Overheard:

"It's always pretty in Tennessee*, buddy, no matter what it's doin'."

*pronounced "ten-see"

What H1N1 can do to your dog!!

Message from Mayo

(yes, that can be sung to the tune of "Letter From Memphis" by the Pixies)

All I've received today from my microbiologist compadre at Mayo Clinic was an email that, when opened, contained only this:

Also, someone make this guy head of the UN:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1175147/Anger-junior-minister-blames-Hairy-Angel-Susan-Boyle-swine-flu-pandemic.html

Hi there!

A blog IS a cruel mistress,

yes, but sometimes even I must stop searching the ephemera of daily life for items worth parsing.

Hence a pic from last Saturday of me Pheeshing With Pheel!

Backward ballcap denotes strength of sun/lack of sunscreen.

At about ten o'clock from where I'm positioned are a group of Japanese nationals who were traversing that patch of woods. Birdwatching? I just hope that they didn't take my popped collar (an extra hedge against sunburn - and it worked, so suck it!) as some sort of statement.

"We saw an old man with his collar popped fishing!"*, they say, when they are safely back on Honshu.

Also, saw multiple red-winged blackbirds, which was, of course, ace:

* translated from the Japanese

How do you know a song sucks?

When your sister likes it.

Wait - I COULD sort of use this

According to On Demand Books, there are currently five Espresso machines in the
U.S. (with 10 others in locations throughout Canada and the U.K.). This, though,
will soon change. Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand, said that "within a
relatively short period that number will be increasing dramatically." On Demand
is releasing a new model of the machine, version 2.0, which will print books
faster--roughly four minutes for a 300-page book as opposed to eight
minutes--and be offered at a lower price point. Neller added that the Espresso machine can now be
leased as well. The 2.0 model will be on display at the London Book Fair.

So, yeah, books printed on demand, on the spot, I guess - but how about a machine that prints a collection of all my favorite Updike stories?

Of course, if such a machine existed, the Bride would make me sleep in the street.

Pandemic!

Yeah, in spite of it all I still believe pigs are good at heart and delicious, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEc_5abpfA

So many, many levels

(ht: herr Po)

What the media/medicos aren't telling us!

Everyone now alive will someday be dead.

Think of that.

MY next lp

Obviously I'm the Harmon Killebrew of Non-Paid Bloggers (tm) - this we know.

BUT I also love making Rock!

To that end, I intend to do some sort of new crap by fall. Whoever happens to be around at any given time will be duly pressed into service: "Biscuit! Play this shaker!" etc.

All I have is this idea for a cover (well, and any number of estimable yet half-done pop rock "hits"):

You may not be able to tell from this cell-phone pic (I don't know how to use the office scanner that's on the copier, and, really, how could I be expected to know, when I have to spend my workday squeezing in stolen moments to entertain the weary, flu-laden masses?), but the cover features a centaur flipping a double bird and the album is to be called Back on Solids.

Sort of a Steve Vai/Steve Malkmus feel! Only, you know, good!

Watch this space!

Really? (no italics allowed in post titles, so just imagine)

Someone needs to photoshop Junior Samples and an extra "s" on this pup stat!

"Telescope Snaps Most Distant Object"

Via Drudge and something called Javno:

Not seeing it? Here, then - a hint (it's in the red square):

Still nothing? Well, here it is blown up:

Burr Steers

You were just wondering this morning where Burr "Igby Goes Down" Steers has been, right?

Turns out he directed that Zac Efron 17 Again thing!

SICK!

Also, see Burr himself at about 13 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC7aqg7qzSQ

Hold on!

I watched Mulholland Drive on Friday and am shocked to admit that, not shitfaced, it almost made sense!

Old Diane Selwyn is the girl who becomes the star's girlfriend til star-girl leaves her for director J Therou and Diane then hires dude to kill her. Or something. But, anyway, the whole Betty part is a dream Diane's having. Maybe.

Anyway, it's a lot more clearcut and plotty then I ever thought when I watched it when all hopped up on liquor. Who knows what other movies might actually be good?

[Plus - Dorothy Vallens lives in Deep River apartments, and Betty is from Deep River, Ontario. Deep River is itself an anagram of reprieved. And driver pee!]


Forgot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GekiIMh4ZkM

Ovens

Did you like Weezer's green record except the songs were too damn long? Was Sloan's [whatever that record with 28 songs was from before Parallel Play] a little too well-recorded/slick for you? Do you like a lot of descending "Strawberry Fields" mellotron? Sick of putting GBV songs on mix cd's when there is only 1:10 left and you need to fill the space?

Well, Ovens's self-titled opus is for you!

44 songs in 59 minutes! Half of which seem to feature the solo from "Stairway to Heaven!" Titles include "Drunk Shit," "Cows" and "Puke When I'm Sad." It's a shame I'm not on a prom theme committee!

I know nothing about them, at all. Happened on this.

Something called Aquarius Records?

Fight (yawn) club

Was running late this morning so took a different route through downtown to get on the highway and there, right in the middle of things, in the street in front of a gym/fruit wholesale warehouse thing, were maybe a dozen people (one woman, at least, bobbing up and down excitedly) in a circle, all of them wearing boxing gloves, watching two guys in their mid-40s to mid-50's "spar."

It was about 7:20 em EST.

Why in the street?

Pretty dumb!

Spring rekkids

The first Gene record Olympian (1995) always makes me think of May. I remember buying it on cassette, listening to it, thinking "hmm! Pretty not bad!" and then going to International Affaire thing here in town and getting plastered on weird plum liqueurs from the Middle East, etc.

The first song on the LP is "Haunted By You" and there is a video I'd not seen, which is loveably low-tech and is SO British it stops just short of trotting Benny Hill out as an extra. Also Steve Mason's "Look at me! I'm Paul Weller!" guitar stance/face is pretty sweet!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnGKlx4UZU

Then, my buddy Chooch had been raving about the new Bird and the Bee, who, while I liked the last record alright, I have an aversion to because the chick's dad was in Little Feat, and they just sort of smack of too much Largo-ness. To me, anyway. So it was not without a sense of obligation that I fired up their new one today, as Chooch had sent it along. Well, it's stellar, low-budget Lynchisms of this here video notwithstanding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI3g9RaVkdY

Also, Chooch is a microbiologist at Mayo Clinic and says re: pig fever to "[not] believe the hype!"

So that's one less thing to worry about. Back to suitcase nukes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdwPYuC5Y4k

I touched the face of God last night, pretty much

In the form of "Blueberry Muffin" flavor Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Couldn't decide what I wanted for dinner late, thought of going to Mexi-hole, but that sounded like work and then I thought "Cereal!" Hadn't had any in six months, I'd guess.

So, wandering the aisles, I thought "Wheaties?" I often crave Wheaties. Then I thought "Crunchberries?" Then I saw the blueberry wonderment.

So, yeah, shit's amazing. Milk turned blue/purple even!

Mother Earth needs a rest, Part XXVII

You just KNEW I'd track this down 'n' post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUAvTn3uz5w

It's called "Jergens"

Viagra rival 'can be rubbed directly into skin' - Telegraph

NEED this vanity plate!

Bride's away

The Bride is out of town for work until Saturday night!

Here's a pic of me RIGHT NOW:

Taking the pork to the streets

This is the best pic I could find in a cursory two-page Google search - BUT did you know that one of those little dividing islands in a street (as pictured) is called, in city planning parlance, a PORKCHOP?

Awesome!

Rescue

Grieving Nelson is ceding to desire for a new dog, possibly two(!), at the home of my brother and sister-in-law. Nelson was an AKC-certified son of show schnauzers, apparently, and his grandfather was John Barrymore. This time, however, they are going for rescue dogs, which is nice. My first thought, though, was: who abandons a schnauzer?

Check the amazing logo (made sometime between 1948 and 1973):

How it starts

Let's see - I don't give a shit about:

* anyone from High School Musical or Twilight or The Hills, etc

* Twitter

* Blu-Ray ("You have to see Ghostbusters II in Blu-Ray!" Um, no. I'm not even really entirely sure what it is. I mean, yes, it's a format - but you need a different player? I suppose?)

* any video games post-, I dunno, DigDug?

etc etc, all of which is a way of saying I now understand how my crotchety parents got to be the way they are (scared of the phone, unaware of any new technology post-1980, blissfully oblivious as to what any products they see advertised during their precious PGA coverage actually are...).

I mean, within two weeks, I will no longer know how a phone works or whatnot.

Which is scary, for when I have kids, they will automatically know how to do all kinds of shit automatically, straight out the baby drain. "Here, dad, give me that."

Also, a warning to any kids I might have - you will listen to MY shit, I won't bend and listen to any tween horseshit you insist on playing when gathered with your friends. Stay in your room if you want to listen to Disney Radio-style Miley crap. If you want to listen to the new Camera Obscura or Quadrophenia or whatever I happen to have on, then maybe we can be friends.

Maybe.

"Could you describe the suspect?"

(DDN)

Chico 2008 - 2009

Our friend little Chico O. was killed Sunday on the road. Hit by a car. Kids distraught, of course.

I loved this little guy...he was like a son to me, or as much like a son as someone else's cat I only met twice could be.

Late yesterday I was reflecting on his little soul when the phone rang and it was a friend saying "Hey - do you know anyone who needs kittens? Some client of mine has two cats that BOTH just had litters...not even weaned yet."

SO, I got in touch with the distraught parents and am awaiting digi-pics of the selection o' yelping brats.

I think that, as arbiter of this adoption, I should be allowed to lay amongst the ten or however newbies and name them all: Beatrix, Starla, Chicken #2, Chuff, Chexbres, Rainmaker, Xerxes, Leenda, E Lois and Paul.

Will up pics as available!

Developing...

Nuh UH!!!

Craigslist Killer suspect's fiancee dating Levi

Probably!

Pushead

And how is there no compendium of Pushead art?

????

MY head will bleed...

...if I don't stop thinking about the Flaming Lips headlining the Pitchfork Festival.

I bet ANYTHING that Wayne Coyne will go out into the crowd inside a clear plastic ball!

And wear a white suit!

MAN, are those guys ever FAR OUT!

$#!X%*%$&!!!

An interesting experiment, it turned out

I DID end up getting this shirt I mentioned a while back and it's better than in the picture, even. Made in Pakistan (?)! But the screening kills and it looks exactly as I remembered from July 1989 at Poplar Creek. What a night that must have been. Sugarcubes, PiL, my friend Waterman cold passed-out drunk until the headliners started at which point he bounded up and started dancing in some now-forgotten 80's way...I also remember it being so LOUD that my shirt vibrated to the drums of "True Faith." Um - where was I?


OH! Social experimentation, yes...so, on a random Saturday (last week, in fact), I threw this pup on and proceeded to get odd looks all day. Because rainbow ANYTHING (even though this is not strictly a rainbow) = TEH GEIGH, right? One joker I know saw it and laughed out loud. I, maintaining my cool and pretending to not understand, was all "What?"



"That's a pretty gay shirt, man."


"Actually, no," I rejoined, rapier-like, "it's not at all. This is from 1989, you know? Technique? This is before the rainbow was co-opted by gay pride stuff. Never mind that it's really not a rainbow. Also, that's a pretty ignorant fucking FoxNews cornball attitude you have, one that sort of shows your ignorance, you know? Social ignorance, yes, but mostly musical." Then I skipped away.


Later in the day, I went fishing with my oldest brother, who is shaped a bit like a deaf bowling pin. Not the type one would take for a poof. But as I came down the path, some tattooed baby-daddy type whispered to his companion (a woman of indeterminate age who could have been his mom or maybe lover) and then they both looked askance at me. Because A FRUIT WAS HERE TO FISH, apparently.


Still later, the Bride and I went up the street for dinner and our waitress asked us if we wanted separate checks, because I must have looked to this 24-year old like a gay Harry Dean Stanton, someone surely not bethrothed to anyone as young and fetching as my companion. Maybe I was her gay dad, in town from Albany to talk about the probating of a will, while "Keith" stayed back at the Marriott.


Anyway, it was very interesting and made me think that it is a racist, homophobic world. Thank god it's coming to an end, according to a third of tweens!


Also, my next acquisition:

















This, it will be fun to explain, is not a tacit endorsement of alcohol consumption so much as a sumptuary celebration of the 1990 single by electro-pop supergroup Electronic. You know, with Barney from New Order, Johnny Marr and the Pet Shop Boys.


Then some asshole in a Dirks [sp?] Bentley shirt will say "Pet Shop Boys? GAY!"

Youth of today: grow a pair!

Drudge has a link to something called Treehugger which features a story on how a third of kids think the world is coming to an end and half expect a dissipated husk or something by the time they are adults.

Oh, rilly?

See, when I was comin' up, we had to actually worry about Russians and stuff. Nuclear war was an inevitability. Every day was framed in the certitude that it could be the one where there would be the FLASH and then the nothing.

Point being, none of that shit happened and I wasted my entire youth freaking out nearly every time a jet flew over.

If you really want to do something, get a library card and spend the summer reading. And listen to some good music for once, fer Crissakes.

Love,
yr cranky uncle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTOQUnvI3CA

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXwrCQIB0o0&feature=related

Heh

From an ad on Gawker, italix mine:

Advertisement
Win the
book. See the Movie. Get Informed. Nothing succeeds like excess. Need we say
more? From the mind that brought you American Psycho comes The
Informers, arriving in theaters this Friday. Click through for your chance
to win a copy of the Brett Easton Ellis novel that started it all. More
»


Does anyone edit anything anymore?

Granted, the extra "t" could likely stand for This Movie's Gonna Suck.

CHEERWINE, b-tches!

Talking to a friend from NC yesterday who does a lot of truck driving, he told me that

1) local mini-chain City Barbeque serves my precious and elusive Cheerwine soda ("But it's expensive there...")

2.) he HAS five 12-packs at home RIGHT NOW (!!! x 10K) !

3.) he will bring me one of the 12-packs!

4.) he can buy me more, and often, since he drives through the Carolinas and points south thereof often!

Funny how things work out if we stay alive.

As an old man near the end of my journey, this is a hell of a denouement!

JG Ballard dead

Wow - JG Ballard dead!

Author of Crash, the first dirty book I ever read, really.

Excellent cover to edition at left, btw.

Quel crappy year for Martin Amis, though! First JU, then this.

I should send him a note and see if he's okay.

High-Rise is also good.

Spring has sprung!

Enjoy!

(Image via DDN tattoo gallery. Yep.)

Not rhetorical

IS there anything more cute than this picture of Black Flag bass player Kira Roessler, ca. 1984?

I mean, she did invent "girl bass players," after all. Maybe the Kims were doing stuff prior to this, but this is the proto-bass cutie pic to be reckoned with.

Damn!

You kids can keep your Zac Ephrong or whatever the hell!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF0M_eOjJkM

Been saying this for five or ten years,

but didn't have a blog then:
















I don't have any tattoos, myself, though when Biscuit dies I will probably have to get her tattooed somewhere...maybe on the other cat; and I used to think that I should just get Nick Eddy inked on my atrophied bicep, in advance of my body being found in a pile during some sort of A Boy and His Dog-style nuclear end-time, until a friend helpfully pointed out that someone could just machete off my arm and then where would I be?

But when Mike Tyson added the cliched (well, but for location) "tribal" marks to his fizzog, I realized then that the BEST tattoo would be to have Mike Tyson's tattooed face tattooed (in miniature, maybe in Gary Panter style, or Roz Chast) ON MY FACE!

YES!

Santa Muerte

I'm way into this Santa Muerte stuff - heard a story about it on All Things Considered and was hooked. Then they had a skull-y icon all up on CNN.com's front page yesterday. Basically, crazy Catholic icon worship in Mexico meets with drug war meets with - well, let's let Aunt Wiki tell it:

This Saint is frequently dressed as a grim
reaper with a scythe and scales (the scales may be reminiscent of St. Michael). She may also
be dressed in a long, white satin gown with a golden crown (Muerte, and its
related Romance words, has a
feminine gender). In this form, many devotees view her as a variation of the Virgin Mary.

Santa Muerte
Blanca
Grim Reaper statues are made in red, white, green and black – for
love, luck, financial success and protection. Offerings to Santa Muerte include
roses, marijuana, cigarettes, fruit, candy and tequila. Public shrines to Saint Death are
adorned with red roses, cigars, and bottles of tequila, [!] and Santa Muerte
candles burn in her honor. Throughout Mexico, and in parts of the United States
(especially in Mexican immigrant communities), Santa Muerte prayer cards,
polichinels, medals, and candles are made and sold to the public.[1] The Santa
Muerte is often patronized by drug traffickers, kidnappers, other criminals, or
by people who live in neighborhoods plagued by violence. Many of the shrines
dedicated to La Santísima Muerte that are located along highways in northern
Mexico were funded by drug traffickers.

It's just a shame that Soderbergh already made Traffic - who else will have the right sepia filter to film the inevitable "true-crime mystery of the millenium!"(Nick Eddy Relents, 2011) ? Maybe Stephen Frears? No, no, that Y Tu Mama Tambien kid!

"I Spy"

Whoo! Can't believe the new Art Brut is out Tuesday already, or that Jarvis has a new record out momentarily! Pitchfork has a link to where Rough Trade will send an MP3 of something called "Angela" in exchange for an email address, but this is, of course, way too boring for me.

Still, it's Jarvo Day, apparently, because I decided to put "I Spy" on a mix CD and then remembered this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxdgvpC3v0g

It also rules because he was 32-3 when pulling off this "coy" look. Dumb/great!

The Cruel Signmaker

Have you been to my new shop(pe)? It's called The Cruel Signmaker!

On the recent jaunt to the near-West, I saw any number of signs for a Lion's Den-style smut shack called Passion's [sic].

PASSION'S

35 mi. ahead - ADULT SUPERSTORE

My question was: was it supposed to be called Passions, sans apostrophe? Or was there an actual proprietress called "Passion"? As in: (employee answers phone) "Passion's...no, you just missed her, she had to drive over to Topeka to pick up some [orifice-damming device-name redacted]..."

???

Anyway, this put me in mind of signmakers, billboard designers et al. I thought at first to write a short story about a sad, near-retirement age fellow who runs a sign shop and has so despaired of having idiot customers come in wanting badly spelled or grammatically flawed signage that he finally just gives in and starts making signs that do indeed say, say, Passion's...but even I don't want to read that (too depressing!), so instead I'm going to open a business where I can sternly refuse any proffered text with such glaring errors as "Now there's [sic] two choices!" or "quotes" randomly "inserted" by "people" who "don't" know "any better."

So, yes, pop on in to The Cruel Signmaker!

Holy shit, it's Bill Danforth!

Also on my hit list:

The solitary "star" tattoo.

It's 2000, people. It's over. More over than Gisele and Twitter!

Chihuly

Chihuly is shit, right?

Unless it's all some sort of prank, then it's brilliant!

The only five good songs I heard crossing a third of the US

1. MGMT - "Kids"

2. REM - "Losing My Religion"

3. 1/2 of Beatles - "You're Gonna Lose That Girl"

4. Beyonce - "Put A Ring On It," which, while not actually "good" in any kind of traditional way has going for it: a) it NEVER sounds like the same song to me twice (and this may depend on where I am sitting in the car at a given time of its playing) and b.) that third line in the chorus where it sort of goes up? I think? "somethin somethin somethin' put a ring on it?"- never fails to make me strain to hear exactly what is going on...like in "Mr Disco" where the drum machine seems to create an inescapable vacuum in the headphones, and any straining I will count as exercise.

5. Beastie Boys - "No Sleep Til Brooklyn"...this song, I am apprised, is practically a Classic Rock standard now, which kills me, because it is proto-mook bullshit of the highest order. I probably hadn't heard it in at least ten years, and then heard it TWICE in a day. Still, the had-to-be-one-take solo by Kerry King of Slayer is likely the sloppiest guitar break on generic commercial radio, so that must be applauded. I guess.

How I made mass "special"

Went to Easter Mass with extended family - Mass is the Catholic equivalent of going to church, apparently?- and the priest lead the Paschal Rite or whatever it was, where questions are asked of the parishioners and the flock says a collective "I do" and when they got to "Do you renounce Satan and all his works?," I got to say:

"I do renounce them."

Prairie burn

Something else one doesn't see Down East are highway signs telling you what to do in event of encountering trop de smoke from controlled prairie burns.

Controlled what?, we ask back in civilisation [sic].

Prairie burns! Last year's wheat, milo, etc all are burnt away by controlled burning, tightly controlled and regimented. We saw a whole field ablaze in the darkest night. And yes, it was that poetic. It's dangerous, too - the Bride's grandmother, when your reporting greenhorn quizzed her about said burning, was quick to say "Yes - a man was killed just yesterday when the fire got away from him, they had on the news." High drama on the plains, yo! As for the signage, huge black plumes of smoke will cross the highway when the wind is right (wrong?), and cars are required to sit and wait (the darkness is impenetrable) until it is clear again. Bring a picnic lunch!

Also, on return trip, the weird lunar Kansas surface was charred black in long stretches from the fires and made yet blacker by heavy rains, giving the whole place, horizon to horizon, a feel of nuclear winter (or maybe some highly volcanic and unsettled Hawaiian island). That we passed through Lawrence, where The Day After was shot, made it all the more, um, special. No sign commemorating a visit from Jason Robards, alack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVYirmpptuY

Heaven on earth

Of course, the very best part of heading through Missouri, Kansas, et al, is the presence of the mighty Quick Trip chain of gas stations/minimarts.

They're all clean, the coffee stations are like the fall of Rome in their luxurious plethora of choices, and the taquitos! Good hell! Does your local east-of-the-Mississip GasHole offer Triple Pepper Salsa as a normal sauce, like ketchup?

Thought not!

I mean, really, all they need to do is get their prairie states licensed for delivery of Cheerwine and I would just pull up a cot and live in the sumbitch.