Do you remember

where you were when you heard Davy Jones had died?

I don't.

In a truly sane world,

I would be making enough scratch that I wouldn't think twice about paying $125 for this mug.  Or getting a set of four of them.

Not saying it's your fault, at all.

On a shorter note,

on a kim chee kick, of all things.  Wanting some with white rice RIGHT NOW.

A series of failed posts, tied together

No, not the whole of this blog, smartarse!  Here:

1.  During the football season there was a commercial for some pickup truck, the gist of which always escaped me.  There is a truck in front of a house that has a FOR SALE sign in the yard.  Then an old dude asks a Michael Rapaport lookalike "What do you do?" ( and it sucks, because it was always at this point that I notice the commercial was on, and thus had already missed whether Rapaport dude says "we just bought that house"*) and then there is a montage** where we see the guy doing a bunch of stuff in super- quick clips: singing "Bingo" to his family while he drives, roaring in a masculine manner with a bunch of guys at either a paintball team event or in some sort of military reserve unit, other shit; INCLUDING looking at another old dude across the chess board.  Because this truck driving asshole (I can say this - I drive a truck) is complex.  Among all his other activities, he takes time to play fucking chess with his shawl-collared father-in-law.  Right.  The guy sorta shakes his head in an "aw shucks" manner at the spot's end - how can he sum up all the things he does to this brusque interrogator?  He's COMPLEX.

2. I went looking for this commercial on youtube, so I could at least find out what brand of truck it was, in addition to finally, finally getting a handle on just what the hell is going on here.  This reminded me of how I never ever can tell one brand of car from another.  I do recognize Volvo 240's, but that's something else.

3. I did find that the youtube autofill feature (google as well), um, autofilled when I typed "what do you do truck" to "what do you do truck commercial" which was irksome because some normal dudes somewhere were googling this probably, just to watch it and feel good about themselves..."I'm like that!"  ARGH.

4. That imagined google-searching dude put me in mind of a goddamn Creed Nickelback video I saw I have neglected to mention before that I could not believe I was seeing...the plot was that Fireman Guy gets a call to go be in a forest fire (Canadians!), takes up his uxorial bed, girds his loins in Lee jeans and his wife, who in my mind's eye looks now like the little hamsterish one from Dixie Chicks, stays home and waits.  A BURNING TREE FALLS ON HIM!  Like, three minutes into the video.  What's gonna happen?  Christ!  Oh, shit, here comes the fire truck with his ashen compatriots!  Oh, god, she's crying - what's captain gonna say?  OH!  He's okay.  There he is.  All ashy and hunky - close call!  Meanwhile, Nickelrock plays on endlessly, endlessly.

5. Oh, right, so - chess!  That was the point, way back when!  I read a thing somewhere about how, if one is fending off senility/old brain/atrophy, one should do activities that are outside normal comfort zones.  For instance, if you're great at crossword puzzles, start doing the [awful] Sodoku instead.  To that end, I need to start playing chess.  I will never ever get good enough, even against a trained raccoon, and then there's that whole world of chess problems - just thinking up knotty brainmelters to ruminate on, as practiced by some of the greatest minds of all time (Nabokov, Howard Stern, etc).  So, yeah!  Chess.

* if they didn't just buy it - if, in fact, they are the sellers and this is a going away party, wouldn't the old neighbor already know that this guy is that asshole who always goes around "doin' stuff?"

**"Those who live by the montage die by the montage" - Kenneth Tynan

Granted, you also probably have a hit single right now,

but fucking "Rack City" is/was in the Top Ten!  What a world!

A correspondent writes:

There is a rap song being used in a Budweiser commercial which is just some dope "freestyling" over "She Sells Sanctuary" with the vocal tracks removed.  2012 baseball season already ruined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GeiOdHsW_8

Romney: sorted

Lush life

Good lord, check out my little brother loaf (formerly my dad's cat DC).  It truly is as Thurber had it:

It is better to have loafed and lost/than never to have loafed at all.

The capture of the "blues ent"

And that "fat kid doing the Martian dance"* is:

our own Gabe Gardner, at fifteen!

* this per a youtube commenter.  I think you looked just fine, proto-Juggalo haircut and all.

For the completist,

here's that Pet Shop Boys on Soul Train video that no one really needs to see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmEQWDcYT8

Not even me, actually.

But what you really get: a box of Newports and Puma sweats

Somewhere in D_____, yesterday

Saucy!

Who is this minx a la plage?

Vera Nabokov in 1926!  I know, right?

Friends

3RA1N1AC Day

Chooch, back to work after being sick for two days last week (during which we discussed via text needing access to that Vogue online archive that has every page since 1892 - all anyone would need to homeschool!), has decreed this Brainiac Day...and I didn't know if I could, as I had so much caffeine this morning I was already flopping around like a fish on a line.  But now, here, after lunch, I believe I can do it!

You need to watch this and absorb the October 1995ness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq3UtVosWVo

There may be more to this story, have another text out trying to get confirmation on something...

Friend Dumpling 3

?????

I would never want to embarrass the person who had such a huge plate of food, nor would I want to mention it if he went back for seconds (twice).  Let's let him remain a mystery, then - and maybe, after he's taken his wife and baby to Germany with our armed forces, maybe then we can - oops!

Friend Dumpling 2

I could not get over how packed this place was, nor how packed this plate was.

Friend Dumpling 1

Mind blown by this at the all-you-can-eat Chinese/sushi/pizza/mac 'n' cheese/Oreo topping/jello/hibachi chicken trough we went to Friday night!

Conan on a Corolla

Larry Carrot's pal: BLOWFISH PAUL

Baby's first watching of "The Godfather" 2/25/2012

Weekend

Nitwit update

So, with a baby around the cats have taken a backseat, so far as blog coverage-wise goes [UPDATE: yes, the syntax here is terrible, and I would fix it, but have just been sent a link to Bret Easton Ellis's insanely terrible Twitter feed, so have no time, my cherubz!  Alack!].

Margot: needy, yet bothersome


Let's check in!

Dr. Margot Smallski - way into standing on Dad's side of the bed and bellowing into Dad's face two or three times (or six) a night.  And sitting on Dad's chest.  "LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!  LET ME!" Okay, okay, doctor - just say it and pipe down, for cry yi!




Picci: a suet-like ball of fur and fat where her brain should be


Picci - cries and cries to get let out and has even been left out all workday more than once.  The best time, she was let back in after mewing and whining to go in while Dad fumbled with key ring, was inside maybe forty seconds and started bitching to go out again.  Picci, what do you think of your baby brother?

"My what now?"

Santorum, ruiner of things

Yesterday, I was wearing this sweater vest at left.

A weisenheimer said: "Nice Santorum vest ya got there," provoking sniggering.

See, Santorum wears, like, solid blue "wholesome stupid Dad" vests with shit like fucking cowboy boots.

This was a nice vest from Brooks Brothers which would not have provoked even a glance, pre-election cycle.

It really is the End Times, mercifully.  Not much longer!

Chaz Bukowski

Charles Bukowksi may be the greatest writer who ever existed - but the people who love him give me a pain in the ass.  KTHXBAI

I'm glad I can see,

don't get me wrong - my glasses are the best.  I can see to read, they are cute which distracts from the fact that I am a balding fat man (like Nabokov!)... 

But it's one more thing to remember!  I have already made the "left work without glasses" grrr-inducing error.  Tuesday, I remembered glasses on way to work, but left phone at home and had to go back for it.  My fragile atrophied psyche can only take so much, apparently.

Bad Hydlolics

The exact moment everything started to suck irrevocably

It was a while back when that obvious jet contrail was panickedly reported by everyone and sundry as a "mystery missile" when anyone could see it was a just contrail at an odd angle, then none of the networks really followed up on it  or on their mistakes because they were embarrassed that, like their viewers, they were all going "guh...owhn...urnt...unt..buh..." all day, every day.

There are all sorts of other other examples, but this is the one!

Take note, future historians, scribbling down late human history while a deer-tallow-in-soup-can candle burns beside you!

Takes me back to those "Is Your Bathroom Breeding BOLSHEVIKS?" tees they used to advertise in Rolling Stone classifieds

I survived watching the debate last night

The best part is the random miners strike shouts and moans that emanated from the crowd at random moments, not even in response to anything specific.

I think this stems from watching too much Houses of Parliament coverage on C-SPAN and wanting to get in on the grumbling.  JEALOUS!

Jarvo?

Lord, Chooch has an extra ticket for Pulp in New York on April 11...should send the Bride, she and Jarvis go way back.  Have to think on this...

A Country Girl Can Survive

    Shout it from the rooftops!  DO IT!

Trust

I have mentioned something along these lines before, certainly, but I need to be more trusting of myself.

I always thought that English Settlement was inferior to Black Sea, mostly because it has too much "jittery" XTC vs. "flowy" XTC, where things are all soothingly melodious.

We-hell, I listened to this last week and was for the most part rewarded with affirmation that I was right then, am right now and am for the most part correct about everything ever.

Although I was happy because I had forgotten about "All of the Sudden (It's Too Late)" which rules and I duly put it on a truck CD. 

This also all plays into the whole Bangsian school of thought about whether one is "ready for" or perhaps "worthy of" some of the more prestige records.  Like, I can say that the Band blows (they do), but maybe I just haven't listened to them in the right frame of mind, perhaps the fault is mine. Or someone today like the National, maybe.  Who else? 

The point of all this rambling is that my first instinct in these matters is generally correct.

Also: I just may have written this way in the distant past, what with my new affinity for post-scheduling, and may "now" have indeed have grown to like English Settlement much more in the interval.

Oh, to know you the better, People of the Future!

The UK and me

At my wizened mother's request, I sent of a packet of baby pictures to her friend Margaret in Chicester, England (they have been penpals since 1962!).  Chichester is home to the tallest cathedral in the UK, as we know.

The crazy part was that a one oz. envelope to England only cost $1.05! 

Am thinking I will start just mailing things to people in the UK randomly, since it's so cheap.

"Cor blimey, who is this from?  He's a bloomin' GENIUS, luv!"

When was this posted?

Have been having a pleasant time playing around with scheduling of these posts.  Some of the posts you read are written and posted immediately; others are ever-so-exquisitely crafted so as to be put up at some unspecific time in the future (usually around 35 minutes later). 

I think they added this so I can remember to post a reminder in advance for John Cheever's 100th birthday.  DOING!  Okay, bye!

More music by me you will likely never hear

Got together last night with some doodz to work on a little rock and roll band we wanna call CRUSHER.

Pardon the Bob-esque technique here, but was sitting at my desk knowing rock was at 6pm when I thought "I'll just make a 45 cover and then make the song up that will fit it," since I had not touched a guitar in a lasting way in ages.  Hey, it worked!

Next week: "Rainface" b/w "Partly at My Girl's Insistence."

Progress!

 June 28, 2010:

 

This week!:

Dream Job

"I had a job one summer in a department store looking through Vogues and Harper's Bazaars and European fashion magazines for a wonderful man named Mr. Vollmer.  I got something like fifty cents an hour and my job was to look for 'ideas.'  I don't remember ever finding one or getting one."

I NEED THIS JOB! 

Stray Rafe (strafage?)

Garden madness

Oh, man, it's getting close.  We still have the thirty bed community garden, another one at work and then our friend Chris's mom has seven acres we may help to cultivate...lordy!  Rafe needs to start walking so he can work, the bum.

Almost time to read Green Thoughts again, because I am exactly that kind of sentimental wuss.  Also, need this (left), because if'n I read Green Thoughts too much I will kill it dead and also because Charles Dudley Warner was the guy who said "Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it."

Speaking of packaging,

a reader wanted me to use this soapbox to gripe about how her favorite type of Girl Scout Cookies (the "Thanks-A-Lot" - had not even heard of these!) has been saddled with being the first of the brand to be packaged in a non-boxed, environmentally favorable manner, thus save three zillion tons of paperboard a week or something.  Problem is, someone mailed her some (we don't have these in D_____) and they arrived with half of them broken-in-half.  Sure, one can eat broken cookies, but why must it be these [although maybe they thought that the vegan treats would be a good starting point - "planet"-loving vegans would merely nod sagely at the crumpled, broken desserts as they stitched together burlap playclothes for their dirty-faced offspring? - ed.]???

Hey, Girl Scouts of America!  THANKS-A-LOT (storms off, hot tears, etc)!!!

Milo packaging

Nice!

"We care, man..."

Jack does his best to get Rafe to think about getting to a meeting...

Jack is six months old!

Rafe's BFF was a big six months old yesterday!

The Eli Janney Story

Back in the 90's, there were Breeders and GBV and Brainiac.  My crappy little band Mink was on the rung below "real."  Twas ever thus!  I think it was because my parents never divorced.

Anyway, Brainiac had some records produced by Eli Janney, who played in Girls Against Boys.  Girls Against Boys were New Yorkers and sorta "Cute Band Alert"-y, although they didn't ever take off to a huge extent.  I think they had two bass players, maybe, but am too lazy to look it up.

Tim from Brainiac got killed in a car crash, and it was terrible for all involved (especially Tim). 

About a year and half later, we were playing at Mercury Lounge in New York and I saw old Eli Janney standing at the bar and gamboled over and said I was an old friend of Tim Taylor's, that we had just played and here was a copy of our new CD that he might like, that the first song was sort of about Tim dying and how his death rather permeated the whole thing, to much indifferent nodding (though we had met before - I'm sure if I was an actual "Cool Person" and a Guinness-drunk 1998 me was bothering me I would not have been as polite as Eli was, probably).

I think Eli maybe has something to do with Akashic books or some other New York Bowery-ish press, one that cares about Bukowski or something.  Anyway, yesterday I said "I'll be goddamned" as I perused the paper:

I guess even Cool People end up drinking Starbucks at the PTA!

Again: make me rich

See, if you are still thinking of ways for me to be rich, I could buy the Bride this insane clutch for $1500 and not have to think twice.  Or I could use it to carry guitar picks and a Burt's Bees in it.  I'm THAT confident that I could pull it off.  AND that confident you are all thinking of ways for me to join the Idle Rich.  Thanks!

Shit is getting more and more Blade Runner, constantly

Was at Walgreens up the street last night and this was on the ground in the parking lot when I sprung from the truck.

I like the idea of some Russians in our neighborhood writing texting their aunt back in Minsk to say "Aunt Rula!  Send me some more POCTA(PO#KCNOPT!  Dying for that strawberry flavor over here in nowheresville!"

Put on your thinking caps

What exactly are YOU doing to ensure independent wealth for me?  It would be nice if you would think of something post-haste so I can get the three of us to the UK for this show.

Thanks!