The Chaotic Horrors

A week or two ago, I posted some thoughts about Britney Spears and her current plight as the World's Worst Mommy. My basic sentiments were, "Yeah, she's lame, but also deeply trashy" and I thought that pretty well covered it. I didn't really expect Ms. Spears or the greasy gangsta rat that she's bunked down with to cross between the parameters of my pop culture conciousness again until she accidentally stuffs and cooks her baby, thinking it's the turkey for her delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

Oh sweet Jesus was I wrong. I hadn't counted on my girlfriend's Netflixing of the nightmarishly horrible UPN disaster known as Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. I know. I can see your faces twisted into a ghastly rictus as you ask, "Why? Why would a previously loving girlfriend do such a mean, hateful thing that could only serve to karate chop our relationship with the crushing power of a Cobra Kai student (this 80's movie reference brought to you by VH1).?" Though I didn't understand this at first and had to be coaxed out of the closet with a plate of bacon and a frosty Dr. Pepper, I know now that she obtained this unholy artifact for us not to be entertained, but for us to be tested. If we can make it through this together, we can make it through anything and everything that could be thrown at us from here on out.

And make it through we did. It left us both drained of energy, pale and sweating, and we had to remove our shoelaces lest we attempt a jailhouse suicide... but we made it.

Thus, some thoughts on Britney and Kevin: Chaotic

-Because all of the footage was shot by either Brit or Kev, it's a lot like watching The Blair Witch Project only worse because you know that the obnoxious kids being filmed won't be dead by the end of it.

-Britney has really bad skin. Keep in mind that, being a fairly oblivious male, I'd never have noticed this normally, but as she has a tendancy to hold the camera about four inches from her gaping maw as she brays into the lens, her gaping pores and relief-map cheeks are pretty much the show's supporting cast.

-Poor Felicia. Felicia is Britney's troll-like punching bag/assistant that seems like a nice person who probably doesn't deserve the shit she has to put up with (though I suppose it's her own fault for hitching her wagon to Capt. Brit's Crazy Train). Her sex life, or lack thereof, is discussed on camera in great detail and, though she claims to be "one of Brit's bestest friends" she's conspicuously not one of the Bridesmades at the climactic wedding. Yet, three beautiful girls whom we've never seen are. How unfortunate for the one with poorly-planned bangs and a body more barrel-like than anything else.

-Kevin Federline is a crappy dresser and oily throughout except for one interview where, inexplicably, he looks handsome and well-groomed. It's an oddly disconcerting moment and it made me feel like I'd been roundhoused by Larry Holmes. I can't live in a world where K Fed isn't the measuring stick for all things skeevy and virulent.

-Above all else, the thought you're left with is that B and K are just unbelieveably stupid. And not in a "boy, they're sure acting silly for the camera" kind of way. No. These two are clearly lacking the fundimentals to properly function in a world where Couvosier and luxury hotel rooms don't feature prominently. Remember that one couple in high school that nobody liked because they always talked too loudly about "doin' it" and took shop class together and hung out in the guy's Dodge Dart smoking cigarettes after class while they devised how they were gonna get out of this town and start their own tattoo parlour and they always smelled vaugely of hairspray and sweat.

That's them. It's gross, even through the TV.

Day: A Memorial

It occured to me today that, given my past as a retail slave, this is the first Memorial Day that I have actually had off since I was in grade school. Wacky. Not news that's going to set the world ablaze, no, but it gave me pause as I ate my delicious corn on the cob at a park-based picnic this afternoon. Which, by the way, was particularly pleasent (the picnic, I mean). New York has an abundance of grassy, tree-studded, relatively-junkie-free parks that one tends to forget about during the wetness of Autumn and the snow-coveredness of Winter, so it's like discovering a pirate's treasure chest when the late days of Spring roll around and there's all this actual vegetation and space to cavort in.

Good food, we had, and good friends for the casual chit-chat. Shade, blankets, sandwiches, all the good stuff.

Hope your Memorial Day was as satisfying as mine.

On a sad note, actor Paul Gleason, best known as the principal from The Breakfast Club, died this morning after a battle with a rare and particularly mean strain of cancer. He was funny in that movie and, by all accounts, was a very decent human being. So thanks, Cancer. Thanks a lot. You know, you can smack down Fred Phelps or Paris Hilton or George Steinbrenner any time you want.

Just sayin'.

The Heat Sucks, But The Plurals Don't

Nothing of terrible import going on today. Brooklyn has started it's slow slide into hot weather, which is just fucking awesome. New York, for some reason, is one of the only places in the continental US that is almost entirely bereft of central air conditioning. That leaves us wrong-headed individuals who've chosen to bunk down here the option of either employing a clunky, expensive window-unit that uses more electricity than an iron lung and makes the ConEd bill shoot up at a rate that can actually give you motion sickness, or just opening a window, sleeping naked and taking ice-cold showers every twenty minutes until September. So that's a bit of a yearly bummer, but whatever. You deal, you manage, you survive.

It'd probably be a lot better if I tried not constantly bitching about it, but... eh, no... me bitching about the heat is part of the summer like trips to the shore and sunburn after sunburn after sunburn.

Anyway, since, apparantly, I don't have anything of merit to speak of at the moment, let me direct your attention to this here link:

http://www.myspace.com/plurals

It's a sketch-comedy group of which my friend Braden is a founding member and their stuff is the apex of ha-ha. There's a few sketches on the site that say "see, we're awesome" so go check them out. Tell them I said, "Hey."

(Lamp Man is the A+ of the bunch; my opinion)

Hoops. Dreams.

I'm not one of those people that constantly bogs down conversations talking about "this rilly 'mazing dream I had last night." Not my style. Also, almost all of my dreams are unbelievably boring, so there's not a whole lot of material to work with. For some reason, the last five years or so, I've had an inordinate amount of dreams set in oddly-lit airports. Again, nothing exciting; mostly me just wandering through empty terminals or sitting at an abandoned Pretzel Time. Occasionally I'll find myself running, and a few times I've been in the parking garages that overlook the airport but, really, that's hardly the definition of sonombulant variety.

Anyway, I bring it up because I had a dream last night that struck me as odd. Rather, less odd and more vaugely insulting.

Dream:

I dreamed that I was in a gymnasium that, for some reason, had a lot of dirty laundry scattered about. I stood there minding my own business for a bit, then a large group of people were suddenly surrounding me. In turn, they all told me that I could never play basketball and that I should just give it up. I tried to tell them that I had no desire to play basketball, but that seemed to only make them angrier. At the peak of their rage, they parted and dispersed. I looked around like a caged animal, fearing they'd return, then I noticed German hoops phenom Dirk Nowitzki practicing jump shots at the far end of the gym. I sauntered over and shook his hand. He told me, in perfect english, mind, that they were right about me, but I should join him for an ice-cream sandwich. We eat ice-cream sandwiches. I woke up confused.

Analysis:

-I have never in my life had a desire to play basketball. Ever. I'm barely even aware of the sport, other than the team from my hometown is in the playoffs this year. Also, I am fully, fully aware that I'll never play basketball. I have bad aim, for one thing, and it would probably only take three or four trips up and down the court to make my Velveeta-n'-delicious-chili-stuffed heart to explode. Not exactly an athlete, me. Also, I think you have to be willing, at any moment, to put out a rap single and, damnit, mine's just not ready yet.

-Given the above facts, I'm a little insulted that my own subconcience would decide to tell me, in dream form no less, that I will never play basketball. I know that already, my brain. No need to press the issue! Why not also remind me of how I'll never get a Phd from Yale or that I look like a clueless foreign exchange student when I wear tight sweaters? Just not cool.

-Dirk Nowitzki seems like a nice fellow and I'm glad to meet him, dream or otherwise. Very tall.

-Ice cream sandwichs are like cold bricks of Valhallah and we should all go get one right now.

So, yeah... dreams are weird. Anyone with any ideas about what this dream means, don't keep it yourself. Share with the class.

Side note: While I do not want to play basketball, I would gladly give up my soul to the Dark Prince for a chance to pitch Major Leauge Baseball. Just so all the cards are on the table.

I Have Seen Some Movies

I've been watching a crazy amount of movies lately. Not horribly surprising, I guess, as I'm predisposed to excessive movie-watching anyway (thanks, film school!) and both me and my girl have Netflix accounts that flood our home with stacks of viewables. Nonetheless, I feel like I've spent an inordinante amount of time on the couch, staring at the box with the pretty moving pictures.

Herewith, a viewing guide:

Blood Feast - An old Herschal Gordan Lewis movie gore-fest from the early 60's. It's fun if you like that sort of thing and it's only an hour if you don't. Falls squarely into the "unintentionally hilarious" column. Awesome period costumes and fabulously mod sets (although then they were just costumes and sets; retro-kitsch had yet to be invented). Bright red blood and lots of dismemberments. Best if drunk.

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio - A big eyeroll of a movie. Not bad, exactly, just very predictable and it has waaaay too many narrative flourishes. Kind of like trying to watch a movie through a bunch of Las Vegas fan-dancers who're wearing big neon signs that say, "Oh Gosh, Look at Me!!!." Julliane Moore is good as always and, okay maybe it's just me be that woman has an ungodly amount of freckles. Almost freaky. Woody Harellson overacts embarrasingly as a mean alcoholic, but it's nice to see him not being a PETA-flogging douchenuts, so I'll forgive him.

Phantom of the Paradise - White hot! A 70's re-imagining of Phantom of the Opera as set in a fashionable, Studio 54-ish disco theater. Just... oh, kids... words can't describe. From the flawless costumes and awesome score, to William Finley's makes-Michael-Crawford-look-subdued performance as the Phantom, to the laughable attempts at making the gross, troll-like Paul Williams into a sex symbol, to the fierceness of Jessica Harper... it's all good. Still not convinced? Death by neon lightning bolt. There. Rent it.

Stay - Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and a heaping helping of pretentiousness. Something about a car crash and suicide and it all being not real. I don't know, I didn't really follow it and, after a while, I got bored and ended up surfing the net for nipple slips.

Just Like Heaven - Eh. Bland romantic comedy about a guy who falls for the ghostly remains of Reese Witherspoon. She's cute as a button, as she is doomed to be until her death, but the rest of the movie aims squarely for the lowest common denominator. If you must see it, hit yourself on the temple with a hammer before you get comfy on the couch. You'll droolingly thank me later.

Get LOST

I feel that I'd be letting all of you down if I told you that I haven't posted because I've just been too lazy and couldn't be bothered. No, that just won't do. So instead I'm going to tell you the "truth." The "truth" is, I've been on a mystical journey of self-discovery that's lead me down a winding path of knowledge, over a flowing river of time, and through a thick forest of irrefuteable truths all of which landed me squarely on a big comfy sofa of personal enlightenment and inner peace. All good, let me tell you. Highly recommend it to anyone that's got some time off coming to them. One word of advice: Bring a change of pants. You'll thank me after you go through this waterfall of puddin... you know what, nevermind. It's better if it's a surprise.

Anyway, so that happened.

You can stop reading this now if you're not a fan of "LOST" because that's pretty much all I'm going to talk about until I get bored of this post.

Okay, so "LOST" concluded it's 2nd season last night...

Um... yeah, don't quite know what to think. I like that they explained the plane crash (though we'd all kind of sussed out that the electromagnets had something to do with it) and I like that they managed to throw a big-ass monkey wrench in the "the island is really purgatory/the island is in another dimension/the island is really aliens in outer space" theory. Also, really loved the random "Hey, what's that big four-toed stone foot thing" that got thrown in there and then never mentioned again. That hit just the right note of creepy and it adds a whole new element of whatthefuck to the proceedings. Generally, it was a good episode, though not "the best season finale of all time" as creator J.J. Abrams has been saying the last couple of weeks. It was entertaining, but the show is still way, way to frustrating to elicit such slobbery praise.

The issues I had with the finale (and, by proxy, the show it's self) are these:

-They have got to fucking stop with the whole "all the characters crossed paths before they ended up on the island" thing. It's been getting way too precious for the last few months and, last night, with having Libby be the one who gave Desmond his boat... that's just insulting.

-We're never going to figure out what's up with The Others, are we? I mean, okay, they're not the hillbilly jungle-dwellers that we were lead to believe at first; they all but admitted that flat-out last night. A theory that I've had for a while is that The Others are actually, as Not-Henry Gale put it, "the good guys," and that seemed to be corroburated a bit too. I think, since our perspective on them is skewed, we only see the things they do as bad. Okay, granted, Ethan hanging Charlie was vaugely evil, but still. I think they might actually be the good guys and our heros might actually be the bad guys in the grand scheme of things. With Jack, Kate and Sawyer being taken off by The Others at the end, I'm hoping next season will shed whole stadiums of light on that particular subject.

-The actual ending of the show last night should have, by all rights, left me saying "Wow!" Instead, it left me saying "huh..." and that's just not cool. Desmond's girlfriend is still looking for him and is using people in Antarctica to hunt for electromagnetic pulses from the Hatch. Uh, okay. I'm all for cliffhangers, but I'm mainly for cliffhangers that are exciting as opposed to cliffhangers that just ask a bunch of questions that we couldn't possibly have the answers to.

-All in all, there's a very fine line between building an intricate mystery and just being stingy with the info. The main emotion that a TV show wants to leave an audiance with is not frustration, I'm positive, yet that's all we've gotten from "LOST" this season. Not awesome.

Of course, I'm not going to stop watching because I want to see where they're going with all this, but still... I'm keeping my arms crossed an expression of "Prove yourself, young man" on my face.

Ankle Drama

I'm posting this link not because it's super-gross and not because I take delight in the misery and pain of others. No, I'm posting this because for the life of me, I cannot stop watching it. It's like when you're at the laundromat and you get hypnotized by the dryer full of towels and before you know it, you're being asked to leave because you're dead-eyed, drooling gaze is freaking everyone out.

It's exactly like that, but with a broken ankle instead of a dryer full of towels.

http://www.hedonistica.com/media.php?path=/videos/broken_ankle_tennis.wmv

!!! WARNING !!!

It is really kind of gross, though. Watching it, if you've any kind of empathy in your body, will make your stomach clench and your head will kind of feel the way it does when you accidentally scrape your fork on a dinner plate and it makes that ear-violating shriek. Seriously, a foot is not supposed to do that.

Hillbillies Makes the Best Parents

I tend to not comment a lot on celebrities and the assorted ways in which they make their own lives miserable by being woefully negligent of their children and/or by doing enough drugs to induce a psychotic break that lands them either in a hospital ER or the waiting room of the local Scientology encampment. Not really my bag, as it were. But I feel that I'd be remiss if I didn't weigh in on this whole "Britney Spears is trying to kill her baby" brouha that's been at a steady boil these last few days.

Okay... here's the deal... Britney Spears is deeply, deeply trashy. We know this. Were it not for the fact that she has a good (well, marketable) singing voice, she'd be pulling double shifts at the local Razoo's, hoping she gets good tips Friday night 'cause the babies need formula and, like, it's way expensive. Any illusion of class that she might have fostered in her career (could've happened) was shot all to hell back when her and that retarded hip-hop ape she's married to unleashed their TV show "Chaotic." What was, I assume, inteded to be sweet and loving ended up being extremely uncomfortable and gross, like watching an all-orgy episode of Hee Haw, and it proved irrevocably that Spears would sell pictures of herself taking a dump if she could get a high enough paycheck for it. Anyway, my point is that being as how she's the particular kind of white trash that has, somehow, stumbled upon an ungodly amount of money, she is automaticly predisposed to be a crappy mother.

Bad genes, an unlimited supply of money for which to buy bottle after bottle of Strawberry Boone's Farm and Kool cigarettes, and a husband that's more concerned with achieving maximum levels of greasiness while releasing a rap single so noxious it actually melts stereos is the perfect reciepe for disaster, child rearing-wise, and the fact that we're shocked now that the shit's going down is just silly.

Of course she's going to let her baby drive the car. The kid's going to fall out of the high chair eventually. She's going to drop him in front of photographers, without a doubt. You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl and even though the diapers are Gucci and the baby powder is imported from France, she's still going to let him roll off the changing table while she applies another layer of Maybellene to that fresh shiner and dances in her Hanes Her Ways to her "jam" on the Top 40 station. It's written in the stars.

So, I propose that we, as a nation, just sit back and enjoy it. The fact is, the kid, with the mix of DNA he posseses, is better off being killed by parental stupidity now then having to grow up knowing that his mother's a psychotic cow, his dad's an oily, wiggling douchebag and, someday, he's going to be THAT too.

Let's just watch the train crash, take to heart the life lessons, and throw heaping handfulls of praise upwards to whatever particular deity you happen to align yourself with, thanking them that you're not Britney Spears or Kevin Federline, otherwise known as the tabloid industry's embarresment of riches.

A Wedding in Nowhere's Middle: Part 2

Texas, for those of you whom haven't had the pleasure, has a lot of gaps in civilzation. The proverbial "wide open spaces," popularized by many cowboy poets as well as various Dixie Chicks. As far as landscapes go, they're not bad; pretty too look at what with the green and the rolling hills and the sky all blue. They are not, and I'm certain about this, a great place to hold a wedding. There's a paucity of shade out there, for one thing, not to mention the bugs, rocks, dirt, cannibalistic hillbillies, Native American art-sellers, coyotes, gun-owners and rattle snakes. Especially when there's a perfectly servicable city like Austin not thirty miles away just sitting there, it's air conditioners beckoning like a lover's arms, it's streets running with hand-crafted microbrews, it's many fine event halls weeping gently that you're not inside them, being wed. Deciding to get Mesolithic about it and taking to the hills just doesn't make sense and I pity the poor fool that gets roped into standing on a hillside in an open-air chapel, moistly dying in a rented tux all in the name of love.

So there I was, standing on a hillside in an open-air chapel, moistly dying in a rented tux.

To be fair, it was a very pretty piece of country, if you like that sort of thing. The fact that I was monumentally hungover only diminished the surroundings a little, though it's always a bit hard to truly absorb nature's majesty when you're eyes are squeezed tightly shut behind dark sunglasses and you're muttering the Lord's Prayer into a glass of lukewarm tap water. I think it's actually a part of wedding tradition that the Best Man must, the night before the ceremony, attempt to drink like it were a competition and, needless to say, I certaintly held up my end of that particular bargin.

Anyway, my point is, to get to this place, I had to drive to where Loop 1 dead-ends into a stand of trees. Consider... if you're holding a wedding and it's past where the actual highway gives up, then you might want to rethink the choices you've made. Not everyone has forest survival skills these days and hiking boots really don't flatter the Bridesmaid's dresses.

More later.

Satan Takes a Dump

More about the wedding soon (I know, you're all just dying inside), but just a quick word; a warning actually.

If anyone asks you to accompany them to a showing of the new The Omen remake, slap them hard across the face, steal their wallet and run to saftey. Tell an adult if there's one around. I happened to see it last night 'cause I'm cool like that and, trust me folks, it's like a dog's ass, but with more Liev Schrieber.

Ignore my warning at your own peril, my sexies.

A Wedding In Nowhere's Middle: Part 1

On a hill, in a church, surrounded by the green showiness of nature's splendor, standing next to one of my oldest friends as he married the love of his life, I was struck by an emotion so strong that, even now, I can still feel it lingering about; the last guest at the party too wrapped up in the onion dip to notice that the hosts have already put on their pajamas and are calling the police.

The emotion: Pain. It's source: My feet.

The shoes that you're given with your rental tux are made out of a specially-molded, soulless black hate that gives one the sensation that their feet are being interrorgated for information by the Khemer Rouge. But they're sneaky... you don't notice it right away. You're busy, you're getting your picture taken, you're doing a half-assed job of decorating the groom's car; you're mind is everywhere but on the ever-darkening situation below your ankles. Then, you're at the altar, standing in a line of men with you labeled the Best. Your standing still. The minister is speaking and everyone is smiling. Then, with the muffled horror of a drowning victim, you realize that your feet, who've always been so kind to you, are now suddenly full of nails and broken glass and wrapped in barbwire and also on fire. You shift a little, trying to ease your weight off and on of each foot in an alternating fashion, but you're currently standing in front of 80+ people who'll notice if you start doing a modified version of The Frug, not to mention the buzzard-like, lurking photographers. The anguish that could, at any moment, wash over your face would be so intense it'd win them a Pulitzer and don't think they don't know that. So you work your face into a rictus that at least somewhat resembles a smile and you pretend the tears in your eyes are because you're just so moved by the proceedings and not because you're fairly certain you've clicked your heels together in a jaunty fashion for the last time (not that you did that anyway, ever, but now you can never start).

So... yeah, my feet hurt. Oh, and a bunch of other stuff happened at the wedding, including one of the Groomsmen nearly getting arrested mere hours before the ceremony. More soon, my lovlies.

Return of the Me

Back home, as in Brooklyn. Long day of travel behind us, as well as the two cities of my first 21 years, the wedding of an old friend, tbe family I love, the friends I miss and, of course, the Alamo Drafthouse.

So tired right now; need a vacation from my vacation. I'll keep this brief.

Back to regular updates, for reals and for true. Have many things to tell about our magical adventures in the land called Texas, where it may be a bit bumpkin-ish, swarming with bible-beaters, a hotbed of politcal corruption and already sweltering in May, but at least the food is awesome. And plentiful.

But for now, sleep.

See you tomorrow, you beautiful blogosphere, you.

Lone Star State of Mind

As I've currently a readership of about 9 people, most of which are people I talk on the phone to regularly, I haven't felt the need to post the "Gone Fishin'," sign, as it were. But, in case a few interlopers wander through, get curious about the lack of updates and call the police in a panic thinking I've died at my computer chair from a combination of Cheeze-It abuse and lack of natural light...

No worries. I'm in Texas.

This is my home state. Currently, I'm sitting in my parents house, blogging from the fancy computer that is way nicer than my own and is being used by my mother to occasionally check what's playing at the mall's movie theater and, every solstice or so, order something from Old Navy. Not that I am in any way bitter. My mother is a saint and deserves a nice computer. I'm just wondering how I can fit the monitor into my suitcase and how long it will take her to notice that I've left a crude drawing of a 1950's cabniet-style TV in it's place.

Anyway, yes... Texas. I'm here for a wedding. My friend Joel is getting married and I've been asked to be his Best Man. Though the idea of wearing a tuxedo outdoors in south Texas in May, where it feels like you're breathing through a damp gym sock, always, doesn't thrill me, I'm happy for him and am glad to be a part of the festivities. As long as there is booze. If this is a "dry" wedding, I swear to leapin' Jesus I will trash the place with my bare hands, using my cummerbund as a whip to beat back those that would attempt to quell my uprising. I'd like to think I'd have an army of supporters behind me, but you never know. Bride-loyalists, who've been brainwashed into thinking that a "juice n' cake" reception is a keen idea, might form a steely wall against my efforts and then I'd have no recourse but to chug the celebratory bottle of Cliquot after I'd barricaded myself in the rectory.

So yeah. Hope there's drinks.

Updates will commence as soon as I am out of prison or, roughly, Monday. Love y'all!

Death Bagel

It looked so innocent. A bagel, sliced in twain, spread liberally with cream cheese... a staple of the New York diet as common as a slice of pizza, street vendor hot dogs and tap water that could, on occasion, be labled "chunky." Tasty? Of course. Filling? Sure, sure. Lethal?

Turns out... very nearly.

I'm walking back from the Post Office, a package in hand, and I pass an innocuous-looking deli; one of the roughly 3.5 billion all over the burroughs of New York. Let me stress this... it looked perfectly normal. There weren't homeless men defecating in the corner, no junkies openly sharing needles in the refridgerated cases, the place was free of rats, roaches, mold and general filth; the very picture of rigorous health-code standards. Evil, of course, approches you with a smile. I purcahce the aformentioned bagel and cream cheese, eating it happily, innocently, unawares of the reality that will soon have me locked in battle with the forces of darkness.

Forty-or-so minutes later, I'm on the N train, work-bound, and my stomach is doing a damn fine impression of the San Andreas fault. I'm hot, then cold, sweating, then teeth-chattering. I can feel, slowly, like the creeping north of a thermometer's mercury, my gorge rising. The N train emerges from underground and rises above the East River on the Manahttan bridge. The subway car is flooded with brilliant sunlight, behind me in her harbor the Statue of Liberty stands regal and proud and I, unable to fight it any longer, vomit all over myself like a fraternity pledge on Rush Week. Three times, actually. I try to conceal the biological disaster by removing the top shirt I'm wearing and using it as a catch-all for my stomach's contents. That, of course, only serves to funnel the spew over my arms and onto the seat to my right and the train's floor on my left. My lap is now a lake of horrors, my beard is now a jungle of crusted hurl and shame, my torso in unmentionable.

Make no mistake... I am covered in vomit. It occurs to me, as I am being stared at by all my fellow passengers with a truly special mix of revulsion and pity, that I need to exit the train like now. At the next stop, Canal Street (Chinatown; why do all the bad things happen to me in Chinatown) I pitch myself out the doors, hitting the wall of the platform and sliding down to the ground in a pathetic puddle of my own sick. I sit there, quietly praying for death or, at the very least a time machine which I could employ to aide in my fire-bombing of the deli that sold me the foul baked good and it's unholy dairy spread.

Eventually, half an hour or so later, I manage to hoist myself to my feet and, like a wounded soldier trying to make it back to camp, I lurch up the stairs, across the station, and down to the subway that will take my disgusting, beaten, thoroughly humiliated carcass home. Naked and nasty, I drifted in and out of conciousness, crawling towards the white, welcoming light of good health at a slow, but steady pace.

I made it, barely, and I'm okay now, but I do believe I've learned a valuable lesson here... don't try to puke into your shirt on the subway. That way lies madness.

I Could Have Spit On Cliff Floyd

My girl, with her infinate coolness and bottomless reserve of "Wow!," managed to score us third row field box seats to the Mets game last night. Let me see if I can clarify this... we were sitting close enough to Home Plate that, had the mood struck me, I could have been over the rail and tackling hard-hitting outfielder Carlos Beltran before the security team had a chance to look up from their gratis Cubano sandwiches and set their mace cartridges to spray.

We, along with our friend Lisa who came along f0r the ride, ate delicious Nathan's hot dogs and salty, wonderful peanuts as we thrilled to four innings of shut-out pitching courtesy of Tom Glavine; we soared at the three-run homer scored by Xavier Nady; we watched in wonder as third baseman David Wright made impossible catch after impossible catch.

Eh... okay, I thrilled, soared and watched in wonder. Among the three of us, I'm really the only one that could be labled a Baseball Fan. Emily was more interested in figuring out how she could make handsome right-fielder (and three-run homer hitting) Xavier Nady her new boyfriend and Lisa was fairly occupied by the planes from LaGuardia flying overhead and hating the obnoxious man a few rows down who insisted on screaming at the roly-poly bat boy to please, it's my son's birthday, toss me a ball!!!

Anyway, it was a rare moment of high society... a brief dip in the pool of Haves. And, as we sat there applauding and booing apporpriately, sucking the salt from the peanut shells and cheering on the bad-season-having but still great ballplayer Cliff Floyd, I realized that this life I'm living, small and un-pop-culture-influancing though it may be, is something spectacular.

Love, Friends and Baseball... a perfect evening if ever their was one.

Geek-gasm

That sound you hear is a half-billion geeks across the world achieving orgasm all at once. "Ew" doesn't even begin to cover it, but nonetheless, after reading this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060504/en_usatoday/starwarsgoesbacktobasics

...I echo their feelings.

List-O-Rama: The College Years

Haven't done an entry of lists for the new blog yet and, also, I need a distraction from the crushing amount of work that I have to do right now. So, thusly, we proceed:

Top Five British Comedians Who Aren't A Part of Monty Python

1. Simon Pegg 2. Dylan Moran (who's actually Irish but gained his popularity in the UK) 3. Ricky Gervais 4. Steve Coogan 5. Rowan Atkinson

Top Five Underrated Country and Western Musicians

1. George Strait 2. Mel Tillis 3. Johnny Paycheck 4. David Allan Coe 5. Cross Canadian Ragweed (they're a band)

Top Five Ways In Which I'm Kind of Gay

1. First CD I ever bought? The original cast recording of A Chorus Line 2. I ask my girlfriend "What are you thinking about" all the time and I'm actually interested 3. I've used the word "cute" to describe things other than ugly girls whose feelings I don't want to hurt 4. I would probably french kiss Jonathan Rhys-Meyers if he asked me nicely 5. I've unironically worn a mint juliep mud mask and was happy about it

Top Five Things I Miss About Austin, TX

1. Vulcan Video 2. Ruby's Barbeque 3. B-dog, David, Rob and Joel 4. Alamo Drafthouse 5. Toy Joy

Top Five Movies About Zombies

1. Shaun of the Dead 2. Night of the Living Dead 3. Return of the Living Dead 4. Lucio Fulci's Zombie (Zombie fights shark!) 5. Dawn of the Dead (either)

So there you go. Fun and excitement.

Texas Style?

This is not exactly at the North end of the relevency scale but, nonetheless...

Why does "Texas style" equal "with mustard and Jalapenos?" Is there a specific reason; some cultural nuance that I'm missing here? I, myself, am from Texas and am not ever, except for a few special occasions, slathered in yellow mustard and dotted with sliced, pickled jalapenos. And when I am, it's for reasons that have nothing to do with my Texan heritage.

It's the same sort of pigeonholing that has forever equated California style with avacados, Asian style with manderain oranges and almonds, and New Jersey style with rat feces and a general sense of hopelessness.

Anyway, my point is, "Screw You, Burger King!!!"

Night Terrors

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm not a big fan of shrieking women, especially at 1:30 in the morning. I know, I have crazy ideas... I seem a madman even; one who is bound to begin lecturing on the benefits of wearing pinwheel hats to block the evil transmissions from the nation's leading dairy suppliers.

But I stand behind my beliefs.

So you know where I'm coming from... last night, around half-one, I was just getting back to sleep after a trip to the bathroom. I was, point of fact, about 25 billionths of a second away from a deep, dark, all-encompassing snooze when, from outside my aparment, in the hall, came a blood-curdling, sack-tightening, cold sweat-inducing scream. Let me be clear... this wasn't a "we're partying hardy down here" scream or an "Ahhh! The sewer main just exploded in my living room" scream. No, no... this was, unquestionably, a "someone is trying to stab me in my apartment at 1:30 in the morning" scream. Trust me, I've seen a lot of horror movies... this scream could have been in any of them. As we have a door in our bedroom that opens into the stairwell (railroad apartment, see) I could tell that the ruckus was coming from the floor below us. I darted (skittered, really) to our front door and peered out the peephole, hoping that it was a group of students who had decided to shoot a movie in the middle of the night or, at the very least, a serial killer who was shorter than me. But I saw nothing. I opened the door and stepped out on to the landing (brave, no?) and hollered a not-at-all timid "Everything alright." I heard low talking a door shut and, well, I am now assuming that everything worked it's self out.

I will be on gaurd for bad smells wafting up from the 3rd floor, though. Which is just the most pleasent thought ever.

Slo-Mo Bullets Will Rock You

If there's a job where I could just hang out and watch slo-mo footage of bullets ripping through various objects, could somebody give me a heads up. I'd really like that job:

http://www.hedonistica.com/media.php?path=/videos/slow-motion-bullet.wmv

Pay particular attention the egg... it's so awesome it's like an eye massage.

Red Teeth Vs. Metal Man: PART 2

Right to it, then:

Red Teeth Vs. Metal Man: Goin' to the Showdown!!! - Part 2

Metal Man woke up, looked at the clock next his bed, grunted, went back to sleep for twenty minutes, woke up again and then, finally, as if he were flinging himself to a firey volcano-aided death, got out of bed. He clanked and clonked around his apartment for a bit, grogginess still bear-hugging his brain, then he slowly, as if it pained him very much, pulled on a pair of courdory pants and a gas-station attendent's work shirt that he'd bought at a yard sale in Brooklyn.

He put an old vinyl copy of "77" by the Talking Heads on his turntable and adjusted the volume to an appropriate 9am volume.

With the bathroom light on, he examined his face in the mirror, looking for any signs of rust. He'd paid an assload of money to get his entire surface painted to an aproximated fleshtone and if he started rusting now, he was going to be seriously pissed. It wasn't that he wanted to be human; perish the thought. It's just that an entire body of gleaming, highly polished silver clashed with everything and was terribly distracting. He'd rather people paid attention to his good fashion sense and his cultivated head of synthetic hair if they were going to insist on looking at him.

Rust free, he stepped into the living room a little more perky, a feeling he immediately attempted to quash with a few deep belts from a bottle of vodka. While he generally disapproved of the cinematic representation of robots, he conceeded that that one animated show had gotten it right: Robots love booze. He sat down on the couch as his roommate, Vanessa, came out from her room. Naked. Vanessa had long held the assumption that, because Metal Man was, well, a metal man, that he had no feelings of lust or longing, sexual or otherwise, thus she tended to conduct her in-apartment business naked, almost always. While she was correct in the sense that Metal Man couldn't, technically, have sex or feel lust or anything human's associate with nakedness, she was mistaken to think that he didn't notice her, or that he couldn't tell the difference between her magnificent breasts and a t-shirt.

He did not want to be human. He was a robot and he was comfortable with that. But he did badly want to take Vanessa in his arms and do to her the things that men do to women when the lights are off and the rational mind loses out to the rush of blood and the heat of the moment. It was not to be, but it was nice to think about.

"Going to work, Emsie?"

"Yeah... yes... of to work. Soon."

"Cool... oh, shit, I got some of yer mail, dude. Hang on."

She bounced into her room, everything jiggling in a way that made Metal Man finish the vodka in one gulp. She fl0unced back in, plopping a stack of Netflix and bills in his lap, topped with a longish, thick envelope. Vanessa began to make coffee as he broke the seal on the package and pulled out an old fashioned parchment scroll.

"Oh fucking hell!!!"

"What... dude? What???"

Metal Man unrolled the scroll, displaying upon the faded parchment a crudely drawn white skull and crossbones that had, conspicuously, a mouthfull of bright red teeth.

"Sorry to startle you, Vee. It just... well, it seems my college roommate is coming to town."

...Part 3 coming soon!!!

You See, the Title is a Metaphor...

If you enjoy scathing deconstructions of New York intellectuals and their cold, loveless marriages that end in divorce with the children used as weapons... and who doesn't?... let me recommend Noah Baumbach's Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale.

It isn't a particularly fun movie... if the Adam Sandler ouvre is more your bag of popcorn then you might want to steer a wide berth around this one... but if you're willing to spend an evening with a film that's brittle, nasty, complicated, full of pathos and has a nerdy soundtrack (lot's of Bert Jansch), then you could certainly do a whole lot worse.

So... yes... enjoy. Thank me later, perhaps with cheese fries.