Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Please, For The Children

I saw a bumper sticker that said "I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN A CHILD-PROOFED WORLD." Strong stuff, and yet the full import may escape many of us. We may conclude, "ah, a bitter and childless adult, setting his or her selfish interests against the best interests of the children!"

True, but it's not the whole story. In fact, if we only give it a little thought, we are forced to conclude that the principle embodied on that bumper-sticker is by far in the great good interest of all of our children. Because unless they are prevented from doing so, all of them are going to grow up.

The greatest boon we can leave our children is a world that has not been made unlivably insipid. A world where it will in fact be possible for them to live and learn and decide and express freely, as adults.

If we must occasionally hush and pull down blinds on our children's precocious questions, this is an inconvenience the children will at least get to grow out of. But if we remake the world into one where adults are required to hush and pull blinds on themselves, this will be an inconvenience no child will ever be permitted to grow out of. It will be an inconvenience they must live within, permanently constrained and stunted. For whose benefit?

It is not for the benefit of "the children," or of any child. It is for the benefit of those who seek to control the adults.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

My Possible Karaoke Song List

I've only sung (I've only sang? I've only singed? Well, I was pretty hot, I might have singed) karaoke literally one time. It was for a co-worker's going away deal. She was into karaoke, the local scene, and I came along for this going away party with a good number of people, and somehow I ended up promising to do a number. It was a special circumstance, and I treated it as such. I sang "Don't Dream It's Over" AKA "Hey Now" by Crowded House, and nailed it.

But unlike some people, I saw no reason to turn that into an excuse to become a karaoke regular. I'm more of a "go out on top" kind of guy.

Still. I admit, part of the reason might be that I have no idea in this situations what to sing. I can't even imagine. I sing my own songs, not other peoples'! There have been a number of other times when I've been out, and there was karaoke, but nothing ever occurs to me in those situations. My mind blanks, and even though I may have a bit of an ambrosial glow on the moment to where I wouldn't mind jumping to the stage to do something rash, I can't think of a single thing I'd sing.

Let's face it, "Don't Dream It's Over", while appropriate to the situation at the time, is hardly a party-starter for all occasions. You can't just say "Let me hit you folks with this totally off-moment tune, just 'cause I personally can sing the hell out of it." That's crowd abuse.

So on behalf of that, I'm starting a list of what I'd consider to be proven go-tos. Songs that I feel definitely would work. Songs that I could "own," and in so doing, I could "own the moment." Which is the trick to karaoke! You want to own the moment. Make it yours.

So far, the My Possible Karaoke Song List:

1. "Biko" - Peter Gabriel

All subsequent posts in this feature are just going to include the entire, ever-growing list, and then next time I'm out and can't think of a thing, I'll have a cheat sheet to rely on.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Top 9 of All Time #11

The High Price of High-Tech Prostheses
Why Are You Everywhere, Ants?
More Epic Battles At Work!
Change Can Be Bad! But Reform Is Always Good
Technically, Though #5: Illegal Aliens
Once Again, My Sunday Theology Post!
Wake Up! to the Cleansing Power of SOAP
Revenge of the Thought of the Day
FW: FW: Fw: fw: OH NO! NOT THE CHAIN!
I Want To Belong To The Picketers Union
The Dudes with the Fear of Commitment

Man. This link b.s. is hard.

Someday I have got to go through every one of these Top 9 installments, and hyperlink the posts! I don't know why I didn't do that before. That would be such value added! Why, people could safely and easily ignore the rest of the content and just zero in on those Top 9s. I got the last two anyway.

Dang, now I have to test all these links.

Top 9 of All Time #10!

Okay, there's been some snafu. I never made a post for the Top 9 of All Time #10. Yet these have been up for months and months! So I'm posting this as I take them down.

A little different, there!

TOP 9 OF ALL TIME (ROTATED AT RANDOM INTERVALS)

My Struggle Towards Exercise Addiction
The Wizards of Escharoth, Part None: Trial of the Forbidden Wand
Got Global Warming? Cool Off! With Nuclear Winter.
I Just Don't Trust The U.S. Army.
Hertz: We're Coming To Get You
What If Aliens Are Just Really Fucking Stupid?
Watchman: The Book Vs. THE MOVIE
Expanding The Culture Barrier #1: Larry Bird
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
You Call Yourself An Intellectual?
Traveling Pants 3: Enter The Brotherhood

New Top 9 of All Time In....just a moment!

It's Close to 2AM, and I Just Noticed My Breath Kind of Stinks.

Should I brush my teeth? Or just wait 'til tomorrow?

Are there warning signs of OCD? No, that's ridiculous, even if there were I'm sure that halitosis would not be one of them.

Besides, I don't have halitosis. I'm like 90% certain this is psychosomatic.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Experimental Results Pt.2

So this was really awesome. Last night I was hanging out with dear friends at the neighborhood place, and we were taking a break out back smoking when we all started talking animatedly about the breaking news on the Large Hadron Collider experiment (scientists sent a subatomic particle from Cern, Geneva to Gran Sasso, Italy faster than the speed of light). We were all cracking jokes, pondering about the implications, describing our lean in various directions as to whether the result will be upheld or called into question, and if upheld, what the ripple effects would end up being in our understanding of physics.

Then later when I got home I logged onto my computer, and another person and I started talking about it as an aside, and AS THAT CONVERSATION WAS HAPPENING I opened my e-mail and saw someone* had sent me an e-mail with a subject line quoting this Neil Finn song:



I love everybody getting excited over the foundations of reality.

It's important that experimental results be repeatable!

In fact, I'm on Craig's list right now trying to find a large hadron collider. I understand there's some shit needs looking into.

Friday, September 23, 2011

policy

I have a policy against making exceptions, and I have a policy against doing favors. But as a favor to you, I'll make an exception.

The Fond Nostalgia of Reminiscences #2: When We Were Kids, and Trying to Get Drunk

When I was a kid I used to turn up my nose at the so-called "Silver Bullet." Coors Light, pah! That's pisswater. Give me the REAL COORS, in the gold can.

Yeah, I thought I was pretty hard core.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Side note for poets, Pt.2

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm right about how hilarious the idea is of this online poet character who is just absolutely arrogant, a complete asshole full of unmitigated brag and trash-talk, perfectly convinced that his poetry is worth crowing about and rubbing peoples' faces in.

Not often, though! Usually I think it's a pretty nifty bit of a satire on the shy, retiring type we have grown to expect, after generations of poets force-fed humility pie from society's generously apathetic hand. I try to work the premise in various ways, to raise questions about the worth of art's process - is it worth working through the worst you can do and the shame of placing it before the world, in order to put yourself in position to luck into your best? which indeed you may not recognize, not immediately?- or the role that self-delusion plays in greatness, or the question of why it is that poetry has so diminished from the center of our cultural stage. Shunted-aside and denigrated in the pantheon of contemporary art forms, consigned now to a position of delicacy and inconsequence, suitable mostly for expressing intimate, personal feelings - when it had formerly been considered capable of slashing epic strokes upon the grandest of canvasses! And stuff.

Also, since my poetry fucking RULES, it works purely on that more facile, sincere level as well.

Just a side note for you poets, in your face, "boo yah"

So over on the ol' Poem-A-Day(-On-Average) Poetry Blog "A Pocketful of Poesy", I'm running a bit behind my pace at 240 poems for 2011. Today (the 21st) is day 264. But I'm not sweating it. You know what I just did? Earlier this evening I tossed off a rather tossed-off, impromptu throwaway poem that referenced the rather tossed-off, impromptu throwaway band Snow Patrol. Link, for reference. Take a look.

Not much, is it? Nothing to write home about. No cause for a Poetry Blog Update, certainly! No reason to STRUT AND CROW.

Except check out the next 12 poems. Upon completion of that first, chuckling at the idea of Snow Patrol as a springboard for poetic creativity, and in the most perverse of moods, I decided - spurred by one throwaway Snow Patrol-inspired song - to do an entire tossed-off, throwaway poem cycle inspired by the titles of the 12 songs on that one album of theirs! You know, the one that I liked. Not the one with the one good song on it, the one before that - the one with six. Now this poem cycle was not to be inspired by the songs, mind you! Just taking the titles to the songs, and using each as the seed for a brand new poem. One by one, all in a row.

And folks, just take a look at some of those results. These poems were written as fast as you see them posted - faster, some of them!

I swear. Sometimes I feel like I must be making fun of poetry, with how easy I make it look! Other times I think I scare myself, but really: poetry is the one who should be scared. See with what haughty disdain I work my will upon its surfaces, and into its crevices and depths! WHATCHA GONNA DO NOW, POETRY?? I GOT CHA NUMBA!

And I tell you, I don't know how much further I can refute all you people who question my methods. All you people who tell yourself that you don't "force the moment" - like its a point of high principle not to push yourself. You say you don't want artificial targets, that you want to wait until its ready to come out, as if poetry were a bowel movement - well I say, get off your artistic-integrity-as-a-transparent-excuse-for-laziness and WRITE SOME! No, do not wait for a moment. No, do not wait for a subject!

WRITE POEMS.

Do you realize that more than 90% of my poems would never have existed at all, but for my own "artificial" drive for 365 each year? You start yourself, and soon you get going and great things happen that you hadn't planned on. Do you realize that almost 20% of my poems are any good? Some of them are damn good. High and excellent examples of the art! Okay, maybe my rhymed style is a bit too dependent on a few overly-predictable singsong meter schemes. I'm working on it! Got to work on it to work on it. And maybe my free verse is a touch prosaic around the edges - the language usually sinks its teeth in, at least! Maybe my approach to line breaks doesn't always work in my favor. Certainly, there are poems in there that suck. Poems you'd have to class as "jokes." Some of them, as "hilarious jokes." But overall, the work on display is of a very high standard, and some of it is just...blows me away. Words fail me. How can I describe, how can I do justice in words to some of those absolute best ones? I don't know where it came from, some of this stuff. I'm certainly not a worthy conduit for it. I don't have the necessary humility, but it's one aspect at least where I have to claim credit, and that's that I get off my ass.

How are your poems coming along?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I'm Not Afraid to Look Stupid

I mean, what good is it going to do me to look stupid and afraid?

Potential Emmy-Winning Episodes #3: House on House

I would love to see an episode of House where House is like, temporarily stricken with hypochondria.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Are You Personally Offended? Good! Excellent!

Can we maybe find some tactful way to tell people to fuck off about objecting to things that "might offend other people"?

Anybody who speaks up for his or her own self, "this offends me!" - I respect that, regardless of how I feel on the issue at hand. More than respecting their right to have a stance, I want to hear their reasons why. It's paramount in any case where something is declared offensive, to hear the reasoning. A person with the courage to declare they have been offended has had a chance to see and judge for him or herself that something is offensive. We must hear their reasoning! We must hear it, so we can then judge: "is this too offensive? Is this 'something we don't want'?" We need to hear and judge whether the nature of the stated offense overrides the interest of others who may also wish to see and judge. For themselves. Any time anyone is willing to be an adult, to stand up for their own self, and to take personal offense - we need to hear them out.

Yet on behalf of us all, we must also urge upon them the necessity of treating others as if they, too, are capable of being adults - and making judgments.

All of this is a far cry from the person who stands up to say "well I myself was not offended, but I'm concerned that others might be." Well, no. Incorrect. You are not concerned. Do not intrude your offense where you are not concerned. Your attitude desperately needs an enema. Your stance has neither nobility nor compassion: it is condescension, and I would say "pure condescension" but for the glaring ulterior motive involved. You seek only to control others: what they say and what they see, and yet you pass it off as a desire to protect them.

Well, speaking as one of those others who "might be" offended, I find the suggestion that you could possibly be offended on my behalf to be a rank insult to my intelligence, to my judgment, and to my autonomy. I am an adult. I have been an adult since I was seven damn years old. I didn't need your intrusion then, and I don't need it now. And oh yes, believe me I do get offended! When I do, it is on my own behalf. When I am offended, you better believe I do not insult others with the notion that my concern ought to outrank their own! When I am offended, I own it, and I own up to it. I will weigh the offense myself, and if it is offensive to me I will say: it is offensive to me. I am not a moron or a coward: I am capable of taking my own offense. But if I felt I had to take offense on behalf of another, it could only be because that person is a moron, or a coward.

No. False. I refuse to belief that any person on earth needs or can be helped by this kind of service from me - or from you. Your false concern will not benefit those on whose behalf you claim to be concerned. So please, if you're personally offended, say so - and say why. But if you're not personally offended, shut it. Don't give me this "concerned that others might be."

Instead, how about you give others (me, and everybody else) the same credit you give yourself? The credit to make the call as to whether a thing is offensive. The freedom to say "I myself am not personally offended," and then let that be that. To let the next person make their own call. Maybe they won't be offended either. Give them the chance to be as big as you are. As open-minded. To have a sense of humor, or even just a sense of scope as to what human beings in this day and age should be outraged about.

I, along with many, many of my compatriots, AM OTHERS. Don't speak for us. Don't presume to speak for any others not yourself. Our call is not yours to make.

Yet Another Tolkien Appreciation

Every time I return yet again to re-read J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of The Rings, I am struck by the timeless beauty of the description - everything seen as through a high, clear air! - by the stirring sweep and grandeur of the action, by the epic inventiveness of the plot, and by what a whiny little bitch Frodo is.

Frankly, I just tend to skip those boring-ass trudge-we-now-endlessly-towards-and-through-Mordor sections. All that Samming and Golluming around. Pass.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Yaay Reality!

The great thing about observable reality is - that shit's observable.

Please note, folks.

The previous post, that was my Fiction Friday post. As noted in the labels! That shit didn't actually happen.

But those noodles did look scary for a second! Before I realized what they were.

Friday, September 16, 2011

OH GOD THAT WAS DISGUSTING

So picture this. I walk to the break-area kitchen sink and dump my big cupful of yesterday's water, when suddenly my eyes drift down and I see that the big, round drain is postively clogged and filled with long, whitish-gray, writhing, waggling maggots! Freakishly long, yellowish-whitish gray worms, like elongated maggots of some kind that I've never seen before or heard of - except far more smooth and writhing than segmented and wriggling. My torso pitched forward involuntarily and I instantly puked, of course - a big vomitus of grape nuts and milk, all out in one go. I don't think I can be blamed for that. Anyone would. Thankfully, all but the tips of the very longest worms were now obscured by this new deposit. Mouth sour, my breath heaving, hands gripping the fake formica, knuckles white, I stared down into the sink with an expression on my face like a cross between a rictus of horror and the hugest, saddest pout imaginable. As I turned the faucet handle to flush it all away, I noticed it was ramen noodles. Still, my own contribution had by then made the sink at least disgusting enough to self-justify its presence, as far as I was concerned. Albeit, that logic contains within it a subtle causality violation, but who cares. Niceties of logic, links of sophistry! Who cares. In a world like this, where one can be confronted without warning by such rude, queasy horrors - who cares!

And get it straight: I don't want to hear any commenters whining "oooooooo I just ate" okay? The title of the post is OH GOD THAT WAS DISGUSTING. That's a mumblefussin' hint, peoples.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Feminist Rhetoric In General Pt.2

OOO! Can we flip the phrase, too? Characterize a person, thing or situation as sexually inconvenient?

Man or woman, suppose you had high hopes for a...let's just put it delicately and say "intimacy exchange," and then you get let down. Can you say "I was sexually inconvenienced. He or she sexually inconvenienced me." Looked at that way, I'm pretty sure I've sexually inconvenienced more than a few people! Hm. And probably some of the others, as well.

You know what? I changed my mind, this whole "convenience" frame works great for sexuality. In fact, it's so great, I think I'm just going to start using "sexually" as a modifier every damn time "convenience" comes into play!

We apologize for any sexual inconvenience.

Feminist Rhetoric In General

I am a committed feminist, as we know, but still I have to admit, some of the classic rhetoric employed does strike me pretty funny!

I always love the phrase, "a sexual convenience." Used in contexts such as, to employ a woman as a sexual convenience.

That's a crazy, great little weird phrase! I mean, that just derails my mind. I can't picture having sex and then, I guess you roll over and say "Wow. That was convenient!" It just seems so randomly, spectacularly inadequate as a descriptor. You know?

I think phrases like this betray kind of a fundamental misreading of dude's attitudes, on the part of certain feminists - some only, surely not all! - who believe men view women this way. I just can't conceive that has ever actually happened. I don't care how shallow a guy is. Nobody has ever "lucked into" sex, and then their primary attitude about it is, "How convenient!"

Putting it that way is so delightfully silly, it makes me just want to arch my eyebrow and say things with suspicious emphasis like, "Oh, you have a girlfriend, huh? That's pretty convenient."

I guess if you want to twist your mind around a certain way, you can in fact look at it and say having a girlfriend or a wife on hand would be "sexually convenient." But what's a turned around way to put it. Does anybody really take sex on the level? It's not like "Oh, there's a mailbox on the corner. Sweet!"

I don't know. Maybe it's just how I'm wired. I'm not seeing it.

Thought of the Day: You Keep Using That Hword. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

It's hard to believe in what you can't understand.

Fall TV Preview Review Episode 1 "Up All Night" Pt. 3: Errata.

Correction: in Pt. 1, that should have read Anchorman III: Run Ron Burgundy Run! The San Diego City Councilman Story. That's Burgundy. Not Jeremy.

Thanks to our keen-eyed readership for the tipoff - and thanks also for the discretion in e-mailing me, rather than slapping it in the comments for all to see, so I look like an idiot!

In the forest of our modern media explosion, discretion is an increasingly rare bird.

Fall TV Preview Review Episode 1 "Up All Night" Pt. 2: Possible Plan B?

I admit, the Sudden Infant Death Sitcom twist idea takes more guts, balls, heart and soul than possibly most roomsful of tv comedy writers may be able to summon up or pull off - to say nothing of whether a sitcom writing team has the range to handle the transition to hard-hitting drama! - so let me pitch another possible trick, to get this promising new show out of the built-in dead-end of its "woes of the incessantly bitching newborn" premise: Chronological Hijinks.

Steal a page from the playbook of Kiefer Sutherland's gamechanging "real-time" high-stakes noir espionage potboiler 24: establish at the outset that every episode of "Up All Night" stands for one day in the harried life of this pair of new parents' existences! That way, at the end of a full season, the kid is not twelve months old (and consequently completely unbelievable). The kid's only twelve days old.

Wait. How many episodes in a full season of television? What, like, thirty episodes, maybe? Fine, so the kid's thirty days old. That's acceptable. Every season, kid gets a month older. That still gives you a lot of breathing room, to run believably on in that same sweetly comedic rut for years, before you have to resort to the ol' genre switcheroo!

Speaking of which, I should warn you right now, we might want to soften that genre switcheroo a bit. It's not quite...testing, with our premise-testers. So Plan B to that would be, just make up some fictitious disease that keeps the kid cranky 'til they're like, ready for kindergarten. Best of both worlds, keep the comedy angle but you're still a little bit daring, in that you've given the kid a fictional disease.

Might have to lower our sights, though, award-wise.

Fall TV Preview Review! A New Feature! Episode 1: "Up All Night"

As always with Preview Review, this piece is based solely on the ad. I haven't seen the show yet! So a grain of salt, please - and please don't come telling me any of this is a SPOILER. It cannot possibly be a SPOILER. All I've seen is the ad.

NBC's new show "Up All Night" features the always wry & charming Will Arnett (formerly of "Arrested Development") plus the sharp, spunky stylings of Christina Applegate (soon to be wowing crowds in the upcoming Anchorman III: Run Ron Jeremy Run! The San Diego City Councilman Story) who if I may say so is in the midst of a career reinvention! These two sparks-striking leads shine as the parents of an adorable newborn, whose loud squalls and boisterous demands for attention and comforting keep 'em "Up All Night."

I'm pretty sure it's NBC. It's definitely a network show! Not one of those po-dunk off-broadway cable channel deals. To be on the safe side, let's just say "NBC" as an example of a network that this show might be on.

In any case, the pairing looks like a smart comedy fan's dream come true, and the premise taps a rich vein of humor gold that almost anyone can relate to either personally or by proxy, in these baby-crazy days. I see a possible problem, though: yes, the premise is strong, but that same premise has a built-in self-limiter to it, doesn't it? What do they do if the show's a huge hit? How can it believably run on for season after season, for years and years? Interminable as it seems while it lasts, that baby keeping you up all night crap is just a phase. As the kid expands, and his or her ratio of surface area to internal volume correspondingly drops, science makes sure that baby eventually knocks that shit off and acquires the ability to sleep peacefully through the night. In the face of what we now know about babies, can this premise be believable going into even the second season? From a suspension of disbelief standpoint, I give it eight months, tops.

An achilles heel, perhaps. Yet the mark of sharp comedy writers is the ability to improvise, get creative. Tweak the premise as the needs of believability (or the real world!) intrude. As we've seen in real life, sometimes Charlie Sheen just goes stark fucking nuts, and somebody has to die. As a tv writer (or a roomful of them!), you need to be able to juke and jump, hit that fadeaway "J" for the winning two points when the chips are down, and the original game plan has to go out the window.

So for a show like this, with its built-in ticking clock, what do you do? Keep the players. Keep the storyline - but throw in one hell of a loop-de-loop arc: Change the genre.

That's right. A bold, audacious move like that has rarely, possibly never been tried, but when it does...expect television history! As this series rounds into its eighth month, cue a big "very special" 1-hour episode, with a twist that turns the weekly 30-minute sitcom on its ear - and turns "Up All Night" into a weekly one hour drama. The plot point that does it all? SIDS. One bright morning's cheerful realization that baby finally slept through the night dawns into a living nightmare, that takes the show's name into a whole new world of sleeplessness.

For the characters, a nightmare. For the principal actors, and for discerning critics and hard-hitting fans of risk-taking television everywhere, it's hard to imagine a better dream come true. What a chance for Arnett and Applegate to strut their chops, stretch their flexibility and throw their dramatic gravitas around! For the show's producers, what an opportunity to take the shocked, captivated, die-hard audience - already completely in love with these characters! - on a wild ride of shock, grief, anger, mourning, bargaining, recrimination, alienation, tragedy, grief and ultimately ...maybe? - some kind of reconciliation? With each other. With a hard fate, one that comes out of nowhere for far too many new parents. Or maybe, no reconciliation. Sometimes there can be no reconciliation. This is tv that hits us on a level we do not expect, and cannot prepare ourselves for.

Award-winning? Fuck Emmys. Fuck a Golden Globe. This show is potential Nobel Prize for Television material.

You know I'll be watching.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Thought of the Day: potential

Each of us is responsible to know intimately our own potential for good. Consider the amount of good you can do without so much as asking anyone's permission.

Now considering doing some of it.

Perspectives on Satire: a note on satire.

Please note, when it comes to satire - I do my best to put 'satire' in the labels, in those cases. Satire isn't supposed to be funny. Yes, satire can be funny sometimes! Especially when they fuck it up, and fail spectacularly. Satire can also be funny even when it is done right. But any time satire done right is funny, know this: funny was beside the point. Funny was just a little bit of collateral damage on the side. Because for satire done right, funny is not the object.

The object of satire is not humor, but ridicule. The object of satire is to land a fair, square blow - and ideally, to land it with a brutal and cruelly unfair force. The object of satire is to castigate society for its flaws.

Keep that in mind, please. Yes, this is a setup. I'll tell you tomorrow. Get ready to laugh your ass off. No, I'm kidding.

Side note: saying "it was satire" is not the same as saying "I was kidding!" I assure you, when you royally piss your girlfriend off with a completely miscalculated and inexcusable bon mot, and your excuse is to tell her "it was satire!" - oh man, don't even bother to pack shit up. Your stuff has just been crash-teleported to a big pile in the driveway.

Nothing of anything in this post is satire. And no, that fact is not an instance of irony. There is no justifiable reason why we should expect a post about satire to oh-so-metacleverly be satire, so the dissonance between expectation and situation that gives irony its characteristic bite is utterly lacking in this post. Not everthing has to be all neat, cute, and bow-tied okay?

Ka-sheesh.

Fighting the Hypothetical, Pt.3

Anytime anyone puts me in a hypothetical situation, I just try to have sex with as many women as I can at once.

Fighting the Hypothetical, Pt.2

Why is it that people always agonize over hypothetical situations? I mean, nothing's even really at stake! Just go nuts!

Heck, every time I get put on the spot to have to switch the oncoming runaway train towards the least number of innocent lives, I always try to pull some spectacular move where I tackle the baby carriage onto the track with the five people on it, also killing myself in the process. Hypothetically, I count that as a maximum score for the scenario! I hate hypothetical people. They're always making shit worse for the rest of us, with their bullshit scenarios screwing up everybody's priorities over a bunch of fake people, in fake peril, I wouldn't lift a finger to save even one those pricks!

Hypothetical people can kiss my hypothetical ass.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

thought of this day, impossible to get no matter how hard you try.

A terrorist is someone who will buy publicity using human lives.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

NFL WEEK ONE!

HEADING OUT TO SOME PLACES, TO SEE SOME GAMES, CHILL WITH FRIENDS

DRINK SOME BEERS, EXPLICATE SOME PENALTIES, BANDY ABOUT COMMENTARY

EAT SOME HIGH-QUALITY LOW-CLASS HOME-MADE FOODS

HOLLER AT BAD PLAYS AND SHOUT AT GOOD ONES! IN SHORT,

AN EPIC IN MINIATURE OF MODERN MASCULINE MUTUAL AFFIRMATION RITUAL!

I think I'll wear my Ani DiFranco t-shirt!!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Next Up: Another Invention. No Patent-Jumping Me!

Ready? A portable cannon, approximately smaller than bazooka-sized, that you load hard-boiled eggs into a dozen at a time, and it peels them instantly and ejects the peels, and then when you pull the "SHUNK-shhhk!" lever (like the one on the bottom of a shotgun?) it halves each egg, the egg halves are rotated out and the yolks are smooshed in to the center chamber - this all happens mechanically, in one smooth motion during the "SHUNK-" phase - the yolk-halves are smooshed together with some mayo and mustard (supplied from dedicated chambers you must occasionally top off) and mixed into scoop-sized scoops, pumped right back into the waiting egg halves during the "-shhhk!" phase, so that you have 24 deviled eggs cocked and loaded that you can then FIRE AT PEOPLE!!!! Get that happy trigger finger going! It's semi-auto!

Because there's no reason deviled eggs shouldn't be just that easy. Plus I'm sick of these damn "pot lucks."

Sincerity Is A Weapon

Sincerity is a weapon. Politeness is the discipline, to be able to hold your calm and bore your aim right straight down those rifle sights to the single point of weakness - or the single weakest. Tact is the precise squeeze of the trigger.

But none of that is enough to bring down your target. You need ammunition.

You need truth bullets.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Kickass-Screenplay Idea #Ad Infinitum!

I was thinking, they come out with movies that spoof EVERYTHING. So why not a movie that spoofs bad dreams? I mean, everybody has 'em! We can all relate to 'em. And we all know, a lot of the time - the logic in those dreams? The narrative, the plot holes - way worse than most of what else we've been spoofing! It's a sitting DUCK.

Admittedly, the reference might go over some people's heads. But fuck those people! That's the risk you take, any time you get artsy. That's a risk you've got to take. Risk doesn't mean you need to chicken out. When you look back on all the real heroes of culture, the real epoch-making, style-setting change-makers - they're the ones who weren't afraid to get artsy.

Pathetic!

You know it's weird - I never mind when other people complain, but when I complain, it, it's, well. It's disgusting, almost. It is disgusting. I disgust myself. Complaining is just self-pity that you broadcast.

Yet I don't quite understand the disgust. Because when other people complain, it doesn't sicken me to hear it. Quite the opposite. I hear their cry and I pity them. Their plight. Well, "compassion" is more how I'd put it - not "pity!" People hate pity. But really, is there a more-than-merely-polite distinction, there? Isn't it simply pity? Pity's pithier. When did pity get such a bad name?

"I don't want your pity!" we snap - scornful of pity! When did we become so pitiless, so merciless towards ourselves? So ruthless. When did we decide to hate the pity and charity of others? Why take offense, when we know we are piteous? We are pathetic. Pitiable.

Still.

Still. I admit, I don't like to hear myself complain. But I think it is not because I object to being piteous. It isn't that self-pity is so hideous, so contemptible. It's just this: self-pity is redundant. There's no reason to complain - no point in broadcasting self-pity, when I've already got my own full and entire compassion. I already have total sympathy, deep and complete pity, for me.

Don't worry, I've got plenty left over for you too, pal.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Summer Colds Are The Worst

That's a saying I've heard: "Summer colds are the worst." But you know what? Really they're not so bad. True, this cold does seem to be hanging on for a good, long, annoying while - but for most of its duration, it hasn't been really miserable. I mean, a lot of those winter colds, they can be pretty miserable! This cold, okay, it was pretty bad last couple days, but the preceding two weeks or so, it was alright. It kept pretty reasonably this-side-of-miserable.

So I think it's just a saying. It's just something people say, for those occasions when you ask how somebody is, and they say they have a cold, you just pipe up:

"Summer colds are the worst!"

...and they agree, but really it's just sort of an automatic response deal. Because really, they're not so bad. They're not all that bad.

:-D :-D :-D

I'm still not entirely sure how smileys work. Did I just smile thrice, or do I have three heads?

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Behind-the-Scenes "Bonus Material" to a Previous Blog Post #1: "Big Jeans"

Hold on to your waistbands, because this edition of Behind-the-Scenes is for practically our most recent blog post! The one known as Ready for the BIG JEANS. And as always, I offer you a little "behind-the-scenes tidbit", in re: "Big Jeans":

***SPOILER***Walking and Talking is a 1996 movie featuring Catherine Keener and Anne Heche, about a cat who gets cancer and then dies in a fall from the balcony, or something. This is a minor film for everyone involved, with the possible exception of Kevin Corrigan (as "the Ugly Guy") who delivers a breakthrough, star-making turn. At this point, either you've seen it or you never were going to, so that's not really a spoiler for the film unless you have some insane regard for never learning anything about films you certainly never would have seen. The film is notable, however, for featuring a cat with the greatest cat name ever. That cat's name? Big Jeans. /spoiler

"Big Jeans" is the greatest name for a cat ever. Aww! Poor Big Jeans. Confusingly, however, despite this little "behind-the-scenes" tidbit, my blog post has nothing to do with cats, nor with that movie. It's about the style of clothing article known as "jeans" - a sturdy garment of rugged cotton twill trousers, traditionally dyed a deep blue or indigo, that has stormed the world of men's casual fashion since its introduction by gruff prospectors and laid-back cowboys during the late hum hum sixty hum somethings, and which your grandmother may or may not have inaccurately called "dungarees"! Or possibly, accurately, since the terms may be interchangeable.

For a little background on that, Will Dungaree was a famous Australian backdoorsman in the Outback during the late Australian 1930s, who was notorious for wearing denim jeans at all times, but who - owing to his staunch hatred of his ex-wife "Jean" - always loudly insisted that his pants were not "Jean's." They were "Dungaree's." The term spread to England during the so-called "Australian Invasion" of the 1935s, spurred by the infamous Vegemite Famine of December '34. You can look up the rest on Wikipedia!

By which I mean, you can look up the rest on Wikipedia - you can't look up that part. That's a sweet scoop from me, derived from my privileged sources! You won't find that information elsewhere.

Friday, September 02, 2011

Fighting the Hypothetical

Q: "Would you murder a man if his organs could save five people in need?"

A: "If you do, I swear to God I will murder all five of them."

Q: "No, no. No! It's a hypothetical question!"

A: "Oh, sorry. Repeat the question."

Q: "I asked if you would murder a man, if his organs could save five people."

A: "Yup. And then I'd murder all five of them."

Ready for the BIG JEANS.

YES! I'm so psyched. I just got 3 pairs of jeans with the 36 inch waist. 36 x 32. I had been rockin' the 36ers a couple years back, then after a while I kept feeling like I needed belts. So my last batch of jeans, I slipped it down a notch to 34 x 32. Which - by the way, I have to ask: how come jeans come in 30 x 32, 31 x 32, 32 x 32 and 33 x 32, but once you hit 34, it only goes up by evens? Is my soft belly supposed to be extra malleable once it reaches that state of expansion, or what? I think prevailing jeans theory is a little off on that one. It'd be nice to have some 35s as an option.

But in any case, I'm really psyched about these 36s. I can't wait to put on these jeans. They are going to be so comfortable. I stuck with the 34s for a good long while, and they've looked great on me! There's plenty of wear left in them, but they're just a little too pinch and tickle, snugger than I like to feel. Getting up, walking around, sitting down...I don't like to be so aware of my pants. I don't like my pants to feel grabby and clingy. So possessive. It makes me feel like my pants lack confidence, and if your pants lack confidence, that's just a bad sign in general. I want my pants to feel ever-so-slightly aloof. Just for my comfort zone. And once I started backsliding to the least worn-out of my last batch of 36s, I realized I needed to pull the trigger on change. Because those old 36's are too faded now! Some of them have spots worn through in the leg-cuffs, with white threads spilling out...sure, that's fine for a lot of occasions, like a beach bonfire in the wintertime, or something, but not when I want to look sharp casual. And here's a tip about me: sharp casual is my official style.

I always buy at least 3, 4 pairs of jeans at once. Two or three of the darkest blue they have, and then one of some odd color (green, brown, black - once I even got a bright tan!). Going to get some new jeans is like a ritual renewal of the nether half of my wardrobe. And over the course of their lives, I try to balance the wear as evenly as possible between each of the blue pairs of jeans. And over time I start to note their little imperceptible differences - each pair of jeans takes on its own personality! I have to admit, I'm kind of sad to have to semi-retire these 34s, still looking sharp, still in the prime of their condition. Who knows, maybe I'll revert back to them some day down the road, in leaner times. You can't dress to fit the future. For now, I am living large off the fat of the land, I am a top omnivore in my regional ecosystem! And it's time for me to step up to the BIG PANTS.

I need that extra two inches of comfort. It puts a little glide in my swagger.

***TROUBLE UPDATE***

You're listening to Trouble Update on WKWK, your source for do-gooders - especially those who lack clairvoyance, super-hearing, spider-sense, or other crime-finding, trouble-pinpointing powers. Looking for trouble? Rely on Trouble Update, on WKWK - your eye in the sky to confound the bad guy!

First as always, our "Little Help" feature. In the garment district, the 1st Municipal Bank hostage crisis continues. We realize this is just a bank robbery folks, just criminals and guns, but the police can't seem to roust them and there are innocent hostages in the vault. As the situation drags into its third day, this could turn ugly if no resolution is reached. This reporter asks: where are the city's heroes? Trouble is not always glamorous!

In more urgent news: Dr. Academion is on a rampage, cued by a formal announcement from Starling University that his much-bruited honorary doctorate from that university is in fact a complete fabrication. University officials have determined that no such degree was ever awarded, and claim that the controversial televised ceremony Dr. Academion cites never occurred, characterizing memories of the event as an instance of media-assisted mass hypnosis. Dr. John Fowler of Starling University has called upon Dr. Academion to begin referring to himself as either "Mr. Academion" or simply "Academion" in the future - or to enroll in a legitimate postgraduate program. In response, Academion has seized control of the school. A number of heroes have responded - more help is needed! Academion has fused most of the student body together into one colossal Co-Ed who eyewitnesses say has "gone wild," swatting airborne heroes from the sky while distracting groundbound heroes with gratuitous upskirt poses. Assuming the fight goes well, science heroes are being put on standby to help reverse the effect of Academion's dreaded Directed Mutation ray.

A mysterious UFO hovered over the city for approximately fifteen minutes last night, glowing with soft light and emitting a very pleasant low-frequency hum before it was blown out of the sky in a stunning debut by a new hero calling himself Smackwave. The full extent of his powers are unknown, but witnesses testify to the release of a titanic shockwave of concussive force. Critics have questioned whether the UFO in question may have been an illusion (possibly generated by Smackwave himself), or friendly, but this reporter has seen heroes come and go and I've a got a good feeling about this youngster. Impressive debut, newcomer!

Naked Lady snarled traffic on Broad Street for almost forty minutes this afternoon, and again on Boulevard 4 all the way across town - within 10 minutes of her disappearance from Broad Street! The timing has added fuel to the ongoing speculations that these disturbances are the work of not one Naked Lady but two, or possibly several - whether copycats or conspirators, theories differ. With facial-recognition software foiled by Naked Lady's trademark black cowl, investigators say they are minutely scrutinizing video from both events. They claim to be working on a comparison of moles.

Fury Doom Force has once again been re-certified as officially heroic, after yet another successful defection from the ranks of villainy. All heroes please be on the alert: if you see Fury Doom Force or any of its members, together or singly, do not attempt to engage them in combat. "Misunderstanding"-based hero-on-hero violence reached a 5-year peak last year, with property damage into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Authorities are making every effort to keep you informed - please do your part. The current roster for Fury Doom Force is: Commander Crush, Femme BAM!, the "trouble twins" Rough & Tumble (and their unicorn Horseplay), Mr. FIGHT! and Doctor Suave. Again, if you see these heroes, team up - don't square off.

Wrapping it up today with another entry from the "Rumor Mill of Villainy" - your peek into the juicy side of your nemeses' private lives! The Crimson Moll may be on the lookout for a new "associate." Feared underworld intimidator The Intimidator, a thorn in the collective side of our fair city's heroes for years, and the Moll's constant companion and significant criminal other since at least last Valentine's day (we all remember his spectacular "Billion Dollar Bouquet" caper!), turned up floating in the South River just adjacent to the thriving gentrified warehouse district Tuesday, his body riddled with heart-shaped bullets - a Crimson Moll trademark. The Intimidator follows Busta Crime, Gunsy-Wunsy, Lead Pipe, Mercyman, and The Big Spender in a series of deaths and disappearances of high-profile villains formerly associated with the Moll (with Mercyman the sole heroic exception to the trend). All concerned are advised to watch out.

All in all, a quiet day - with our thanks to the heroes who keep it that way! This has been Trouble Update on WKWK: your source for informed vigilantism. Thanks for listening.