Okay, weekend, thank gawd

Plus:

You'd forgotten, hadn't you?

That Raymond Pettibon and Greg Ginn were brothers?

Worst Friday ever?

Now the guy one cube over is listening to live solo Mark Knopfler.

Two close calls

One, a friend almost adopted this cat this week, and I have a glimmer of hope it could still happen:

Two: the Bride almost got a chance to attend a, um, meeting, in Ossining, NY. Didn't work out, but what if had been the home group of this 'n?:

Okay, Lapo, you win

I always blanch at Lapo Elkonen (if that's what it is) - Fiat heir, bon vivant, international regular of the Best Dressed Lists...he always gets on my wick with his "untamed Heathcliff" lid, etc. Plus our neightbors had a Fiat when i was a kid and it sucked.

But then this was on the Sartorialist and sort of blew my mind and I realized that Elko wins...he always wins...

Who, moi?

Trains?

And, yes, I probably should be issued a probationary pass to the train platform or whatever when this ridiculous (though well-intentioned) $400M SW Ohio train project blossoms to its full, grafty fruition. Cos I need to take a train to Middletown all the time.

"Ties neatly into the area being an aerospace hub," say the pols. Shouldn't there be, like, people coming and going by Thunderball-style jet packs and shit?

But I do understand

JD Salinger's defining retreat from the world...I used to think - what a goofy coot! Now that I have this blog, of course, I understand the constant strain of having one's brain picked and gleaned for tasty morsels by a fickle and uncaring pub(l)ic. Have even considered sealing off our little brick house from prying eyes - just this morning I was accosted by some "fans." Well, actually, some grimy high school-age kids in Cleveland Browns sportswear smoking cigarettes walked by the house, while I was still in the house. But, certainly, if these urchins knew what a computer even was, they would be constantly coming by to gawk at the "prose god."

Truth to power

Too far

Most popular baby names 2010

Girls

1. Isabella

2. Emma

3. Olivia

4. Ava

5. Sophia

Boys

1. Ethan

2. Jacob

3. Noah

4. Manktin

5. Logan

????

An apology

My post the other day called "The Double Life of Nick Eddy" would have been better served had it been called "The Double Life of VeroNick."

Nick Eddy Relents regrets the oversight.

Overheard:

(or, in actuality, said to me!)

You don't use tools much, do you?

Stuart Murdoch sums it up:

Give yourself up to the allure of Catcher in the Rye/the future's paved with stars and stripes

Which gives me an excuse for THIS:

BLAMMO!

More importantly,

I thought that, at 52, I had seen absolutely everything. Not so! Took my mom to the doctor's office and in the lobby was a dispenser of hanging plastic baggies, similar to those crinkly bags around a low-budget community paper.

"Umbrella covers." As in "disposable plastic covering the thickness of a toilet seat cover [also silly] to keep your damp umbrella from dripping."

Working in a factory that manufactures these joins "horseradish maker" as one of those weird trades I can't imagine NOT wanting to learn.

Can I kill with my mind? Well, CAN I?

I just told John Updike yesterday in my message to him that JD Salinger was alive - and then he goes and dies!

What th'?

I have to wonder if I possess some crazy power. After all, I was the first one to say that Ringo Starr had died.

?

Anyway, this is bizarre news.

Is it in bad taste to monetize the site and charge a fee to prevent killing someone you may care about? "If you ever want to see Brian May again..."

I need to think this over.

The Double Life of Nick Eddy

I sometimes wonder if one can be so very blacked-out that whole areas of a life can be unknown to the one who lives it.

"HUH?," you say.

I mean, I've had blackouts. Lots! But I wonder if maybe I also have some somnambulent whole other job and life, etc.

Yesterday, I heard a woman speak of the "assholes" at her call-center job. Among other shortcomings, the management had the following cavil in place:

Three [3] misusages of "it's/its" would result in termination.

My question is: when do I have time to manage some call center, somewhere? I don't even know that/when I'm doing it! I do know that I deserve a sainthood, a gazillion dollars and 144 virgins, or whatever, in recognition of my taking a sensible stand for once in my stupid damn life!

The old D_____ stick-to-it-iveness/will to win

Stabbed naked man escapes into the cold - DDN

What you missed

Hey, John Updike! You died a year ago today, which was a colossal drag.

Here are some things you missed!

* We bought a house! Lots of room for books, which is nice. Your more esoteric, unlikely-to-be-readily perused stuff (The Coup, The Poorhouse Fair, eg) will likely end up in the basement, but you are well represented in the upstairs "fiction" room and your essays and such are in the front room. Oh, and the two art books!

* New Clientele record was fantastic!

* American society continues to unravel at a brisk clip; shame you're not here to sweep up the sawdust with some tartly observed (yet withal somehow reassuring) prose.

* Going to Jeffersonville on President's Day!

* Osama is still alive, but so is Obama! And no word has leaked from Cornish that Salinger is dead. Those 100-degree lamb patties must really work. If we'd only known, huh? :(

* But, anyway: you missed Kei$ha, so that is good.

Say hi to Lester Bangs, Cheever, et al...and join this blog as a follower, if you have internet access in the afterworld.

Okay, bye!

Parents' 55th (!) anniversary is Friday

Hope I have time to get this BANNER made!:

Doncha just LOVE movies?

I do, provided I've already seen them many, many times!

The second to last movie we saw in the theatre was the Grindhouse thing...when was that, 2007 (the last was Savage Grace!)? Wanted to see Fantastic Mr Fox, never made it, because that would mean going out of the house.

ANYway, I think it is fated that we must see this, as it's Grind-related. Stoked!:

Plus, I think Lohan was in it?

Say what you will,

this cover is TOUGH:

"Hurt Locker" review:

"It was kinda dumb."

No bear pate, alas

Bear's liver is poisonous.

Further endorsements

Apparently cut from the news reports of a benison placed on the failed airliner bombing at Xmas, Osama bin Laden has also declared that the Squeaky Fromme attempt on Gerald Ford's life was "badass" and that the mention in Edie of some Japanese shells from a submarine landing on California ranchland during WWII was "cool."

Weekend

Maverick!

Forgot to mention this American hero I met at the vet's office last week - he was in a blanket on his mom's lap and I asked whether he was sick. She said they weren't sure - that he had run away on Dec 5th and just come home at 5:30 the night before (Jan 14)! That's 39 days in the godforsaken hole-in-the-wilds that is Evil Vandalia with no front claws!

He looked roughly like this picture, with a scab on his nose.

Sorta need

For all the gardening to come - all my existing boots have laces 'n' shit, which, in my advanced years, make for a lot of hassle when coming in and out of mud and wanting to keep truck/kitchen floor/whatever pristine.

Plus: TWEE AS FRIG!

Unpopular clown name I just created via local news story

Apparently the Fire Victim

Spring project

Somebody needs to do it, so it may as well be me: a comp called Prince: The Shitty Years. All the best tracks from all the post-Lovesexy LPs. There were some early 90's hits - but there are whole LP's I've never heard. Or worse, have heard. But Emancipation? What? There was one? NEWS or whatever? Rainbow Cloud Peeple's $ellabration 4 Lyfe? Okay, that one's fake.

See, I love a few oddball tracks: "Papa" off Come and "Peach" is okay to drive to. And in the last five years there have been some winners: "Black Sweat" and "Guitar" spring clear of the hanging dross. But that Target-only mess last year...I'm all over the place, I know. But will I really be able to pare this crap down? I only need about 20 tracks.


I'm not sure I can do it.



May u all live 2 see tha comp!

Further brobriquets

Jeffrey Bro-mont

Frankie Bro's to Hollywood

Broko Ono

Dave Broman

(as much as these suck - and they do - I spared you the worst of them: Lady Bro Bro, eg. Count your blessings!)

HOT water

For years, when asked why I didn't own a house, I would say "I'm a renter by nature..." or my most popular trope "Because as soon as you buy a house, the water heater dies and then something else happens and all your money goes to taking care of [grown-up shit]!"

Well, plus-ca change! Now I want to get a bigger water heater, even though the existing one is functioning! The Bride (aka Li'l Furstenburg) likes to take a bath, but it takes about 30 minutes to get all hot water (run water - stop - wait for heat again - run water - stop - wait for heat [repeat until correspondent is asleep]), and even I, who shave my acres of face in the shower, notice a decided cooling by the time the shampoo if reached for.

Anyway - time to shop for a bigger water heater!

My brother met Neil Armstrong last night

He asked him if he thought the Kenny Jones-equipped Who albums weren't really "all that bad!"

Not really - but Neil is taller than one would think. Those space suits add a bit of frump.

What th'???

D_____ians, natch!

Also, front men for the world's most unique Descendents tribute act Enjoined!

Grunge angel

I would guess that there is a limit to the amount of pain that the human mind can take. Whenever possible, it's best to avoid testing this limit.

Which brings me to the Christmas episode of My So-Called Life.

It was decided in committee a couple episodes back that this show, a hallmark of 90's programming, blew. Angela is literally the only likeable character, and even then Daines besmirched the legacy of this spunky kid with l'affaire Crudup. But, half-heartedness never got the dishes done, so we have soldiered on, chipping away at the sheer granite face of the these nineteen episodes. I mean, we made it to the bitter end of Footballers' Wives, so it would seem that nothing is truly insurmountable.

Or so I thought. I KNEW as soon as I saw poor Juliana Hatfield sitting on a snowy curb as Rickie ran past, face all beat up, that she was a XMAS GRUNGE ANGEL, come to teach us all a lesson. Not one in pitch, but a lesson nonetheless (I searched in vain for a pic of Ms Hatfield in this guise; I would guess that she has a staff working twelve hours a day searching for and eliminating evidence of this Guest Shot from the net - I present the Bjork on a Half-Shell pic at left as a way of all of us trying to cleanse). Oh, man - MAGIC REALISM, or something. Mom (her every passing thought denoted with a twisting of her mouth into some new, ever more hideous rictus) and Pop, like good leftover baby boomers, debate the morality of whether they should have left their daughter's friend to go sleep in a ditch (barely figuratively) on Christmas eve. GASP! I mean, this BOY wears MAKEUP (later, of course, he is shown in prayer in some Catholicky grotto thing [ask my mother-in-law] which shows he's a spiritual person, moreso than Mom and Dad who are lax on matters churchy)!

Oh, god, I'm losing it. Anyway, Juliana Hatfield is a dead SPIRITCHILDE from another REALM who COULD HAVE BEEN ANGELA IF ANGELA EVER RAN AWAY, HUGS EVERYONE.

Then, as a final subtle coup de grace, the family, with Rickie and Brian Krakow in tow, leave the church (what church? doesn't matter) as snow begins to fall, watched by GRUNGE ANGEL who then lifts out of frame and a smidgen of WING is visible.

We're a long way here from "guns in school" and other Clinton-era concerns of earlier episodes.

DANDO TAKE ME AWAY!

(query: would a high school dance committee really have had Saturation album track "Dropout" playing at the fall hop? Not in the aforementioned episode, an earlier one...but would they have???)

A word on John Prine:

"No."

Rise of the Droid

The Bride got a Droid on Saturday, which I guess is a phone? Anyway, it has all the bells and whistles one could ever hope for. But as she was giving it an initial going-over on Saturday evening, (near-) disaster struck! I was eating some Doritos and drinking some Sunkist, as one will. Then I started choking! Wrong pipe, that sort of thing. Asphyxiation was near! I stood up and pounded my chest, hoping against hope that I would once more partake of sweet, sweet oxygen!

Meanwhile:

[tapping sounds as wife sits a-floor, warming to the tiny electric hearth of her new toy, but failing to look up]: (distracted) "Are you...okay?"

Anyway, I lived.

Also, when this thing is done charging, it lets fly with this little Troutman Labs by way of Cylon chirp: "DROID." Which, as an exceedingly light sleeper (I'm asleep as I type this!), is a bit of an irritant.

Recently unearthed!

Hey, a picture of me at a high school dance!

Finally, a title

Am still trying to secure funding for my 9/11 doc that will blow the doors off, but have a title at least/last:

That Day in October

Ed Ruscha

Chooch forwarded Ed Ruscha's web site to me, which I'm glad of, as it contained this pitcher [sic] that I once clipped from an ish of Interview and stuck on my bedroom wall:

Other aisles, other lines

So - we went to IKEA on Saturday. Had not been to one since Pittsburgh '96 (that was the same trip where the credit sequence to Happy Gilmore, wherein Adam Sandler is making "humping" motions in every shot, nearly made me wet my pants - but, as evs, I digress). We bought the HARFMUMT, the SLABELF and the BINEFLENH. Or something. Still, it was a bit traumatic.



First, the lighting perplexed and alarmed and the EXIT>>> signs were meaningless, since no matter which way one went, there was more CRAP all over the place.



Then:



Me: "What if the item we want [in the self-serve (!) get-it-down-your-own-damn-self area] is not reachable?"



Meth-mouth kid employee (sneeringly): "It won't be."



Then, at the end of a bitter hour and a half jaunt, we paid for our FIFFBRINDL and were pointed to a naugahyde purgatory by the warehouse, where we were told said item would be forthcoming in "eight or nine" minutes.



AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, we were telling the poor souls who remained (and there weren't many, and some had been there before us) that we would "send for help" and asking if there were anyone on the outside to whom we could relay messages.



They may still be there.

Overheard:

"It sounds like he likes to spend your money."

[unrelated to the hippies, this was an orange Ugg-wearer on cell at oil change place]

Speaking of Egypt...

The Grateful Dead played there in 1978, which is a good tie-in to what happened at lunch yesterday...the bride and I were at the storefront Thai place, where the tables are placed about 10 inches apart. We were elbow-to-elbow with a couple of mating hippies. Youngish, he was about 30 and she was a bit younger.

I first sensed that this could be the worst minute in the history of the universe when Girl Hippie said something about going to see Yonder Mountain (uh oh!). This left Man Hippie to recount how he knew "a guy" who got pulled over in Indiana simply for having a Grateful Dead sticker on his car, the cops searched, found illegal whatever, and the court upheld the sentence.

"Whoa, harsh!"

Then we heard all about Man Hippie's custody issues and how his ex old lady was making it hard for him to see "Jewel." Also, Ex Old Lady's Man had given Man Hippie the "stink eye."