September 29, 2006
Somehow I always get on the grumpy train in the mornings. I should just ride the scoot and avoid these germaphobes.
9:36 AM | [permalink]
September 28, 2006
Two Updates
1) The Killers Album is leaked here. Ask wikipedia about torrents if you need to.
2) The Beastie Boys SNL where they stop the show to have Elvis Costello come up and do "Radio, Radio" just went up on youtube today and has already been taken off by Lorne Michaels.
1) The Killers Album is leaked here. Ask wikipedia about torrents if you need to.
2) The Beastie Boys SNL where they stop the show to have Elvis Costello come up and do "Radio, Radio" just went up on youtube today and has already been taken off by Lorne Michaels.
Labels: Elvis Costello
7:10 PM | [permalink]
At least my camera is on my side.
12:45 AM | [permalink]
September 27, 2006
If you would like to hear 30 seconds of each song on the new Killer's album Sam's Town click here or come to Beauty Bar on tuesdays.
12:10 AM | [permalink]
September 26, 2006
Yesterday I found a beautiful couch on craigslist. I saw this couch and I thought of all the joy it could bring me. This couch could fit all of my legions of loving, devoted friends at once. They could all fit on this perfect couch and cuddle with each other until I came home each night. At which point the hot chocolate they spent all night making would cool down enough. With a couch like that, who needs a girlfriend?
The post last night promised pictures to follow. And then today the pictures came up! They're pictures of the fucking couch in my livingroom with a link to Annie's email address.
The post last night promised pictures to follow. And then today the pictures came up! They're pictures of the fucking couch in my livingroom with a link to Annie's email address.
12:30 PM | [permalink]
Funerals, wakes, 9/11 Memorials, death anniversaries, and break ups are great joke-opportunities.
Last night Annie and I were both at home for the first time since we broke up. She can't move into her new place until the 1st and there's a chance that she might not get it until the 15th.
"Man that sucks," I said. "I hope the Chelsea Hotel has a room open."
She gave me a look and went through the kitchen while I put on The Daily Show. "Why isn't there any food in this house ever?"
"So that's why we're breaking up? Because we ran out of graham crackers?"
It was as delightful as the time my cousin flew back from the Marines in Okinawa to go to our gramma's funeral. Five feet from my grandmother's corpse he mentioned that he had sore shoulders from the long flight. My brother leaned in and said, "Too bad Wang Chung ain't here to 'massage' you."
Last night Annie and I were both at home for the first time since we broke up. She can't move into her new place until the 1st and there's a chance that she might not get it until the 15th.
"Man that sucks," I said. "I hope the Chelsea Hotel has a room open."
She gave me a look and went through the kitchen while I put on The Daily Show. "Why isn't there any food in this house ever?"
"So that's why we're breaking up? Because we ran out of graham crackers?"
It was as delightful as the time my cousin flew back from the Marines in Okinawa to go to our gramma's funeral. Five feet from my grandmother's corpse he mentioned that he had sore shoulders from the long flight. My brother leaned in and said, "Too bad Wang Chung ain't here to 'massage' you."
10:32 AM | [permalink]
September 25, 2006
From today's New York Times Book Review
Why is it that so many prodigiously gifted male writers, from Shelley and Coleridge to Raymond Carver, have been hopeless as husbands — ... With such men, there seems to be an irreconcilable conflict between their need to be nurtured by women and their need to be free of all bonds, open to all varieties of experience.It's really terrifying that I will probably never be a prodigiously gifted male writer--what with being so wonderful to everyone all the time.
12:36 AM | [permalink]
September 24, 2006
Just yesterday I told Ben that there was only one video on Youtube that I couldn't find. But no longer! In 1977 Elvis Costello filled in for the Sex Pistols on Saturday Night Live before he was famous in America. His record label wanted to play "Less Than Zero"--one of his older songs--so that he could build a following in the US. But he had just written a great song about how the corporatization of the industry was destroying it. He gets one line into "Less Than Zero' and stops: "I'm sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here". He then turns back towards the band and says "OK, Radio Radio... 1, 2, 3, 4"
Labels: Elvis Costello
3:20 PM | [permalink]
September 23, 2006
If I had better blogging software I could keep a filed called Holyshit, I can't believe that happened--because I just wrote a novel about that!
For example, these are the unedited first words of my new novel:
For example, these are the unedited first words of my new novel:
Let me know if I even turned the stove off. Probably not. I just left. Gone as fast as I came. The little apartment with the walls of canned fighting and creaky bedsprings that were rhythmic, disembodied. Nothing could have kept me there for one more minute. In a way it felt like even the walls were cheating on me, waiting for me to walk out for a minute so that another could walk in and redecorate. The bathroom stayed innocent as it was tiled in white with everything permanent except the towels on the rack and the sample body washes lining the top rack. But my sheets came off, exposing the pale, bare flower design like some Italian landlady’s nightgown. Even the lamp that had stayed up late with me all those nights failed me today as it burned out, leaving me to paw under the bed in the dim, windowless room for abandoned quarters and magazines. The apartment needed to move on, to forget about me, to wake up the next day without the smell of defeat, regret, and missed chances. I opened up all of the windows and left the oscillating fan on the kitchen table, swaying back and forth and smiling in the studio while no one’s looking—like Stevie Wonder when everyone else breaks for lunch.
Labels: Novel
8:46 AM | [permalink]
September 22, 2006
The other day I was in my girlfriend's parent's downstair's dining room's table updating my browser software. My daily goal of 1000 words or 4 straight hours of writing was stalled by the process. But it stopped altogether when I finished the install program, closed the window and read something on the screen.
"Real estate listings? Why was I looking at real estate listings for studios in New York?" I then remembered that I had updated the Safari software to the beta version. "Goddamit! Fucken real estate listings bug..."
I went to go write an email to the developer so that everyone who used their new software wouldn't be subjected to seeing real estate listings for studio apartments under $1500.
But when I got there somehow the bug had made it so that my girlfriend's gMail account was open, not mine. It was open to an email to a friend of hers. And goddamit, the fucking bug had already infiltrated my girlfriend's email account. I always close her account when it's open because reading someone else's email is the crappiest thing you can do. But something caught my eye.
"I'm breaking up with Brendan. It's just not working anymore." Can you fucken believe that? Now I have to go download the old software and find a roommate. Stupid software developers.
I'm going to write them such a fucken letter when I stop crying.
"Real estate listings? Why was I looking at real estate listings for studios in New York?" I then remembered that I had updated the Safari software to the beta version. "Goddamit! Fucken real estate listings bug..."
I went to go write an email to the developer so that everyone who used their new software wouldn't be subjected to seeing real estate listings for studio apartments under $1500.
But when I got there somehow the bug had made it so that my girlfriend's gMail account was open, not mine. It was open to an email to a friend of hers. And goddamit, the fucking bug had already infiltrated my girlfriend's email account. I always close her account when it's open because reading someone else's email is the crappiest thing you can do. But something caught my eye.
"I'm breaking up with Brendan. It's just not working anymore." Can you fucken believe that? Now I have to go download the old software and find a roommate. Stupid software developers.
I'm going to write them such a fucken letter when I stop crying.
8:51 AM | [permalink]
September 21, 2006
Those who have never worked in food service will never understand the joy of not washing your hands sometimes.
8:43 PM | [permalink]
The older I get the more direct I am about the shitty things I say.
9:25 AM | [permalink]
September 20, 2006
1) I'm bartending tonight at this top-secret open-bar after we receive and award for being the best fucking bar in the universe.
2) This week I am starting a campaign to let well-meaning music fans get into The Make-Up. They are a fantastic band and if anyone should have gotten white people dancing again it shouldn't have been someone named Brandon.
The Make Up -Born on the Floor or also
The Make Up -Every Baby Cries the Same
A long overdue DVD reissue of their out of print film "Blue is Beautiful" is coming soon.
9:06 AM | [permalink]
September 19, 2006
This never happens in New York
I walked into my old local in Chicago to take photobooth pictures. As I walked in some guy I've never seen before swore that we went to college together. He seemed legit. As I was in the photobooth some guy handed me the cigarette that I didn't even know I wanted. As I waited for the photos I smoked the cigarette and college guy decided not to leave and walked over with two beers. One for me.
This may have happened in a dream I would likely have, but when I woke up this morning I had photobooth pictures on my nightstand.
I walked into my old local in Chicago to take photobooth pictures. As I walked in some guy I've never seen before swore that we went to college together. He seemed legit. As I was in the photobooth some guy handed me the cigarette that I didn't even know I wanted. As I waited for the photos I smoked the cigarette and college guy decided not to leave and walked over with two beers. One for me.
This may have happened in a dream I would likely have, but when I woke up this morning I had photobooth pictures on my nightstand.
Labels: Chicago
10:16 AM | [permalink]
September 18, 2006
Maybe someday I'll grow up to be a big strong man who never gets chilly and always remembers a sweater. New York will not be hearty enough for me and I will force Annie to move back to Chicago in the dead of winter so that I can relate better to Herman Melville's stories as we come to port in the frosty winds of January. I'll also be such a big strong man that I can force Annie to move here. I love Chicago so much, but I love it more from April-October. And I'm too young to spend my summers in Florida.
Labels: Chicago
10:54 AM | [permalink]
September 17, 2006
My highschool had one wall you could spray paint in the back parking lot where the buses pulled up. You could make a mural for a friend's birthday or a memorial for a classmate who didn't pay attention in D.A.R.E. and failed to negotiate the time difference between drunk driving and curfew.
One night me and my misfit asshole friends painted it for some reason. I hope it was for an underdog friend of ours who dared to run for school office. But it may have been at the expense of some well meaning sports team. The only friend we had who could drive was a six foot tall red headed girl named Tori. We all harbored crushes on her. And at the exact moment when you felt your love for this unnattainable senior girl--who had all the Minor Threat records you could ever want--her younger brother would turn on you. And for the rest of the year you weren't cool enough.
Tori had a decommissioned police car. An $800 birthday present from her mother. We piled in, paint spattered and giggling at what clever things we had just created for the next morning's bus riders. It was a six seater and my friend JD--who was not cool enough for Tori's younger brother--sat next to her in the middle of the front bech seat. And in and effort to touch any part of her body he accidentally jammed his foot on the gas pedal.
He was too young to understand how a car worked. Gas vs. Brake was a fight he would lose again and again. The Crown Victoria screamed out of the parking lot and backed into a chain link fence at 40 MPH.
The scratches on top of her car criss crossed as they went under it. Chain links made a perfect argyle of her paint. The six of us stood there, cell phone-less and wondered what to do. One young punk looked over the situation while everyone else imagined what their parents would do to them. He saw that they had destroyed an expensive fence and knew that all the money he made that summer picking corn could never afford the repairs needed. And for the first time in high school--or maybe his life--he found himself in a situation where he was the only one with a good idea.
The car could not escape. But they could--with some pushing--get it all the way into the soccer field.
He got everyone together and they bent the fence back into position. With a struggle that most high schoolers would reserve for toilet papering or tearing down a goal post they wiggled the cemented posts upright and re-rearranged the chain link fence into place. If destruction is a form of creation then re-building something in its proper order is a task akin to more than creation. No wonder Jesus was a carpenter.
When the police came they found one of their old cars sitting on the other side of a fence. As if it had snuck through the forest and stalled in front of a fence it was too polite to tamper with. The cops were just as stunned as we were that the six of us should end up on a sports field at all.
All six of them swore that we heard a friend was to be defamed on the spray paint board that night. When no one showed up, they said, they decided to leave but the car came alive and demanded that it go through the fence.
Tori, the tall red head smiled at the cops as the principal drove over in sweatpants. In the end they got someone to unlock the service gate and we all went home that night feeling like we had achieved more than destruction or defamation or self-promotion. We had damned the man and earned red headed Tori's respect for the rest of the school year.
I don't know what that story has to do with anything but I think of it whenever a musician begs me to remember what it was like when I was young.
One night me and my misfit asshole friends painted it for some reason. I hope it was for an underdog friend of ours who dared to run for school office. But it may have been at the expense of some well meaning sports team. The only friend we had who could drive was a six foot tall red headed girl named Tori. We all harbored crushes on her. And at the exact moment when you felt your love for this unnattainable senior girl--who had all the Minor Threat records you could ever want--her younger brother would turn on you. And for the rest of the year you weren't cool enough.
Tori had a decommissioned police car. An $800 birthday present from her mother. We piled in, paint spattered and giggling at what clever things we had just created for the next morning's bus riders. It was a six seater and my friend JD--who was not cool enough for Tori's younger brother--sat next to her in the middle of the front bech seat. And in and effort to touch any part of her body he accidentally jammed his foot on the gas pedal.
He was too young to understand how a car worked. Gas vs. Brake was a fight he would lose again and again. The Crown Victoria screamed out of the parking lot and backed into a chain link fence at 40 MPH.
The scratches on top of her car criss crossed as they went under it. Chain links made a perfect argyle of her paint. The six of us stood there, cell phone-less and wondered what to do. One young punk looked over the situation while everyone else imagined what their parents would do to them. He saw that they had destroyed an expensive fence and knew that all the money he made that summer picking corn could never afford the repairs needed. And for the first time in high school--or maybe his life--he found himself in a situation where he was the only one with a good idea.
The car could not escape. But they could--with some pushing--get it all the way into the soccer field.
He got everyone together and they bent the fence back into position. With a struggle that most high schoolers would reserve for toilet papering or tearing down a goal post they wiggled the cemented posts upright and re-rearranged the chain link fence into place. If destruction is a form of creation then re-building something in its proper order is a task akin to more than creation. No wonder Jesus was a carpenter.
When the police came they found one of their old cars sitting on the other side of a fence. As if it had snuck through the forest and stalled in front of a fence it was too polite to tamper with. The cops were just as stunned as we were that the six of us should end up on a sports field at all.
All six of them swore that we heard a friend was to be defamed on the spray paint board that night. When no one showed up, they said, they decided to leave but the car came alive and demanded that it go through the fence.
Tori, the tall red head smiled at the cops as the principal drove over in sweatpants. In the end they got someone to unlock the service gate and we all went home that night feeling like we had achieved more than destruction or defamation or self-promotion. We had damned the man and earned red headed Tori's respect for the rest of the school year.
I don't know what that story has to do with anything but I think of it whenever a musician begs me to remember what it was like when I was young.
2:16 AM | [permalink]
September 16, 2006
One of the more superficial things i do in the fall is buy a great sweatshirt and hope it gets cold.
3:49 PM | [permalink]
Tonight in Chicago I'm going to see the best ever Guy With A Guitar Group--The Mountain Goats. And I can only hope that they will play:
which I first heard in a thrift store and begged the loser behind the counter to play it again.
The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton- The Mountain Goats
which I first heard in a thrift store and begged the loser behind the counter to play it again.
Labels: Chicago
1:19 PM | [permalink]
September 15, 2006
Tonight I was setting up for a party that was sponsored by a crappy magazine. This crappy magazine is popular among middle american housewives and it peeks out from the inevitable pile of crap that forms on the first surface indoors from the mailbox.
"I hate this magazine." I said aloud. It felt good just to say it.
"Me to," said the party planner. "They're a real pain in the ass."
"Yeah, and what's with these shitty decorations?" I held up a cheap bundle of flowers, a county-fair teddy bear and a plastic vase from the box on the table. "Real Simple. More like really, really stupid."
She looked at me with an anger that can only come from sadness.
"My father sent me that because I have to work on my birthday."
"I hate this magazine." I said aloud. It felt good just to say it.
"Me to," said the party planner. "They're a real pain in the ass."
"Yeah, and what's with these shitty decorations?" I held up a cheap bundle of flowers, a county-fair teddy bear and a plastic vase from the box on the table. "Real Simple. More like really, really stupid."
She looked at me with an anger that can only come from sadness.
"My father sent me that because I have to work on my birthday."
8:22 AM | [permalink]
September 14, 2006
This is the rant from Sidney Lumet 1976 film "Network" that was borrowed for the new (excellent) TV show Studio 60
8:45 AM | [permalink]
This Weekend I am going to Chicago. If, for example, you are an ex-roommate of mine and I owe you a large amount of money, this would be the time to collect it. To make sure that we can work something out, why don't you just pick me up from the airport?
Labels: Chicago
8:19 AM | [permalink]
September 13, 2006
This band sounds terrible until you learn to worship them.
The Thermals - The Body The Blood The Machine (album zip)
9:46 PM | [permalink]
September 12, 2006
9:47 AM | [permalink]
September 11, 2006
This came in my inbox today and it was...interesting
WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question press the next button.
Opening Credits:
"Cretin Hop" Ramones. (okay, so this is either a trashy movie or the intro of a new character on the OC.)
Waking Up:
"White Unicorn" Wolfmother. (wow. I didn't like this song until just now. I can see the movie now. it's my first (and failed) novel.
Falling In Love:
"The Crusher" Ramones (yes, yes. like my first novel it will be about a guy who downloads the entire ramones discography, thinking that each of their 13 lives albums will come in handy some day)
Fight Song:
"Operation - Monopoly" Dane Cook (why the fuck didn't I delete this album after I failed to laugh? No wonder these characters are fighting already.)
Breaking Up:
"Koka Kola Advertising and Cocaine" The Clash, The Vanilla Tapes (really desperate demo version they made on a tape recorder before recording London Calling. This film is definately about some lonely loser who takes music too seriously)
Making up:
"This is Living" Elvis, sound track to Kid Galahad. (why did I insist on getting the elvis discography too? why did she take me back? Kid Galahad was my DJ name in college.)
Life's Ok:
"Gold Coins" Elvis, soundtrack to Girl Happy! (goddamit)
Mental Breakdown:
"Y'all Aint Ready" Kevin Federline. (unbelievable.)
Driving:
"Stephanie Says" Velvet Underground. (wow, most hopeful long ride home from a funeral ever.)
Flashbacks:
"Bama Lama Lu" the Sonics (okay...)
Happy Dance:
"My Little Brother" Art Brut. (that works)
Regret:
"Leavin' Here" The Rationals. (oh, right...that kind of regret. I thought it was going to be the Ramones again.)
Final Battle:
"Magnolia Mountain" Ryan Adams (only for the slow motion shot of the main character's face after he sees the blood from the snake that got him)
Death Scene:
"I'm Falling in Love Tonight" Elvis
Final Credits:
"Look into the Air" Explosions in the Sky (everyone exits the theater and slits their wrists.)
-
Okay so I refused to edit the last one. But I'm doing this again and:
Opening Credits:"Shakin' Street" MC5. (I like this movie better already.)
Waking Up:"Give Me the Right" Elvis
Falling In Love: "Natural Anthem" Postal Service
Fight Song: "One Boy Two Little Girls" Elvis (it already sucked the firs time he recorded it for a movie)
Breaking Up: "4 Horsemen" The Clash (man, how could she leave him again?)
Making up: "Fire Fire" M.I.A. (like me, this main character runs into former flames in loud clubs and parties and only then, without the ability to hear eachother, can they make up and get back together)
Life's Ok: "Pablo Picasso" Modern Lovers
Mental Breakdown: "Hardest Button to Button" Black Rebel Motorcycle Song
Driving: "Long Black Veil" Johnny Cash
Flashbacks: "Age of Assassins" Two Gallants
Happy Dance: "Heart of the City" Nick Lowe (in the early days of punk it seems that everyone was doing tons of drugs but no one was getting laid, so the nastiest punks of them all started recording songs for girls to rock out to. Maybe that's what this film will be about.)
Regret: "It's Now Or Never" Cornel Campbell, (from the reggae tribute to elvis that i regret buying)
Final Battle: "T.V. Eye" The Stooges (awesome)
Death Scene: "They Remind me too much of you" Elvis. (a fitting tribute)
Final Credits: "The Pledge Song" MC% (wow. my kind of story. ends at the beginning.)
WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question press the next button.
Opening Credits:
"Cretin Hop" Ramones. (okay, so this is either a trashy movie or the intro of a new character on the OC.)
Waking Up:
"White Unicorn" Wolfmother. (wow. I didn't like this song until just now. I can see the movie now. it's my first (and failed) novel.
Falling In Love:
"The Crusher" Ramones (yes, yes. like my first novel it will be about a guy who downloads the entire ramones discography, thinking that each of their 13 lives albums will come in handy some day)
Fight Song:
"Operation - Monopoly" Dane Cook (why the fuck didn't I delete this album after I failed to laugh? No wonder these characters are fighting already.)
Breaking Up:
"Koka Kola Advertising and Cocaine" The Clash, The Vanilla Tapes (really desperate demo version they made on a tape recorder before recording London Calling. This film is definately about some lonely loser who takes music too seriously)
Making up:
"This is Living" Elvis, sound track to Kid Galahad. (why did I insist on getting the elvis discography too? why did she take me back? Kid Galahad was my DJ name in college.)
Life's Ok:
"Gold Coins" Elvis, soundtrack to Girl Happy! (goddamit)
Mental Breakdown:
"Y'all Aint Ready" Kevin Federline. (unbelievable.)
Driving:
"Stephanie Says" Velvet Underground. (wow, most hopeful long ride home from a funeral ever.)
Flashbacks:
"Bama Lama Lu" the Sonics (okay...)
Happy Dance:
"My Little Brother" Art Brut. (that works)
Regret:
"Leavin' Here" The Rationals. (oh, right...that kind of regret. I thought it was going to be the Ramones again.)
Final Battle:
"Magnolia Mountain" Ryan Adams (only for the slow motion shot of the main character's face after he sees the blood from the snake that got him)
Death Scene:
"I'm Falling in Love Tonight" Elvis
Final Credits:
"Look into the Air" Explosions in the Sky (everyone exits the theater and slits their wrists.)
-
Okay so I refused to edit the last one. But I'm doing this again and:
Opening Credits:"Shakin' Street" MC5. (I like this movie better already.)
Waking Up:"Give Me the Right" Elvis
Falling In Love: "Natural Anthem" Postal Service
Fight Song: "One Boy Two Little Girls" Elvis (it already sucked the firs time he recorded it for a movie)
Breaking Up: "4 Horsemen" The Clash (man, how could she leave him again?)
Making up: "Fire Fire" M.I.A. (like me, this main character runs into former flames in loud clubs and parties and only then, without the ability to hear eachother, can they make up and get back together)
Life's Ok: "Pablo Picasso" Modern Lovers
Mental Breakdown: "Hardest Button to Button" Black Rebel Motorcycle Song
Driving: "Long Black Veil" Johnny Cash
Flashbacks: "Age of Assassins" Two Gallants
Happy Dance: "Heart of the City" Nick Lowe (in the early days of punk it seems that everyone was doing tons of drugs but no one was getting laid, so the nastiest punks of them all started recording songs for girls to rock out to. Maybe that's what this film will be about.)
Regret: "It's Now Or Never" Cornel Campbell, (from the reggae tribute to elvis that i regret buying)
Final Battle: "T.V. Eye" The Stooges (awesome)
Death Scene: "They Remind me too much of you" Elvis. (a fitting tribute)
Final Credits: "The Pledge Song" MC% (wow. my kind of story. ends at the beginning.)
12:36 AM | [permalink]
September 10, 2006
My landlord thinks the cleaning lady is a prostitute that I hire when Annie is out of town. It doesn't help at all that we poached this woman from a cleaning service. She came one day and when we found out she only got $27 out of what we paid the service we had her come in on her day off. Thus sunday mornings start off with alot of banging around and urban radio blaring and end with me walking out a young, nubile Jamaican woman and handing her a wad of cash. "That was terrific," I said today as my landlord opened his door.
Having her around is great because no matter how hard novel writing gets, I'm not just going to squat down and clean the baseboards and corners. Plus I almost never get to listen to Urban Radio. Annie is the kind of person that might notice that the vegetable drawer is growing mushrooms. But since we have this place together it somehow becomes half my responsibility.
Since this is a wholly unecessary and yuppie thing to do I can't ever complain about it. If she were my weekly prostitue I wouldn't exactly go into work later, grouchy, tired and say, "Leave me alone today boss. My Paypal came over at ten of eight this morning, forgot her Indian hairbraids wig, and didn't even make the bed when we finished."
She did however clean the counter while my cellphone was charging on it. If you call me later and I start screaming into the phone ("HUH? SPEAK UP.") it's because she Mr. Cleaned the speaker and I'm too embarassed to tell her. Instead I'll just pretend that everyone I know is underwater.
Having her around is great because no matter how hard novel writing gets, I'm not just going to squat down and clean the baseboards and corners. Plus I almost never get to listen to Urban Radio. Annie is the kind of person that might notice that the vegetable drawer is growing mushrooms. But since we have this place together it somehow becomes half my responsibility.
Since this is a wholly unecessary and yuppie thing to do I can't ever complain about it. If she were my weekly prostitue I wouldn't exactly go into work later, grouchy, tired and say, "Leave me alone today boss. My Paypal came over at ten of eight this morning, forgot her Indian hairbraids wig, and didn't even make the bed when we finished."
She did however clean the counter while my cellphone was charging on it. If you call me later and I start screaming into the phone ("HUH? SPEAK UP.") it's because she Mr. Cleaned the speaker and I'm too embarassed to tell her. Instead I'll just pretend that everyone I know is underwater.
Labels: Novel
11:53 AM | [permalink]
September 09, 2006
Click here to see the first act of the next season.
1:50 AM | [permalink]
September 08, 2006
Timing is everything in comedy and photography. If your camera worked faster, your pictures would be funnier.
5:39 PM | [permalink]
My dentist has an answering service. It's another one of those out dated, pre-tech things in the world that seemed to have just sat around waiting to be fixed. An eighty year old high school teacher of mine told me that before mimeographs and xerox machines they just spent mondays writing out their homework and fill-in-the-blanks work for the week. Would I have done better in school/flirted with cuter girls if on mondays we all took the time to look ahead and prepare?
The answering service somehow knows who I am calling, but can't do anything other than tell me their name. They can't give me an appointment, they can't have the doctor call me. They can only pass on my name and number and have the next idiot down the line call me back so we can start all over.
"Just, please, make a note for the doctor that my temporary filling has fallen out. My mouth tastes like dead people and I think I'm getting sepsis."
"We'll have someone call you."
The answering service somehow knows who I am calling, but can't do anything other than tell me their name. They can't give me an appointment, they can't have the doctor call me. They can only pass on my name and number and have the next idiot down the line call me back so we can start all over.
"Just, please, make a note for the doctor that my temporary filling has fallen out. My mouth tastes like dead people and I think I'm getting sepsis."
"We'll have someone call you."
8:23 AM | [permalink]
September 07, 2006
Sometimes I wonder why everyone thinks California is the answer.
1:15 AM | [permalink]
September 06, 2006
The main character of my new novel breaks up with his girlfriend, moves back home while his brother turns up missing in Iraq, and then does his laundry:
I go to a washer in the corner where no one will see me. I can’t believe the clothes I decided I couldn’t live without. My three nice button down shirts that I never wore, one pair of jeans, seven tattered old band t-shirts, a sweater I hate but only wore because She bought it for me and She only seemed to love me when She could dress me up like the youngest brother of four sisters or like the one errant male doll in a pile of nipple-less, plastic beauty queens. It seemed that every week she came home from the store with clothes for another man or for some kind of sex change she had planned on in the future. These clothes never fit me in anyway and the colors could not look worse on my body. When you wear little more than jeans, black t-shirts and the occasional sweatshirt it comes off as more than a little weird when you get crammed into a flowered shirt whose neck buttons will never meet but whose shoulders end inches later than yours. As if you might want to leave the option of shoulder pads. Like doll clothes and prom tuxedos they were only meant to match the Her outfit. Sure some of them looked fine and sensible and cost much more that I was ever willing to spend, even when I did have a job. Sweet girl, sure. She just wanted us to be as irrevocably happy as those matching plastic dolls with their pink dream house and their permanent smiles. I thought that maybe being the doll would be like being that one lucky male doll at the bottom of a pile of leggy, nude girl dolls. But then one day I walked into the bathroom and saw our his ‘n hers towels and our three-blade razors and the parade of man perfumes in height order and our pink bathmat and potpourri chips. And when I looked down I found nothing but a mannequin’s smooth, rubber leg joint where my equipment once hung.
Labels: Novel
10:19 AM | [permalink]
September 05, 2006
I just watched a tattered box go throught the baggage claim conveyor twice before i recognized it as my own case of bourbon.
3:34 PM | [permalink]
Thoreau taught me to simplify. And often that means drinking/smoking until baggage claim.
3:23 PM | [permalink]
My vacations have to fit my DJ schedule. This year Annie's bday, Valentine's, and our anniversary all had to be rescheduled.
12:03 PM | [permalink]
September 04, 2006
When I was sixteen I went to a weeklong program in Ohio for young writers. It was named after someone we were told was a very important writer, but who turned out to be the author of Kindergarten Cop. I flew in as a troublesome kid with a small ability to make jokes and tell stories whose ends referred directly back to the beginning.
It was the first time I went to an art museum, first time I read a poem that didn't rhyme, first time I took a photo that wasn't a portrait. It was where I first heard about how much depends upon a little red wheelbarrow, glistening with rain water beside the white chickens.
One of the professors in the program told me that she liked how I wrote / hated what I wrote, but that beneath everything I had to say was a strong undercurrent that she could only pin to the sing-song black humor of Irish writing, which she attributed to my last name. It is the reason that I didn't join the navy.
While I was there I met a girl who may as well have been Thai or Ethiopian, but in fact she was a cornfed-cowfed girl from a horse farm in Kentucky. Her voice, her diction, her expressions and her poetry were like nothing I ever heard. I couldn't believe it was considered English.
We kept in touch over the years and shared our writing. I was then too embarassed to show anyone what I had done, but she would call me long distance, laughing out loud at the things I had said. I came to see her on my way back from Graceland after I graduated high school. We spent twelve hours together on the farm in the cabin before my travel partner told me we had to get home for financial reasons.
I came back the next summer and she wasn't there. I came back the one after that and she still wasn't here. One time in college I called her at nine o'clock on a saturday night from a toyota full of six students on the Kentucky boarder. She called her sister and had us stay there. I met up with her family once at a horserace and took her sister out for wine in Italy just last year.
When I moved to Chicago I got a note from her cousin saying, "My cousin seems to think we should be friends. I can't imagine that I would ever be friends with someone my cousin would be longtime friends with. So I have to meet you." The cousin and I were inseparable until I met Annie.
We have missed eachother by mere days so many times over the years. And I have spent infinitely more hours with her sister and parents than with she. It had been too long. I booked a flight knowing full well that she was maybe one big horserace away from getting engaged to some banker. Her cousin told me all about him and his Italian loafers and his showtunes.
You get to a certain age and your friends start to become the husbands and wives of someone you don't know. And sometimes it takes alcohol and long walks and cigarette breaks while they better half is passed out to find your old friend again.
Even if I could see her for one day and chat I knew I could be at home in the cabin and get some great writing done (more on that to follow).
At one in the morning on the night before I had to get on my flight to Lexington I got a text from her. "My boyfriend just broke up with me. So you're stuck with me for the weekend."
According to the professor, my bleak, sustaining heritage of black humor is all that could support us at that moment. That moment where I couldn't have been happier to hear it.
It was the first time I went to an art museum, first time I read a poem that didn't rhyme, first time I took a photo that wasn't a portrait. It was where I first heard about how much depends upon a little red wheelbarrow, glistening with rain water beside the white chickens.
One of the professors in the program told me that she liked how I wrote / hated what I wrote, but that beneath everything I had to say was a strong undercurrent that she could only pin to the sing-song black humor of Irish writing, which she attributed to my last name. It is the reason that I didn't join the navy.
While I was there I met a girl who may as well have been Thai or Ethiopian, but in fact she was a cornfed-cowfed girl from a horse farm in Kentucky. Her voice, her diction, her expressions and her poetry were like nothing I ever heard. I couldn't believe it was considered English.
We kept in touch over the years and shared our writing. I was then too embarassed to show anyone what I had done, but she would call me long distance, laughing out loud at the things I had said. I came to see her on my way back from Graceland after I graduated high school. We spent twelve hours together on the farm in the cabin before my travel partner told me we had to get home for financial reasons.
I came back the next summer and she wasn't there. I came back the one after that and she still wasn't here. One time in college I called her at nine o'clock on a saturday night from a toyota full of six students on the Kentucky boarder. She called her sister and had us stay there. I met up with her family once at a horserace and took her sister out for wine in Italy just last year.
When I moved to Chicago I got a note from her cousin saying, "My cousin seems to think we should be friends. I can't imagine that I would ever be friends with someone my cousin would be longtime friends with. So I have to meet you." The cousin and I were inseparable until I met Annie.
We have missed eachother by mere days so many times over the years. And I have spent infinitely more hours with her sister and parents than with she. It had been too long. I booked a flight knowing full well that she was maybe one big horserace away from getting engaged to some banker. Her cousin told me all about him and his Italian loafers and his showtunes.
You get to a certain age and your friends start to become the husbands and wives of someone you don't know. And sometimes it takes alcohol and long walks and cigarette breaks while they better half is passed out to find your old friend again.
Even if I could see her for one day and chat I knew I could be at home in the cabin and get some great writing done (more on that to follow).
At one in the morning on the night before I had to get on my flight to Lexington I got a text from her. "My boyfriend just broke up with me. So you're stuck with me for the weekend."
According to the professor, my bleak, sustaining heritage of black humor is all that could support us at that moment. That moment where I couldn't have been happier to hear it.
Labels: Chicago
4:57 PM | [permalink]
The New York Times burns with a green flame that never catches in the fireplace, never as well as the local newspaper.
12:07 AM | [permalink]
September 03, 2006
My present lodgings have a taxidermied goat head on the wall, a bobcat skin over the chair, and a deer head on every side including one that has two upturned hooves posted below it. They may have faced down at one point and turned up to hang coats, but the result is a deer head with two hooves pointed toward its incredulous face: ("You talkin' to me?"-esque). The bearskin retired last fall and the zebra skin rug is in the shop.
My hosts lived in it as newly weds, sitting by the fire together, rotating like Vermonters as their feet froze and their hair dried out until their feet burned and their ears chilled. This is not a metaphor for marriage.
In the 70s and Arab Shiek had a girlfriend in this small town. He would fly into New York and hire a limo only because he could not chain smoke on American airplanes. What a stir he caused the day he walked into the only pharmacy for miles--berobed--and bought up every condom in stock.
My hosts lived in it as newly weds, sitting by the fire together, rotating like Vermonters as their feet froze and their hair dried out until their feet burned and their ears chilled. This is not a metaphor for marriage.
In the 70s and Arab Shiek had a girlfriend in this small town. He would fly into New York and hire a limo only because he could not chain smoke on American airplanes. What a stir he caused the day he walked into the only pharmacy for miles--berobed--and bought up every condom in stock.
11:16 PM | [permalink]
Charismatic Julep.
Mint from the creek
Sasafras simple syrup
Bourbon.
Serve in a sterling silver cup that your gracious hosts won.
12:37 AM | [permalink]
September 02, 2006
Ale Eight 2.
8 spigs wild KY mint from the river
2 oz Bourbon from distillary tour
1/2 oz honey from bees by the creek
crushed ice
3:12 PM | [permalink]
September 01, 2006
Little known fact: the aroma that evaporates up to 1/3 of a Bourbon barrel is called "The Angelsl Share." It smells like heaven.
5:45 PM | [permalink]
As I scrambled through the darkness and went face first into a spiderweb, i realized i am too old to still be afraid of the dark.
12:39 AM | [permalink]
Secret to Happiness