, the same shallowness and banality that you were attempting to escape when you put up your Gary Coleman poster for the second time in your lifetime. Well, I don't like them because I like being postmodern. And I don't like them because I'm somewhere around the level of your average fat woman on welfare in terms of cultural awareness and extent of character (I guess people who hated me enough could try to make a case of it). I like them because they are the perfect embodiment of capitalism. Or at least, as close to it as we can get so far. And they keep getting closer. This stands in contrast to airplanes, which Rush Limbaugh termed "the perfect liberal environment". While I think "leftist" is more appropriate there, it's essentially correct. When a plane is 40,000 feet in the air, the small space occupied by those persons is the most leftist place on the planet. All of your movements and actions, at least the ones that matter, are controlled and monitored. You may not drink too much, you may only get up and use the bathroom at certain times, etc. etc. Now, of course, this is not to say that perhaps some of these policies are not necessary (though why I don't fly is a whole'notha essay), what matters is the similarities. It's a chance to see the philosophy in action, its good and bad points. Same thing with game shows. Now, admittedly, they have not always been perfectly capitalistic. They have, in fact, only made progression towards this point after many years, since the dawn of the game show itself. While essential components of the game show have remained the same (since they are what make it successful), over time the implementations have changed ... and grown more to resemble the world shaped by the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith (by the way, I think we'd all find economics more charming if, instead of regarding this a mere theory, we instead whimsically imagined a 18th-century Scotsman poking Alan Greenspan in the back of the head). Game shows have always maintained as part of their philosophy the idea of rooting for the "little guy". But the "little guy" was not the traditional proletariat of the Marxists ... but the bourgeousie, the middle-class guy. Not only did his wife watch TV all day when game shows got started, but another thing was getting started at this time ... yep, leftism (Look, I don't blame the shit for everything, but that shit has messed some shit up. And you can quote me on that). Since the "little guy" was being championed so much, this was the beginning of the middle-class feeling put-upon. No surprise that this time, the 50s, was also the dawn of conservativism in America. But the early game shows were a little autocratic. They featured mostly elite celebrity panels (like, say, "To Tell the Truth" or "What's My Line?"), especially after the quiz-show scandals. Still, they maintained a consistent idea of merit and hard-work being rewarded as opposed to some higher sense of charity. It's not "to each according to his need" on a game show - it goes to He Who Knows his Shit and Can Hit that Buzzer Like a Motherfucker(though, to be sure, the celebrities were often less than antagonistic towards the contestants -- and in the wild early days of TV, neither were the hosts!). Over time, though, the celebrities left the shows (they had mostly been there to give credibility anyway -- see, it can't be rigged! Don Rickles wouldn't let it!) and the contestants were poised to become the stars. But that couldn't quite happen, not at this point in the History of the Game Shows. The people weren't quite ready for TV, frankly. TV's sophistication by the Seventies had outgrown that of the people pretty quickly. Enter the Game Show Host. This is when you are hearing the emcee or host of the show referred to as the "star" of the show a lot. And, of course, this is when possibly the Greatest Game Show Ever hit its stride. Yes, of course I am talking about "Let's Make a Deal". This is possibly the Ultimate Game Show in many ways -- capitalism at the highest point in can achieve in the game-show format. Why do I say this? I think the evidence speaks for itself. "Let's Make a Deal" was one of the most influential game shows ever. People make references to it often, even without necessarily having seen the show since childhood ... or even once in their lives. Making references to numbered doors or curtains is the best example. Moreover, I think its influence runs much deeper. Tune in "Let's Make a Deal" sometime (if you happen to be up around 0900 EST on a weekday, you can watch it on Game Show Network) and pay close attention to what you see. When you think "Game Show Host", what do yout think? You think an orangish tan, lacquered black hair combed straight over the head, raising suspicions of a toupee. You think bad plaid sportcoats and a kinda fake laugh and bad puns and pale blue eyes. You're thinking of Monty Hall without even realizing it. The man somehow managed to become the archetype for all game show emcees to come, for good or ill, to be either imitated or scrupulously avoided. This is because "Let's Make a Deal" was more important of a show than most people realize. Like I said earlier, LMAD was in many ways the Ultimate Game Show. I first hit on this idea when I realized how far-reaching its influence was. Now I'll back it up. First, its important to note the structure of the show, the format. LMAD takes place on what is called it's "Trading Floor" -- away from the main action, which is usually to be found on the stage (at this point in game show history, still seen in relics like "The Price is Right"). This already sets up the first concept behind LMAD. Like brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or steely-eyed gamblers betting on horses from a comfortable skybox (though they were then mostly unknown), Dealers are removed from the action, which is almost antiseptic and very distant, being presided over by the laconic Carol Merrill, who only drapes herself appreciatingly over whatever the item is that is currently being focused on, be it a new Chevy Vega or fifty dollar's worth of Uncle Ben's Wild Rice. Contestants are not down in the game...they are outside of it. LMAD is not about beating the Physical Challenge or answering the Twenty Questions or figuring out where to put your Plinko chip. LMAD is a marketplace, not an arena; business is conducted there, not sports, however lighthearted the trading is. The contestants are referred to as "Dealers" of course, since there is really no "contest" per se. This brings us to another point about this show. While this is going to sound vaguely Communist at first, let me get through it and I think you'll see what I mean. There really is not that much competition between the Dealers on the show. Even Monty is not really someone you're "competing" against in the sense that you must be smarter than Monty or faster than Monty to win. The only way to "win" LMAD, after all, is to win the Big Deal at the end of the game ... and that's just a one-in-three shot (One-in-two if you happen to get to pick second). Okay, that's not quite the probability but the point is that the Big Deal is almost an afterthought. It's random chance. No Lightning Bonus Round here. So the Dealers are not really against each other -- and this is obvious when you see how everyone on the Floor will cheer or applaud politely when prizes are displayed or won, especially in a particularly exciting fashion. A new car always gets the crowd roaring. And, unwittingly, LMAD reveals a truer side of capitalism, instead of the dark, scrawled caricature that just about all of us were raised with and only a few of us still believe; that "social Darwinism" view of the idea, investing and trading red in tooth and claw, the law of Club, Fang and Interest. But on LMAD, capitalism, in the perfect marketplace, is seen to be something just as good -- and regrettably, just as Utopian -- as the most wild flights of Keynesian fancy. On LMAD, everyone gets a shot at the deals and everyone gets a shot at the Big Deal -- based on how much money you made, though. So the incentive to win big is there, but since the Big Deal is not often that much better than what's given away on the show, there is not the worship of greed that there is on other game shows. Many Dealers cut and run after they stumble into a charming living-room set with Color TV. But just as many, perhaps more, will throw it all away just for the fun of going for the Big Deal, figuring it's all "house money" anyway. LMAD is not a game, in the truest sense of the term. It is a series of small games. And there is no score, other than money. This is one of my most favorite things about the show, and I suspect it was for everyone else who made this show what it was. This show is dripping in cash. At any given time on the floor, Monty Hall probably has a few thousand bucks in the pockets of his jacket, all rolled up in combinations of ones, tens, fifties, hundreds, and the long-lost five-hundred and one-thousand dollar bills. When you Make a Deal and come out with three hundred dollars, your "score" is not dispassionately displayed on a light board next to a mocking "$" symbol. No -- Monty whips out the Host's Roll and peels off the three hundred simoleons for you right then and there. You hold it in your hand. Win more and you may get a five-hundred dollar bill, or even a thousand. Imagine that -- who ever saw one of those bills who would go on LMAD, before or since? They are gone now, and forgotten, becuase most people barely knew they were there. But on LMAD, that odd bill was almost a trophy in itself. And if you wanted to buy into another deal ... you gave the money back to Monty. That's why the call it 'money', after all. And cash keeps popping up on the show, not just from Monty's pockets. It flies out of trick cash registers, hides in boxes, costumes itself in gigantic rolls of Certs and lurks in the pocket of a pair of Haggar slacks. Did anyone else feel a little sick when Regis would hand over a check to a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" for his winnings? I know I did. Oh, calloo, callay, a fucking check. Imagine if someone on that show bailed out at the $32,000 level -- and then were presented with a gigantic goddamned metal briefcase full of money? Anyone else wonder why America got bored with that show? I don't. The game of LMAD is in the Deal-making. The essential qualities of the Art of the Deal are distilled down here as best could be before Donald Trump finally broke through and made it all so obvious for everyone in his blockbuster Trump: The Art of the Deal. The essential quality of the unknown is the main sticking point -- what's behind the curtain? And you can make it as simple or as complex as you want. The more you know about how game shows work, admittedly, the easier it is, but most people then were not so savvy (perhaps not even now). But it is not just this idea of the unknown element of the Deal that is important. A true Deal is impossible unless both parties are participating in it in good faith. Monty Hall provides that anchor, that rock of Honesty that is necessary for the deal to go through. Monty is on the level. He is not out to cheat you, or trick you. He may sometimes attempt to make things "more interesting" by offering you cash to call off a deal, as you stand there sweating under the lights in your Julius Caesar costume. But he will never rip you off. You don't have to take the curtain or the box, and the money is all real. If you talk to Monty, chances are you're walking away with more in your pocket than when you went in. I alluded to something a while back that I'll now get to, since I just made another reference to it. First, a question: why is "reality TV" so popular? It is nothing new, but it always takes the public by storm when it arrives (you mean to tell me you don't remember "The Dating Game" -- or even "Real People"? What about "America's Funniest Home Videos"?). The answer is, of course, that while we like to see famous people on TV, we most like to see ourselves on TV. "Reality" TV (which is even more removed from reality than that secret passage inside Scorpio's apartment on General Hospital) fits the bill well. Viewers can easily see themselves on these shows, and everyone gets a shot (admittedly, in the earlier days, everyone in Southern California got a shot) to make it on the show. This is why game shows will always be with us. But if the players, the Dealers, are the star, what is the point of the host? Well, on LMAD he is there to broker all the Deals. But Monty is an unusually active game show host. Most are safely ensconced behind a podium, reading questions a team of writers wrote a week ago over a few pots of coffee and the Encyclopedia Britannica. No, on LMAD and on other game shows, the point of the host is to keep the show interesting, keep it moving. He helps make the contestants the stars they are supposed to be, "spotting" them, as it were. He picks them up quickly if they fall, throws out words to complete sentences when they get tongue-tied. This was more necessary in a less media-infused time; we may see the game show host as a species slowly wither, if he is still around he will have much less to do. We are seeing that already with the new crop of "reality" shows. I watched a bit of one episode of "Mr. Personality", as an example. Could anyone tell me, offhand, just what the point of having Monica Lewinsky "host" the show was? And I don't mean, "why not Charles Nelson Reilly instead", I mean, why have a host at all? Another example -- what is the function of that guy with bed-head on "American Idol"? Anyone? Anyone? Apparently they needed a pro to read a phone number off a teleprompter, because that's all he does. Game show hosts (and, make no mistake, the new "reality" shows are, for the most part, game shows) may always be with us, vestigial like an appendix, though they don't seem to do much. One day, they may drop off. If you ask me, we are all either in huge trouble then, or we are about to finally get out of the woods on this whole TV thing that has dominated our country, our world, for most of the past century. Wish I could guess which it'll be. But as humanity is given the choice between redemption or a cultural collapse, they are hidden behind curtains, and all Carol Merrill will do is smile. Current Music: The Lover Speaks - Still Faking This Art of Love (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 20th, 2003
8:19 pm	Quick News Roundup In Mississippi, continuing in the grand Southern tradition of colorful politics, a Republican candidate for governor made a crack about some of the kids in Head Start being better off sitting on a piano bench in a whorehouse than being at home. While this is undoubtedly true, it raises some questions. The first that springs to mind is, well, who wouldn't? Maybe the Pope. Or Bill Bennett. Nah, Bill would enjoy the Hell of himself, I think. I know I'd thank my Mom every day for making me take those piano lessons. But now there are deeper questions. Where are these whorehouses that still have piano players? Nevada seems to have lost the practice in favor of making their places look like strip clubs, except less hoity-toity. I could believe that in Ole Miss there are still perhaps one or two good old-fashioned Houses of Ill Repute, preferably run by buxom matrons with names like "Miss Sadie" or "Ol' Elsie" or just "Mama". With the price of quality whores not exactly cheap, though, I think I'll stick with videogames. At least you get to keep the X-Box. Though I suppose an argument could be made that you're not paying the whore the money to spend time with you, you're paying her the money to go away. I can see that. This woman apparently decided the only way to keep her boys in line was to chain them to their beds at night. I see that the young gentlemen are of those ages where I tend to agree, being that they are under the age of twenty-one. This woman should be given one of those Martin Luther King B. Anthony Community Freedom Awards for Lifetime Achievement or something, instead she'll probably end up in the pokey. Sure, she could have raised her kids right and then she wouldn't have had this problem. But that's quickly becoming a non-issue here and around the world. Besides, seems to me these kids were complying with her -- doesn't that make it consensual? After all, when I was fifteen my Mom couldn't have handcuffed me to a desk, let alone chained me to my bed. The Dad doesn't appear to have had any involvement in this. I think this is clearly another case of what happens in the bedroom being none of our business. Yesterday with about five minutes of work I realized that carogna had apparently pulled another one of those Blue Lagoon gags that we heard about for five minutes while I was off work and thus mostly away from this forum. Hey, if they start chasing you, try to get them to chase you in those little cars while you're on a dirtbike or something. Those are always awesome -- those little metal boxes spinning out and shit, running into Perrier umbrellas at cafes, driving around ancient Roman pillars and all that, with those goofy Euro sirens (even the sirens sound kinda light in the loafers over there). Make sure to go down some stairs, I hear they have a lot there. Later, you can have a big fistfight with the maverick Interpol cop trying to bring you to justice in the middle of the Coliseum. That would be awesome. Hey, in today's market, you can't just pull a little stunt like this and expect to get anything out of it. Hell, you won't even make Lifetime's Movie of the Week, they're still replaying ones on topics pretty much like this from twenty years ago, for chrissakes. I think this is because they ran out of titles like "No! My Daughter!" and "Love Justice". No, if you want the rights to your story to be worth anything, you gotta do something big, like pull a gigantic minstrel show on the New York Times -- something spectacular. Rent a couple of those giallo movies if you need any more ideas. The key here is that the involvement of the Internet will help a lot but it needs a foundation of solid cat-and-mouse action along with funny European car chases and people smoking. Style yourself as kind of a Hannibal Lecter who doesn't eat people and just seduces teenage girls and I bet you'll have agents crawling up your ass for a shot at the movie rights, that's not even talking about the TV and book shit, appearances ... the whole "enchilada", as they say in "Itagglia". I don't think a catchphrase is necessary, though, unless you plan to make a habit of this -- that opens up a whole 'nother dimension to work with and we'd have to start all over again. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 12th, 2003
2:53 am	The Analects of Nebuchadnezzar 22. There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend. Those who get all uppity about "ninja" vs. "ninjas", and those who don't. As for the latter, they are better left to themselves. As for the former, it is truly wise not to attempt to split ninjas. Or ninja. Fuck it. Hey, I'm trying to get warmed up here. Current Music: Ltj Bukem - Deserted Vaults (Instrumental) (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 27th, 2003
7:54 pm	Gran Naniwa to demand recount This is another one of those things everyone saw already but I didn't, because I tend to get burned out on the Internet after three days of it at work. Plus, dial-up sucks. And of course you knew that if it wasn't Tiger Mask, it would be Gran Sasuke (aka The Great Sasuke) who pulled this stunt. Continuing in the Nip tradition of refining and improving things ... I don't think any of Los Campeones del Justicio, not even El Enmascarado del Plata himself, El Santo, ran for any elected office. As Japan's outside world slowly takes the shape of its bizarre inner world of video games and shittily-drawn cartoons, we are left with many questions. Will he attempt to Shooting-Star Press the PM in a coup d'etat? What if another masked wrestler wins another seat -- will they challenge each other to mask-vs-mask matches to settle debates? I find the concept of a man in a wrestling mask and (very governmental) blue Brooks Brothers suit duing a plancha off of an antique mahogany desk on to the floor of the Nip parliament, taking out the man there attempting to filibuster, to be a fantastic concept. I take American government seriously, of course, but every now and again this stuff is fine, and that goes double when it's in another country. Besides, the Nip government is a joke anyway, they fucked up the whole country with their bullet train and giant robot and giant robotic bullet train projects based deep within Mount Fuji. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2003
3:24 am	Fuck "April Fool's Day". And I'm not saying that because someone pulled a joke on me that I fell for, because they didn't. Because most jokes on the Internet on April Fool's day are either 1)obvious and unfunny, or 2)almost get you, and then you're like, "Oh, April Fool, ha ha, eat my shit you cuntclown." Kind of like in The Game, where the only time you really almost buy anything is towards the end where the motherfucker jumps off the roof and you're like "Whoa! Holy Shit! He ... oh, yeah, 'The Game'. Fuck you." Anyway, wasn't April Fool originally a French tradition? I thought we were boycotting all that French shit. Even if we weren't this is as good an excuse as any to stop it with this crap. The jokes are never funny, and if they are not painfully obvious they tend to be bland. The only humor out of this day is the fact that so many will buy the joke. And really, that's only real humor when you're witnessing it live. Over the Internet it fails, because sarcasm, &c.;, &c.;, are so difficult to discern through mere typing (unless you're so good with words it comes out in your style -- Hell, most professional writers these days can't even pull that shit off), and people are so gullible for whatever they read on the Internet, that it's too easy. For Chrissakes, I could even throw in something subtle at the end of this, sadly, not-that-funny-or-worth-reading essay on why April Fool's Day is Homo and you would all buy it, admittedly because I'm technically writing this on April 2, but also because of the rest of the piece and the magical bland tone that all writing on the Internet seems to acquire unless worked over like a Kurdish agitator in a Baghdad basement. I was thinking of getting a second job. Looking into this limo driver thing I heard about the other day. We'll see what happens, I'll keep you updated. Tips on combat driving while in limousine-sized vehicles or pointers to dissertations on same from the Internet would be much appreciated. Current Music: Theme from "The Apartment" on SomaFM's "Secret Agent" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 26th, 2003
1:10 am	This entry rated 9,4 Mo Apparently there is some band whose name might be "Mimetic" that has a webpage here. I should indicate for completness' sake that they are apparently on the Parametric Records record label. My attention was directed to this "band" by merzbau, who felt strongly enough about this "band" that he felt the need to make a public, first-person post about it. I went to the website to check this, "the most impressive IDM album I've bought in a long time", because I am always up for trying new, exciting things. OK, I also figured if all else failed I'd get some comedy out of the whole thing. I think you can guess what happened. See, I saw that "IDM" and I thought "OK, the DM obviously stands for Dance Music, or maybe Dunce Music, or maybe Dancing Mechcanically, but most likely Dance Music. But what about the 'I'?" See, I had heard that the 'I' stood for 'Intelligent', but that can't be the case, as I don't really see how music can be 'intelligent', even if it is a symphony or some shit like that. Maybe that's supposed to mean that the people who listen to it are 'intelligent'. You know, like more sophisticated and intelligent than the other people who listen to repetitive music with one sample repeated over and over and some boom tisk. See, because sometimes it goes boom, boom, boom-tisk. See? Intelligent. And of course the true sign of sophistication is when you are able to appreciate something that clearly, 98% of the world would never like. On second thought, nah, the 'intelligent' must refer to the guys who hit the "IDM" button on their Korg and then let their cat walk on the beat machine and then collect CD-store prices for an album full of this stuff. I think a more accurate term would be "Introductional Dance Music" because the shit sounds like one long introduction. You sit there listening to: boom tisk boom boom tisk boom boom bom bomobombm tissitkstssisksitisks 'there is no spoon, whoa i know kung fu' boom bom bomb tweet tweet and you're thinking "OK, when do the guitars and the rocking start?" and they never do. Just to show I care, here's a track-by-track review of all the tracks I listened to off Mimetic's oh-so-stylish website that is also functional, if by functional you are using a shorthand term for "functionally illiterate", or perhaps "high-functioning retarded person". I picked the ones off the album you indicated[see the entry], which, since it seems to have no title that I can discern, was helpfully marked by what I would presume to be its cover. "Destructive" - I played this and then forgot I was listening to it. BTW, the website indicated that it was "4,3 Mo", which I have no idea what the fuck that means. Is that some unit of IDM IDM-ness or something? I rated this track a 4 for being good music to play while I'm eating in a restaurant. "Bitter" - Was some girl supposed to be crying during this? Distorted vocals and Matrix sample, I think. It was hard to tell this wasn't supposed to be the other track, I had to keep checking it to see if I had the right title. Kinda OK, maybe good for washing dishes. 7,2 Mo, so obviously it's more "Mo" than the other track, which must mean it's not as good, as I rated this one a 3. "Sdaa3" - apparently the third in a nine-part "Sdaa" series, this appears to be Mimetic's titular tribute to falling asleep on your keyboard. Surpringly, I enjoyed this track the most as I can recall hearing no particularly annoying sounds during this one. This would be good music to play upstairs on the Jazz Bar speakers very quietly while Bella Morte drowns them out downstairs. This one is apparently 6,5 Mo, which is surprising considering I rated it a 4. Perhaps the second "Mo-number" is key, Mo must be some kind of two-dimensional rating system. "M" and "o". Hmm. "The Face of Geneva" - only an excerpt, maybe there was some rocking going on after this? I hope so. 4,4 Mo, yet I could only rate this track a 2, as I was listening to it as I started typing this and I can't remember anything about it whatsover. Perhaps it was too "intelligent" for me. "The Face of Bratislava" - another 'excerpt'. I feel bad for Bratislava, because it must be fucking annoying. This track sure was. That's exactly what I want to "inelligently" "dance" to; six minutes of the fucking fire alarm. Did they package drugs with the album? Because they should have. I hope they at least provided a list of prescription medication in the liner notes to alter your mind sufficiently to be able to listen to this. Why do I see two men, one black, one white, in a carnival van riding away and counting their money and then dancing and singing about how the girl is actually theirs? I believe Dr. Emilio Lazardo said it best when he said, "Shut down that gods-damned klaxon." Then again, he also said it best when he said, "Bigaboutie! Youa the stupidest-a person-a I-a ever-a know!" I rated this track a "-8" despite it's impressive "6 Mo" rating. I'll say one thing for this stuff: it's easier to ignore. Like I wish I could ignore crappy songs by BiGod 20, for example. At least with Internet radio you can change the channel instead of hitting the DJ with a croquet mallet. Current Music: BiGod 20 - Carpe Diem (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 17th, 2003
11:16 pm	Holy Shit. I'm not sure if this is really an Iraqi exile guy, as the accent sounds a little off, but this is still fantastic. Wanted to pass this along to those who hadn't seen it yet. At least this guy came up with some fantastic cathphrases. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
10:10 pm	Goddamnit, can't the war start on a goddamned Wednesday? If I'm going to cheer on the boys in night-vision-confusing tan, I need to be off fucking work. Christ. But I think we may get another day, because no doubt there will be some stragglers. So hopefully that's what will happen, and I can hit the grocery store after I get off work for snacks 'n notions 'n things and be back to catch what's up. Let's see, I think they're about eight hours ahead there, so unfortunately I'd be catching it in the middle of the day ... but I'm sure there should be some footage. Hopefully Rummy will smoke a cigar or something. Current Music: Rush clips from yesterday's show (Comment on this)
5:56 am	Things that suck 1. Paraplegics. Especially the fat ones. Look, people, you can't fuck anymore. Do you realize how much of a blessing this is? It's gone, it's all gone, your gonads are dead. You don't even have to jack off anymore. So why not devote some time to, oh, I dunno, not being a fat piece of crap? Jesus, with all the time people worry about fucking, one might think that with it removed as an issue you could become goddamned Bat-Man in your spare time. Except a paraplegic Bat-Man. See how awesome that is? Ever see "Crippled Masters"? If you're "elite", "scene" and "underground" you sho nuff did. I'm talking shit like that. Find some dude with T-Rex arms and you're set. But really, when you can't walk anywhere you must have a lot of free time, because it seems like people with no legs do nothing but either make a goddamned nuisance of themselves (like "Ronnie the Commie" Kovacs, I think was his name, the guy from that movie about how Vietnam was terrible and we should have just left the gooks, excuse me, Vietnamese Asian-Americans, alone), or do idiotic things like walk across the country on their hands or some shit. I mean, I don't necessarily want to talk shit about the guy who just did that, because he's a veteran and everything ... but, dude. See that Bat-Man stuff above? That applies to you too, motherfucker. Or become really good at chess or some shit, I dunno. Don't just do idiotic stunts, make yourself badass of something. Try not to be an amateur detective, as that shit is a bit overdone. 2. The Winner of that Fiction Contest I told you about. And the runners-up, too, actually. The whole lot of porch-monkeys should get cancer. Check out the winning "story" here. I mean, really, this is some boring shit. Oh, the drama, you missed Tommy's soccar practice! I'm unfulfilled as a mom! Fuck you, nigger. The best part is that if you bother to check out the bio of this dried-up bint, she's actually a pro! Thanks a lot, ho, you beat them all at their own game, by squeezing out a bunch of poorly-written, soporific, Sirkian pot-simmerers about the drama of people standing around and talking about being sad with the fucking Prince of them All, EMPEROR BANAL, KING BORING! Congratulations! Really, I mean that. I bet a lot of people who wrote stories about catching fireflies and going to the lake and shit are really pissed that a bored pro threw out a story in her spare time and picked up an easy six hundred simoleons. 3.Industrial Music. OK, I know, call me a nigger or whatever, but I just keep listening to this shit and it never gets any better than my old-ass fucking Die Warzau tape. That was about the limit and you Krauts or Kraut-imitators hit it somewhere around 1987. I mean, I keep hearing shit, and then I'll say, "this genre is shit", and fans will say "Oh, really, what did you listen to?" and I'll tell them "Oh, you know, Monkey Colon." And they'll say, "Oh, Monkey Colon sucks, you need to check out Robot Pirate, and also ::VxVx:: is terrific too." "Oh, OK, thank you for your helpful tips on this genre of music I'm exploring, music lover," I will respond. And then I will go listen to the "music" they suggested and it's the same crap. First you have the guy who whines, or yells. If he yells he must sound really pissed, like you just punched his girlfriend in the mons. If he whines he must sound like you just penetrated his girlfriend after you donkey-punched him in the men's restroom and took his wallet. Then you have his bank of computer electronics, which are generally one or several machines designed to simulate the sounds of actual instruments. Now, give yourself a band name, so that you sound like more than one person. Only extraordinarily famous acts can actually admit that they are just one guy with a Casio keyboard, the rest must trick the witless children into forking over another 10 bucks on the odds that they'll see enough people to get together a quick hand of poker on stage. Here are some naming tips: 1: Remember to go with your theme. E.g., if you're the yelling guy, then pick something that sounds angry, like "Fork in Your Eye" or "Rotten Twat". If you're whiny, then you'll want something that fits that too, like "Tears in Rain". Double points if you stole the name of your band from someone else's song. That's a true hallmark of quality and you might even trick people into thinking you're a tribute band, which is always a better bet for entertainment than an industrial act. Unless they're a tribute act to an industrial band -- but that's OK, the Electric Hellfire Club doesn't actually play in concerts, I think. If you can pull it off, sometimes going the exact opposite route will really shock people, like pick a sad name if you're the yelling guy, suggesting the pain deep inside, or, vice versa, the boiling rage lurking just beneath the surface. 2:Make sure to have lots of idiotic characters in your band name. Your "true" fans will slavishly follow whatever gobbledygook you managed to bang out by hitting random three-number combinations with the "Alt" key to make cool patterns. The best part is that this can get a simple or as complex as you want it to - like designing a room, you can twiddle it to perfection (one backslash or two?) or just say "good enough for industrial music" and leave it at a pair of colons. 3:Misspelling never, ever, goes out of style. Sure-fire win and makes your band-name memorable. 4:German theme = +50 bonus points. The easy way to do this is just to slap a "Der/Die/Das" in front of the name and Krautify it up. Just imagine Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes saying the name of your band and then put it down phonetically. Those wishing to go the extra mile can even get actual German words from the dictionary, though this is completely unecessary, as the subhuman tweakers will believe it means whatever you tell them it means in German. By way of example, the relatively drab "Snake Pit" becomes "Der Snarkenpoot". Sure to strike fear in the heart of any booking agent or "80's Nite" DJ. OK, so you've got your Casio keyboard, and you've got your name, and most important, you've got the beginnings of your image. This is what counts the most. Robots could produce the "music" you make, it's best you realize this from the start. Most people in a club cannot hear anything of your music other than the "kick-drum" (or the "boom" in "boom-tisk") thanks to the crowds, volume, drug use, etc. So your fancy arpeggios and samples from Suspiria will only be appreciated by those stupid enough to actually by your album at the merch table. Therefore, the main problem in your song is the beat. Then play some music from a Nintendo game backwards over it, throw in a couple of cool samples to impress the DJs with your "sceniosity" and you're in like Flynn. Most of your time will be spent coming up with badass titles for your songs. Again, it helps to steal lines from other songs, or dialogue from movies. The rest of your image must be your "act". Now, of course, you don't really need an "act" as you are basically a nerd with an expensive toy. However, if you do actually come up with some sort of an act instead of just pretending to slam your gooey fingers mightily onto those plastic keys as the songs you programmed into the keyboard a week ago spool out casually, then you might actually become a huge success. Things like looking at the audience, attempting to do cool things that look cool on stage (like for example, singing, moving around to the beat, pointing at people in the crowd), and occasionally talking in between songs will go a long way towards making you one of the "Gods of Industrial Music". Before you know it, Razormaid will have remixed all of your songs and make them more "clubby", making three times as much money off of them as you did in the process. But hey, it's all about the love. OK, that got out of hand, but the point is that this music is pretty much designed for one thing, and that's as an excuse to go be in a room with a bunch of other random people, so that you can get some drugs and/or have some sex. Really, I've tried, but after, for the third song in a row on the Internet radio station I was listening to, I asked myself "Mother of God, when the fuck is this song going to end?", I figured the whole project was a wash. "Industrial" music seems to me to be thinly-disguised rave crap come up with by Europeans too concerned with being Socialist and driving on the wrong side of the road to get to their legalized 17-year-old prostitutes to worry about making decent fucking music. 4.Daredevil. I thought about it and decided the movie was a solid C+. Hell, going to the movies in general blows. I haven't seen any movies come out that I've genuinely been more than slightly interested in seeing in two years or more. So far I'm still waiting for Bulletproof Monk, which will probably blow but I'm just happy to actually be looking forward to a movie. I'm also pretty excited about Pirates of the Caribbean, which promises to be so spectacularly bad as to tear the fabric of the space-time continuum ... and CREATING A COMEDY PARADOX OF MAMMOTH PROPORTIONS! This "Fuckheimer" production features "Wino Forever" Depp, Geoffrey "F" Rush, Johnathan "Galleon Q45X19" Pryce, and a bunch of other people I've never heard of because I'm not "scene" enough and have never been to a film festival. This film will be brought to you via the capable hands of Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring, and is sure to bring that same "touch of class" he did to what was basically a movie about a killer bootleg video involving horse suicide. C.H.U.D.S. was more epic. Anyway, this film looks to be a real blockbuster, just like all other movies that refuse to show you an actual human being in any fashion with less than 3 months to go before the film hits theaters. I already knew what kind of fucking boxers "Neo" wears 8 months before The Matrix came out and halfway through the film, I think, the director popped up and announced the sequel. Way to go, guys. Collin Farrel was good as "Bullseye", though. The Irish thing was a bit homo but you can't beat a man who can barely fucking speak English words other than "Bullseye". Fantastic. The rest can go to Hell, though. I never really liked the "Daredevil" book anyway, so I'm not surprised -- it always seemed to me like one of Marvel's weakest titles that they consistently hung onto just so they'd have their Bat-Man. 5.Seeing Vladimir Klitschko get knocked the fuck out by some chubby ham 'n egger from South fucking Africa, of all places. And you know what else sucked? That Jones/Ruiz fight. I guess Jones is not just some piece of crap who knows how to make himself look good, but I would have been more convinced if Ruiz had brought his "A" game. That worthless beaner may as well have been the WBA Floor Waxing champion, or Heavyweight AutoFellatio Champion, for all the vigor and skill he showed defending it. I see now what the writers are talking about when they say that the heavyweight division blows if this is the best it can come up with. You ask me, good boxing can and does happen up to cruiserweight, max. But the heavyweight division, being as it's the one everyone seems to give a shit about, is totally fucked all to fuck. Maybe, if the Federal government actually does take it over, it will turn out OK. Hah, just kidding. It will collapse and then we can all watch illegal bareknuckle boxing from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Hey, declare no wrestling and no nutpunching and I'd watch it. About the only good thing I had to say about the fight disappeared just as it was on my lips: I thought that Jones was going to refuse to be an idiot and just answer Larry Merchant's questions instead of thanking Jesus. But no, he answered the question, then talked over Larry to get his Jesus-ing in. Weirdly, he seemed to get more niggerly as the interview went on, he started out acting like a normal human being -- very weird. By the end he was doing shit like swaying his head, yelling "no doubt" and "y'all musta forgot" and "it's the first of da monf", which the crowd seemed to like better. I'm disappointed as I'm beginning to suspect the whole "wild nigger" thing is just an act, trying to remake Ali again. We'll see if it works, at least Ali had opposition. Like Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon "Boards don't hit back," and neither do RJJ's opponents. Something he does scares the shit out of them - could be the rapping. Well, I think that's enough for now, the next fucking week at least. Feel free to discuss or not discuss or merely leave cryptic comments in my journal. You are authorized to launch the weapon. Torpedo is in the water and has acquired. It all comes back to fucking Red October. Current Music: November Group - We Dance (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 10th, 2003
5:13 am	Reader Mail Part Two - Actual Fucking Mail This Time OK, last time the joke was not so good. However, this time I have actually received some reader mail and, rather than taking the time to actually respond to it in a legitimate fashion, I figured I'd just go ahead and make some comedy out of it. "jon" (streetlampsin_paris@xxxxxxxx) writes: hey, i was wondering if you owned the "cancer" account on livejournal and if you do own it.. i wanted to ask you if you didn't want it anymore and if you wouldn't mind letting me have it? that's all. thanks! -jon Thanks for your letter, "jon". No, sadly, I don't own the 'cancer' account. Frankly, I'm jealous of the bastard that did get it, because that was a good idea. In fact, I went looking for it a while before and found the same thing you did - just another account that was sitting their waiting for its "30 days" to be up. Yeah, right. Brad Fitz could probably write a script to delete all journals in this state in about 30 seconds. He just won't do it. Probably because he's a wimp. That's the only thing I can think of. Hey, like the man said, if you're going to shoot -- shoot, don't talk. In other words if you're going to delete the goddamned journal, then delete the motherfucker so we can all move on with our lives. Well, that could have been the farthest this went. And then I actually sat and thought about this shit. First of all, how the fuck did this guy find my email address? Well, since there's no information on who would own the account with the username "cancer", we should go looking for all the people who have "cancer" as an interest". But wait, that's 368 users, at least. How the fuck do you get to me? I guess somehow there's a way to "google" LJ. I wouldn't know, as I think this is only a paid user thing for some reason, as it doesn't work for me. But if you did google this place for "cancer", I would be like Casey Kasem, bringing all the hits. I think I have something like 10 or 12 interests that involve cancer, as well as my bio; really, this is comedy that is probably a little stale and could do with some spring cleaning. But, thanks to the hilarity of this email, the spent corpse of cancer comedy has been revitalized by a cancer thunderbolt. Which, I guess, makes the cancer joke a Comedy Frankenstein's Monster stalking the land. Which is OK with me except that it would mean the joke is a submongoloid homocidal maniac with an extreme fear of fire. But it would also mean the joke is Boris Karloff. And, well, I think Bo Karloff more than balances it out. It's these kinds of thoughts that occur to me at 0500, folks. So then I was thinking about why this guy wants the username "cancer". What is he going to do with it? Maybe he, too, is an aficionado of cancer comedy. Or he could be overly obsessed with his astrological sign. Or, worst of all, he could actually have cancer and maybe be really interested in the topic, you know, because IT'S SLOWLY KILLING HIM FROM INSIDE. Let's say I did own this particular username. What responsibilities would I have in conferring this account upon "jon" whose email listed his name as "amo té"? What liabilities do I have? Will my accidental disability insurance cover any injuries I might sustain as a result of passing along ownership of this account? If he mailbombs the Nazis and they sue him, will I have to appear in court? If he uses this LJ to harass fat girl communities, will I have to answer for his crimes as well? Just what does this young man plan to do with this journal account, anyway? Will it be used for good, or for evil, or just for indifferent, banal fucking around? With great power comes great responsibility, certainly the same can be said of having a coveted LJ username, now obtainable only through "spreading the word" and "referrals" and "brute force password hacking". Maybe this account is worth money! Could I auction it off on eBay? I wonder how much I'd get -- has anyone ever done this before? A quick search of eBay reveals I'd be the first, which is fine by me -- just wait until I figure out a way to involve getting levels, weapons and "gold" as part of having a Livejournal account -- then we'll see more of a market. Anyway, these are all questions I need to think over before I make a decision regarding this. Of course, that would be if I actually owned the account. I don't, but I think they're important questions anyway, just in case anyone ever comes around asking about eskimocancer. Because then, I'll know what to do. Current Music: Hasil Adkins - She Said (HOO HEE AHH AHH) (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 9th, 2003
12:05 am	I Dream of Geraldo My journal has really been shitty lately. Sorry for that. I've been unable to write anything, anywhere, just about. We'll see if reading actual books, with pages and shit, helps jump-start my heart. I'm starting to get little images off the fringe, ideas like light coming through the crack under the door. Hopefully, they will help me not write a sentence like that last one. Anyway, I thought it might help to just write some bullshit. And if it were funny that might improve my luck. So I figured, why not tell you about this bizarre dream I had the other day? I am Nebuchadnezzar, after all ... no eating grass, though. And what the Hell, maybe I'll even jazz it up a bit, like I was really there ... I was walking into what little wind there was to keep the cigar smoke in my nostrils. It was either that or the 3-day-old shite smell that pervaded the whole worthless country. I hocked and spit on the ground as I headed up the broken stone street to the Hilton Dhubai. I was there just looking for a white man, really. When I got to the Hotel juice bar I saw a man in a leather jacket sitting off in a corner. He surreptitiously tipped a flask into his guava drink and when the pewter caught the light, I knew in a second it was Geraldo. Fucking Geraldo. Now he was in Dhubai covering the latest on Raghead Rage. I threw a US buck on the bar and got a peach drink and went over to talk to Geraldo. He, too, seemed glad to see another white man. He had shaved and showered, which I thought odd. Those were hard to come by, even at Dhubai's fanciest hotel. Besides, with such weather, why bother? Even in the dark, root cellar coolness of the juice bar I had a small film of sweat all over me and I could tell that Geraldo had been rethinking his signature handlebar moustache lately. So I asked him what was up and he told me that he and his boys were scheduled to go on the air tonight, but of course this would be on US time. So this meant that he and his crew were basically going to stay up all night and do their piece, then party like it was 2099. In good cheer, he shared me some of what was in his flask - it was pure grain. Good God, he knew someone with access to the diplomatic bag! But of course, he was Geraldo. It was already late, the muezzins having called the last prayers of the day and the police eying white men a little more suspiciously than usual. Geraldo offered me a couch to sleep on so that I could avoid going back onto the street at night, in return for stories of my adventures in the Interior. I agreed as long as that Pouch of Plenty kept spitting out bottles of Cutty Sark and Jim Beam. He bummed a cigar off me as we headed up into the hotel's main area. It sounded like a riot was going on inside, hooting and hollering mixed with the ululation of Geraldo's native crew - for of course, those causing all the ruckus were with the Man Himself. He grinned that huge, toothy Mexican grin, looking even more like Pancho Villa with the huge Churchill-sized cigar he'd bummed off me clenched in his teeth, and said "What the Hell? That's why they call it Journalism!" I laughed like I knew what the Hell he was talking about. Now, the hotel had an Olympic-size swimming pool with a jacuzzi. Of course, there were specific hours laid out for men and women to use the pool separately, but the pool was closed at any rate. It was set in a huge atrium that extended past the second and third floors of the hotel, with balconies overlooking the pool area. Geraldo's suite of rooms took of the better part of one of these balcony areas; he told me that he had requested "rooms with views" and showed me the window in his hotel room, looking out of the scenic indoor swimming pool. We both laughed and then started the serious drinking. Geraldo took it a little easy as he, of course, had to go on in about 45 minutes, or so he said. Sure enough, after I had been there about half an hour or so, all of a sudden he snapped to attention and began barking orders to his crew, his J. Peterman "Urban Sombrero" on top of his head, still working on my cigar, now all he needed was a brace of revolvers to make the transformation complete. He yelled at the men in a mixture of Spanish, Limey slang, and Urdu, and they started to fall in line, taking on roles like they were jumping into costumes, like Bruce Wayne sliding down the Bat-pole and coming out the bottom dressed as Batman. The man with the lazy eye -- poof! -- was now the sound guy, swinging a boom mic over Geraldo with the nuanced precision of a champion fisherman. Camera, lights, satellite hookup were all being put together like a machine. I laughed in spite of myself as I watched them throw it all together with the slapdash sloppiness that only the truly professional can accomplish, there on the roof of the Dhubai Hilton, the mountains black as the eyes of the women just to our right, the sun long gone, slipping across the world, somewhere over the U.S. now, home territory. "Like a machine, a fucking machine!" I yelled and toasted them with my contraband nourishment. They ignored me. I didn't really pay attention to Geraldo doing his broadcast as I could only hear half the conversation anyway, and besides which I couldn't see the little monitors he and his crew were using to make sure his video feeds that he'd picked up (the man I later discovered was the satellite man had told me that there was some fantastic footage of a Somali man being shot in the face - "Close up, right there! Like this!" he insisted). So I rolled back downstairs and amused myself by seeing if I could get the Fox News Channel and watch what Geraldo was broacasting a few feet above my head. When he came back down, the serious drinking started. He re-fired his cigar (which he'd stashed in his shirt pocket after doffing his Urban Sombrero) and said "Here's to Truth, Justice, and the American Way" and we knocked back our Cutty and over-chlorinated waters. At some point he got very drunk and started telling me horror stories about working in Muslim countries. "I know I used to be a softie," he said, slurring his words, "and hey, I voted for Nader, OK? But you know, you play to your audience, you know how the Fox crowd is, they like the red meat and the church-going and all that rig-marole(He actually did leave out the 'a' in 'rigamarole'). But I've seen the way they treat their own people out here, OK, it's terrible, I mean the women are like slaves and the men just sit around smoking pipes all day and then they cut off the hands of children, I mean what the fuck man? You know what I'm saying?" I could not help but agree. At some point the Cutty was gone and we'd discovered a fifth of Christian Brothers brandy. I was beyond the point where I could have wondered who the Hell had put the booze in the bag, though I am mulling that over now. The Paki boys (as they had turned out to be) really took to that stuff, downing it with great gusto. Soon we were matching them gulp for gulp and at some point we decided to begin throwing furniture off the balcony of the hotel into the pool below, hooting and hollering. I'd lost my hat and was ululating at the top of my lungs, "leeleeleeleeleelee!" as I threw the television into the drink and we all cheered. "God Bless the USA!" yelled Geraldo as he tossed the lamp like a javelin, aiming for the jacuzzi. "Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité!" I countered as heaved my end of a couch older than me over the balcony. I woke up after that. And though I've basically turned it into a narrative and embellished it some, I really did wake up thinking "Why the fuck did I just have a dream about hanging out with Geraldo?" I hadn't even been watching him on FNC or anything like that. I dunno. Maybe I'm gay for Geraldo. Current Music: NRN 91.9 Subculture Shock f. xiane + stealthboyfriendband (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 4th, 2003
7:18 pm	Strategems for a different time, from a different time. The terrific meta-blog The Corner, courtesy of National Review Online, pointed me in the direction of this story about Americans abroad and what they're running into. In particular this story about Vince fucking Vaughn, no less, caught my attention: "Man, it was bad," says the Rat Pack-y star of Swingers. "These girls saw us and were kind of flirting, and they kept asking us if we were American. Finally we said, 'Yes,' and they just took off. "One girl turns and says, 'We were hoping you were Canadian.' Canadian? Since when was it cooler to be Canadian?" These are certainly troubling times, when pimply-faced Euros in DMX shirts and Nike tennis shoes harass Americans who have bothered to go through the hassle of getting on a plane just so they can visit their homo countries, see their broken-down old buildings, eat their weird food and get the shits in their toilets (which are older than most American's grandparents). Of course, the conduct of some Americans has been less than stellar in the face of this, as the article I cited above mentions - jackasses are going out of their way to try to buy these people off. Forget the Canadian flag, these people are practically sewing patches on their backpacks that say "Don't blame me, I voted for Ralph Nader" in five different languages. Naturally, I find this distressing from both sides. In particular I was moved by Mr. Vaughn's inability to engage in that most American of pastimes, namely getting into some foreign snatch, due to his nationality. However, it reminded me in particular of a great story that Kirk Douglas told in his fantastic autobiography The Ragman's Son. Not many people know this, but old Kirk is actually a Russian Jew. And of course, when he was getting started in Hollywood, it wasn't good to be the Jew, you were basically black. So he picked a stage name that sounds more Scottish than Robert the Bruce. Early in his career, he ends up going home with some society broad even though during dinner with her she had talked a lot about how terrible she thought Jews were. So he figures, "I'll show her" and says nothing. Cut to the chase, back at her house he's banging her like John Henry when he finally can't take any more and yells, "DO YOU LIKE THAT COCK? THAT IS A JEW COCK INSIDE OF YOU! I'M A JEW AND I'M FUCKING YOU WITH MY JEW COCK!" Ah. That story always gets me a little misty. The grand old days of Hollywood and all that. Anyway, I figured, why not use much the same strategy?* Instead of right up front making it obvious you're an American, just pretend to be Canadian. Try to be more bland than usual and have no strong opinions about anything, this will tend to make the Euro girls like you more anyway as well as convince them of your Canadianism. Then, when you're finally slamming the stupid twat up against the wall, start shouting "USA! USA! USA!" If you can possibly stash a small American flag somewhere on your person, this works even better. Real pros should have "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan hiding in the closet, ready to spring out at the appropriate moment yelling "HOOOOO!!!" and waving his huge American flag stapled to a two-by-four. Of course, due to the bizarre legal system of many of these countries, falsely impersonating a Canadian for the purposes of gaining sexual intercourse is punishable by time in "the brig" or "the gaol" or whatever the Hell they call jail over there. So be quick about grabbing your multipass and hopping the Eurotrain through the Funnel to Luxembourg or whatever the fuck. If they give you any problems at the border, just wrap a hotel towel around your head and claim to be Muslim and seeking asylum from Macaroonistan. You should get in with no problems, and be set up with an apartment with free cable to boot. Ever see European cable? It's got porn, man. You'll be all set. *Please note that I only advocate this for getting laid. At all other times you should be as American as possible. All Americans who pretend to be Canadians whilst abroad should be shot as traitors to our country. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 3rd, 2003
7:11 pm	A quick post, as, God help me, my biggest challenge yet is due to be here in 15 minutes. Kidmongo with: Crohn, cirrhosis of the liver, Cystic Fibrosis, and a hodgepodge of other minor ailments. I have no idea what the fuck is up with this kid, but I know I ain't gonna like it. First, I wanted to make it clear to those who have been fans of this journal for a while that I had no involvement whatsoever in the death of Mr. Rogers. As you all know, cancer was to blame, and well, cancer is my game. However, it was not me this time. I was not even attempting to do anything crazy like give the entire city of Pittsburgh cancer or anything like that. Because Pittsburgh is awesome. I just hope that someday kids still give a shit about him. Maybe they'll still show his show. But I doubt it. Second, I didn't bother throwing down the 60 bucks for the RJJ/Ruiz pay-per-view because, well, I figured that beaner was going to put him down hard. In the ring the little fast guy against the huge guy does not do so well, that's why there are weight classes. But Roy Jones, Jr. had this guy completely intimidated, and like Doug Fischer (of maxboxing.com - best boxing website I've seen so far) said: OK, RJ, you got my attention and respect. You actually managed to beat someone who wasn't a total asshole. Let's see what you do with it. Even so, I'll respect him, but I won't like him. I think the guy is a complete nigger and the last fight I saw him in (vs. Clinton Woods) was a joke. The guy is approaching Prince Naseem levels of idiocy and niggonometry fast and it grates on me heavily. Boxing is a sport with history and dignity, not Crazy Brazilian Monkey-Man Kumite, and there is a set of rules that goes along with that. Bullshit like coming up out of the floor on an elevator whilst pretending to rap to your shitty rap song about how you're the best boxer ever and fireworks go off turns boxing into something more like pro wrestling. And while there's some pro wrestling I like, it ain't fucking boxing, kid. So hopefully now that RJJ has actually beaten a real opponent he'll shut the fuck up and get to work. I'll keep watching, with interest this time. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 24th, 2003
9:00 pm	After an entry by goliardhoungan I actually had to look at this for a minute to figure out what was wrong with it. At first I was thinking, "Yeah, Hungry Man. What about it? It's an All Day Breakfast to fill you up right, food real Men eat." Then I looked over in the percentages column that I never look in. Good God. 231% cholesterol. I think I may pick one of these up. And yeah, the article did suck. This guy is such a huge pussy. Aw, sorry, why don't you go have your maple-flavored falafel and sushi for breakfast? You fag. Oh, no, the sausage doesn't look real. Hey, nigger. You bought a cardboard box that said "Frozen Breakfast Food Product Device" on it. What the fuck do you think, you're going to open it and Jimmy Dean and Aunt Jemima are going to jump out and start having a fey-do-do in your kitchen with Uncle Ben, playing fiddle and skilletin' up some tasty hash browns and spicy sausage? No, you asshole, you bought the food that says that not only are you such a loser that you have no woman to cook you a meal, but not such a giant loser that your mommy still makes you breakfast, but you are either too lazy or manly or a combination of both to cook yourself a breakfast. You are in that Bachelor Zone of real, hard-ridin' manliness that defies such petty concerns as sprinkling parsely on something to improve its "presentation" or letting the government tell you what you should eat. Has anyone ever thought of that? That this is the government basically telling you what you should eat? It's like Uncle Sam's evil bitch wife Aunt Sadie wearing an apron and shaking her figure at you saying "No no, that's too much salt, it's not good for you, have some pita bread and a melon slice." Excuse me? I must have missed that part in the Constitution where they give Congress the "power to Regulate the Exercise of Eating Tasty Breakfastes by thee Populace". Really, what the fuck is next? Ration cards? First they're telling me I shouldn't eat more than 2400 milligrams of sodium per day, next they're telling me I only get one pound of bacon and 10 gallons of gasoline this month. Fuck these mealy-mouthed federal bureaucrats. What the cunt do they eat for breakfast, a doughnut maybe? Meanwhile the elites continue to eat whatever they want. I'm sure Caucescu didn't have anyone telling him how much fucking cholesterol he could have in his diet. Now, I see here that it just says "Cholesterol" on the package. I know for a fact that there are two types of cholesterol, and one of them is the "good kind" that actually eats the bad kind. So realistically we should be dividing this number in half. So now we've got about 115% of our so-called Socialist Daily Democratic Nutritional Requirement of cholesterol. But doesn't the "good" cholesterol eat the "bad" cholesterol? So realistically we should estimate a, what, let's call it 25% attrition rate of bad cholesterol getting eaten by the good stuff. So now we're down to something like 70-80%. Sounds OK to me. Besides, the fucker is an "All Day Breakfast". That means you eat breakfast and then you kick people in the ass ... all day. Now, true, most motherfuckers eating this are the type who are sitting alone in a car and ordering a "family meal" with a straight face, but still, this is the concept we're working with here. Finally I think it's important to point out that if you're eating "Hungry Man" dinners, the following is probably true for you: 1)You're a man. 2)You want to die. This meal will speed you along to both. If you're that worried about the shit then eat some tofu and do some yoga afterwards, I dunno, you freakin' pansy. Get some goddamned exercise. I mean, did you ever hear about anyone who was awesome dying of anything other than a massive coronary? No. Clearly one of the keys to being a badass is not being a dilettante about what you are eating. Smoking doesn't hurt, either. Did Yul Brynner make a commercial saying "My name is Yul Brynner and I died when the boat I was on a whale tour in capsized and I was drowned when my heavy hemp poncho dragged me beneath the waves"? No. Have you ever seen one of these packages? Here's another picture from it: That pretty much says it all right there. Men know what they like, and they like lots of it. Whether it be tasty pancakes and sausage or lesbian-themed pornography, if men like it they want a lot of it with no bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, Hungry Man is not only good for Men, it's good for America too. I've actually had Hungry Man breakfasts before and I think they're great. I highly recommend having a tasty domestic beer with it, as beer with breakfast is one tasty goddamned combination. My personal pick is Coors but I know that a little Old Milwaukee or the now-slightly-clichéd Pabst Blue Ribbon is also good. In conclusion, I say, strike a blow for Freedom! Eat a Hungry Man dinner for Liberty, Manliness, and the American way! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 23rd, 2003
8:40 pm	Every Sunday night, I catch up on the previous Week's journal entries. After Tuesday night/Wed. morning, I don't read anything, mostly as entertainment for work (since there is always a paucity of posts on Sunday night for some reason). I'm often tempted to "backcomment" people on entries that are days old ... I can't decide if this is stupid or not. A lot of times this policy has probably been smart but I hate seeing someone asking a question and not responding to it because the entry was made three days ago. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 12th, 2003
2:04 am	I'm coming for you You can't escape me, Kerry! You hear me? I'll get you! You can't get away! Your pathetic doctors cannot help you! I killed your father and now I will turn you into one gigantic fucking tumor! Party's over, Kerry! Go ahead, bravely soldier on, you Yankee fuck, I'll destroy you, you fucking potatohead. Current Music: Napoli is not Nepal - A Night Outside in the Bunker (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, February 7th, 2003
1:07 am	A Treat for You This entry might be fucked up due to font issues as my woman uses this client thing all the time. I'll check it and fix it if it's fucked up. OK, so I figured that you folks might want to see more of The MacGuffin Man's fantastic adventures - that is, all three of you who so far expressed interest. Mostly this is just to prove to the doubtful that work continues on this project. This is the thing I'm working on to give to the tabloid in the hopes of failing spectacularly or at least getting the classic "Honorable Mention" - though, with the way these assholes are, my plans for a postmodern entry, idea courtesy of mrmustard, will probably go over bigger. The judge is some old bag I've never heard of who writes books about people who live in the Blue Ridge mountains and have farms, I think. I'll admit the use of the term "Helldorado" is sort of misplaced, I plan to bring it back later on, though, more directly in reference to its source (which the Vegas Axis will surely recognize as the now-defunct annual rodeo held in Vegas since the 30's/40's). Mostly, I thought it would be cool. Plus, as the film El Dorado proved, Poe references always spice things up. Though it ends pretty well (IMHO at least), this isn't in fact the end of the Chapter, I'll be finishing it over the week. We'll see how that goes. Anything that you think doesn't make sense in this entry based on your own personal knowledge, I probably made up. I just renewed my Poetic License and it's good through the end of the year, so why not enjoy it? Anyhow, I may or may not post the second part, which will include some minor plot twists and fantastic showdowns at the Centralia PO and the St. Ignatius Church (I'm still divided on doves, though, I'm leaning towards none), depending on whether anyone gives a shit or not. Chapter Eleven - In Search of Helldorado The cassette player clicked silently as the CD in the portable player spun down. Lester didn't bother flipping it. He was almost there. He switched his grip on the steering wheel, moving his hand to twelve o'clock. It still stung a bit, and he idly wondered if the blood on his middle knuckle was his. It probably wasn't. He didn't bleed that brightly anymore. The blood on his knuckle was "Sheetz red". It well should have been - he had had to put one across the teeth of "Evan" in the parking lot of the Sheetz just off 81. "Evan" (that was what it said on his nametag) was a little slow on the uptake. He had figured he could just clam up and that Lester was just another federal agent, or private dick, or state 5-0 in a bad suit. Really, what the Hell business does a man in a baggy red polo shirt have thinking he can buffalo anyone except the most wretched? Lester chuckled and half-reached for a cigar, then decided he probably shouldn't. He was getting close, now, his borrowed "Oldsmobuick" stumbling up 61 past Ashland. He looked over at the battered Remington 870 shotgun, leaning up between the two front seats from where it was propped in the back. He felt old, old like the shotgun and the car. Ten - Hell, five - years ago, he would not have needed it. The Colts would have been more than enough. But he knew he had hit the top of the arc and he was getting back to where he started. And that called for something a little less audacious than the matched Colts. He had the gun loaded up - half slugs, half shot. He had a belt on under his suit jacket that held another twenty shells, ten of each. That would probably be enough. There were only five or six of them, he figured. Lester hated Pennsylvania. It wasn't the ugliest state in the Union -but it was the biggest state of all the uglies. What it lacked in sheer brutality on the eyes, it made up for with quantity. Squatting hills, like rolled-up balls of skin, flecked in between with black, empty patches where the Gypsy Moth had had his way, liver-spotting across the landscape. Pennsylvania was the back of an old man's neck. He took one hand off the wheel and rubbed the back of his own neck without thinking about it. Fuck Harrisburg. Centralia should have been the capitol of the damn state. Lester ground his teeth a little tighter. Sometimes he thought it should be the capitol of the whole goddamned country. The buildings had already started becoming more sparse and a couple were burnt-out. And instead of a welcome sign, a "Public Alert" warning him of the dangers of "toxic gas emissions" and "mine subsidence" served as the Chamber of Commerce's "Welcome to Centralia" sign. No one had bothered to put the Jaycee's address on it, though. Still, the place was perfect. It wasn't even on some maps. When you had to go to ground with something as hot as the Dalton boys had, it was wisest to hide someplace that barely even existed officially. Centralia had the double blessing of being partially obscured within the smothering grasp of Federal bureaucracy and being just south of Bumfuck Nowhere in the armpit of the Appalachians. That was what had put Lester on to "Evan" at the Sheetz. He seemed a little too familiar with the concept of going here. Sure enough, he had managed to get the words confirming what Felix Lester already knew around a swollen tongue and broken teeth. Shocked patrons, standing at their grocery-getters with gas nozzles in their hands, had pretended that a man was not being punched in the mouth behind Pump Sixteen, in between mumbled, whining entreaties not to be killed. Lester pulled the car up behind what looked like it has once been a gas station. He wouldn't need it; the town was the size of a bathroom and all he would need he could pack on him. He doubted the few stubborn old bastards left in town would much mind a man walking tall and toting a shotgun - and he had a hunch they might not be around to object. He wished he could smoke a cigar, and as he got out of the vehicle, slinging the shotgun's barrel over his shoulder casually, his left hand twitched at the pocket with his lighter in it. But a good look at a crack in the sidewalk spewing brimstone and oily smoke changed his mind. He dug out a piece of the gum he'd bought at the Sheetz instead. Sure, he could have done things more spectacularly. There was a time he would have barreled in at the wheel of a muscular sedan, crashing through some decaying wall, letting the momentum launch him through the kicked-out windshield, shotgun blazing. The "Wabash Cannonball" was one of his favorite little tricks and even with his reputation, most people still did not expect it. They didn't get much time to think it over, either. But he was through fucking around in that way, and besides which, he no longer completely trusted his body to be able to handle the stress, bring out the bullfighter's grace for those sorts of antics. He just kept his eyes open and trusted to his guile a little more. As Lester made his way down the main drag he began to suspect that he had been right. Not a soul was to be seen. Though it wasn't unusual for this town, it still felt wrong. There should have been at least one old man sitting on a bench eating an apple or something. Lester had been through Centralia once before and knew that some folks were still left, though you could keep track of them all in your head. The type of person who refuses to let the government buy their house while a forty-year-old mine fire is burning under them isn't the type you forget easily. They were sort of colorful assholes that Pennsylvania was infamous for. No, it would be the old Post Office, or the church. He ground his jaw from side to side over the gum as he thought it over. As Lester came up on the still-operating "Pic-and-Pac", he triple-checked the Remington to make sure it was in "Condition One". He tried not to think of this as a "senior moment". It was ready to go. He was positive he had a slug loaded up first, because he figured he would need one of those right away. The tickle at the back of his neck told him he hadn't been far off. He leaned left around the faint trace of the bullet's path that faded into view a half-second later and raised the shotgun, clearing his mind of all the nagging thoughts about the traces getting fainter every time and the gray at his temples. The 870 snorted at the man distantly crouching on the roof of the forlorn convenience store before his conscious mind could even know he had been aiming, and now Lester was breaking into a trot towards it even as the man's rifle clattered to the ground in front of the store as he sprawled through the air towards the back. Head or heart, it didn't matter with the slugs. Lester racked the shotgun and made a mental note that there couldn't be more than one other man in the store. And now Felix Lester was completely lost in the moment, forgetting his fears and doubts, hurling himself through the flimsy glass of the door, not bothering to kick it open like he might have if he had bothered to think about it. He hit the ground rolling and came up into a crouch, firing before the man behind one of the shelves could drop his cup of coffee, the buckshot sending up a spray of antediluvian puffed corn and snack cakes tinged with crimson. Lester got up, his knees giving a faint hint of creaks to come, and racked the shotgun again as he walked casually over to where the stupid mook was laying in a pile of nacho chips and beef jerky, bleeding from the gut. "You gonna tell me how many are in the church, son?" Lester spat out before the man on the ground had a chance to speak. The man coughed up a bit of blood on his flannel shirt. "Fuck y - hey, you're ... you're the ..." Lester kicked him alongside the temple with his steel-toed Fluevog. "Don't call me that, you little prick. Enjoy crawling to your car. Maybe if you throw yourself into a crack you'll go straight to Hell instead of bleeding out all over the highway like an animal." "No, wait ..." the man was taken with a racking cough that threatened to spray blood all over Lester's suit. Good thing he had thought to wear one of his cheap "work" ones. If only that glad-hander at the Men's Wearhouse could see him now. "We picked up ... a couple 'a boys in ... Johnstown ..." "That's better." Lester made to leave but saw the man eyeing him needily. He sighed and bent over to pick up the thug's forgotten Glock pistol, then ejected the magazine and put it in his pocket before he threw the Glock down onto the man's ruined stomach. As he headed out the door, he called out, "Be a man and do it yourself. I have a busy schedule." Current Music: The Style Council - The Lodgers (7 Comments |Comment on this)