Kewpie dolls and urine stalls will be laughed at the way you're laughed at now

Note to our California friends: the robins are from the White Lodge, the owls are from the Black Lodge, BOB travels by electricity. It explains all the weird slow-mo shots of ceiling fans and random light flashes when things get creepy and surreal. Just a theory, but a good one, I think. I have a lot...of theories. I spent more than three months in 1990/91 thinking Deputy Andy was the killer! Following The Giant's clues might lead you to that conclusion.

Speaking of the Black Lodge, who else is livin' in one? The Man From Another Place dances out from under my couch. Boy oh boy, summer seems to have gotten off to a hard start around here. Flux, move-outs, holy rollers, day in day out like Ian Curtis sez, too much fast food, not enough sunshine, shoes getting dirty, pants getting holes, no decent parties, people are getting married in droves, the White Sox are tanking, the "John Adams" mini-series was kind of rotten, I still hate coffee, LOST is off the air...I got more litany than the Pope.

That's why I downloaded the Let It Be re-issue a few weeks back and play it constantly, even more than I did when I bought it as a know-nothin' Blackburn College freshman who had just gotten laid (and summarily quite ruthlessly dumped) for the first time. Even if the entire damned record wasn't a perfect construct of adol-leased life doom and post-teen twaddle and middle-20's ennui and deepening-into-thirties WHAT THE FUCK it would still put a corncob pipe sized lump in your throat if you, say, happened, for the first time, to run into it on the street corner one day as you were blowing off some scheme or bumped into it when you went out on your windowsill to smoke at, like, 5 in the AM when the dawns early light smacks of an interrogation room. It would stare you in the face and embrace your failures and the revoked lease on life you are using as toilet paper and say, hey! HEY! Gary's got a boner! And you would laugh and say "he does indeed! I forgive everyone! Boners!"

And then you might try to figure out how exactly Westerberg was able to channel Carl Fisher from Blitz AND Billy Joel, and you would fail and keep listening and realize failure is engraved on the turd-encrusted esplanade walked by all the faithful and faithless alike, and that the subtle empathy of "Androgynous", which sounded like a put-down to you for years was actually far from it and in fact a kind of very powerful medicine, cure/armor that kind of carries you for weeks in it's wake, in a surprising manner, and you want to tell people (friends, acquaintances, parents, government officials, minor and major deities) here is a song so catchy and sure and it's not saying "don't touch my jewelry" or "I don't love you any more" or "I'm gonna come on your face" or "your enemies deserve the worst your rage can fathom" or "Hold on while I count my amazingly huge stacks of money and BTW feel free to admire the prestige/honor/self-satisfaction/microwave burritos it buys me"...or something like that. Records are so great! I forgive everyone!

All around, people looking half dead, walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a matchhead

Back by popular demand...a head full of Ezra Pound...ears full of death metal demos...and a belly full of delicious, ripe pears! You know who is on the library computer now, son!

Miles burned me the new Lil' Weezy record yesterday, and I'm not sure what to think. I kept waiting for blast beats and arpeggiated lydian solos that sound like horses collapsing under the strain of...being horses, but it didn't happen. Instead there are songs about sex and repping and other stuff that modern people do. Me, if it's not about decomposing corpses and satan's glory, I'm kind of immediately lost. But I'll keep on it. For the people.

Speaking of people, the girl next to me on the lib. computer in the U of Michigan shirt smells really bad. Like somebody perhaps drizzled a little poop into her ears while she was sleeping. Officially summer.

O Humanity! How the hell are ya? Did you read my stuff in the last few issues of Plan B? The Boredoms live review where I talk about my moms' dogs AND spaghetti-o's? The Times New Viking bible browbeat Hopper and I did a few issues back? I don't think they're up on the webby web but I'll take a look and link to them here, should opportunity provide. Oh yeah, and I'm on Facebook now. Holler.

Do you think loud orgies of luxurious good taste can drown the moans of the tortured earth?

So, about that top ten list I promised. Getting there slowly, with a few distractions. I'm about 350 pp deep into Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which is a ripping yarn about...what else? Lincoln molding his political rivals into a functioning wartime "team" (aka cabinet). Big surprise, huh? Good on the Moms for setting me up with this tome for Xmas. I never fail to be impressed by Old Abe, no matter how many times I read his tale. And it is, in one way or another, the same story every time, no matter who is writing the book. Glimmers of speculation here and there change with authorial perspective, of course. But the ending is always the same: saves the union, frees the slaves, murdered by insurgent conspiracy. The pure allegorical power of his life and political career would be banal if it wasn't true, and that is part of the myth, of course. By now, after third fourth and fifth grade school middle school high school and Sam Waterston Gregory Peck Ken Burns and Carl Sandburg and DK Goodwin, it DOES come across as a bit banal. But you can't help but notice the political atmosphere these days and wonder about the evolving myths of history and what they'll say for our time. After all, it wasn't that long ago (twenty years or so now?) that various relatives of mine told me Martin Luther King wasn't so fucking special; that he cheated in college, cheated on his wife, stuck his nose where it didn't belong. Isn't it wonderful that in America people can talk mindless filth like that to children and not go to jail for it? There is a good reason to vote this year right there, if you needed another one. Pull the lever for mindless filth!

Fun with digressions, huh? So, yeah. I just started watching Rome also (the HBO series; in the middle of season one and steaming ahead), and it's mind-warping and excellently stupid entertainment. Sandals and swords, togas and titties. After the family caterwauling drama of Big Love, it's a nice palate cleanser. Actually it's like fifteen candy bars and a few faint stirrings of emetophilia, but I'll keep watching.

Winter 2008 AKA Love in the Time of Hypothermia

Yes friends, it is the *official* derogatory theme/name of the new season. Do you have any? Do you remember the Summer of Forgiveness 2007? The Winter of Our Disconnect 2005? Anyway, ideas for this year: pass em along...may they spread our cheer. Or cheer our spreads.

Speaking of spreads, I cut my own bangs today in our dimly lit bathroom. I did a pretty good job. I still look like a blown out member of the Strokes circa 2001, but we can't aim too fucking high around here, can we? What would be the point? Miles is amputating his toes in the bathroom because he got frostbite on the way home from the bar. Apartment feline Princess stares at the huge broken tennis racket and the Hellboy doll in the corner for hours at a time. Dayne is sleeping off some champagne on the couch. I'm about to throw on Season 1 Disc 2 of Dexter, but thought I'd give you all a holler first. Whup, hood?

I am on the internet occasionally. You know this. I keep up with culture more than I probably let on, even that eternal bane of my existence, "popular music". It so happens that I watch videos on youtube, roam the myspace for emerging strains of scuzz-rock, even peruse the web for screen caps of that crazy sex scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman giving it to Marisa Tomei doggy-style. Such a thing exists! I know because I was at the Wicker Park library branch a few weeks back and two teenage kids were watching it in rapt awe. I hustled over to a free computer and found the footage myself in a manner of seconds. I was disgusted, and then flushed with a horrible flash of doomed elation as I realized, again, that this is a serious feature of modern world citizenship and the earthen Pequod we all sail upon is mast-deep in the foreordained muck of decimation. That includes you and yours, Rear Entry Jones. Someone get the dancing shoes out from under the bed, for I hear St. Vitus at the door. Sit down, Carducci and Ginn. Not THAT St. Vitus.

Uh, pop music. Right. I was looking at some of the year-end critics poll lists on this web of ours, comparing "notes"...Pitchfork, Idolator blah blah and for a pang or two I even missed the old annual Voice Pazz and Jop. Whether art thou, Pazz and Jop, and thoust checks for ten bux for comments rendered? The good old days! Seems like everyone this year is up on M.I.A., LCD Soundshitstorm or...Against Me? Hmm. I think Kala offers serious blunted trauma for thee patriarchy and seems like an "event" more than just a record...fact is, I think M.I.A. is one of the fabbest talents going and much more of a rabid synthesizer of juicy rich ideas, scrambling around and grabbing them off of every available (not just record) shelf, rather than being just merely competent, or even super-competent, much as Mr. Murphy may be. She set her heart on the controls of the sun, and I think she turned the lights out on everyone else this year. Too bad about that Timbaland rap on the last song. Seriously, the guy might be richer than Warren Buffett's breast milk, but has anyone ever embarrassed themselves on a song even remotely this much? I mean, not even bad rhymes. Just totally misreading a fellow performer, her worldview, artistic agenda etc. to the nth degree. It was like she wanted him on there to prove what a jackass he is. If I'm right, I nominate her artist of the millennia.

Could I make a top ten list for you? Maybe. Maybe I will.

Wife: (13 Wives)

Two posts in two days! Sit back, relax, fire up the blogtinis...Am I freaking you out?

Today was pretty much the perfect day off. Woke up around 1 PM, went thrifting with Hopper shortly thereafter. She marched me around the Ark mens' and womens' sections both, making me try on every dubious sweater and oversized dress shirt we came across, which was plenty, like in the hundreds. If she had her way, I'd be Mr. Office Contempo-Casual, 24/7/365. You'd look at me on the street and think I was a really gangly, misshapen female extra from the Golden Girls. We had a fun few hours.

While there found a real swell sportcoat in off-charcoal (men's; Yves Saint Laurent and Bill Blass tags inside-- label confusion), a few books and a real steamin' CD of Turkish music from before World War II. Came home, disco napped, ironed a pink shirt to wear with the new YSL/BB, then went downstairs to the Bottle to watch some White Magic jammy jams. Miles had a dark turtleneck/suspenders/jack boots/Eastern bloc spy look going on and we both looked underworld hott, truth be told. I thought there might be more willowy folkly damsels giving us zaps, but the weather was bad and no zaps were to be had. Even though the White Magic sounded good we blew that pop stand and jaunted over to the Rainbo. Been many moons since I last sipped the Canada Dry in that particular bad-mojo-haus, but tonight was fine. Dave Laney showed up out of the blue (well, not really, his band Auxes has a show at the Bottle Friday night; you should go) and Doug said I looked like Lux Interior going home to meet my girlfriend's parents for the first time. I think that was a twisted compliment of some kind. Then Miles and I came home and watched John Carpenter's The Thing. Why does Kurt Russell wear a really bad hat when he flies a helicopter in the Antarctic? Why did I not buy that Anita Baker CD for 1.50 today? When will I go hang-gliding with Father Yod?

I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail.

And just like that, we are back.

So fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures now as they fly through the air.

I've always wanted to say that. You know Tom Snyder died not too long ago? Do you want to know more? Tom Snyder gave great TV. Sure, the famous interviews are classics: John Lydon...when Wendy O. Williams sledgehammered a TV set...Charles Manson. But I remember watching the CBS Late, Late Show almost religiously, and there were some great hours there. An all-time standoff with a quiet and seemingly hateful Warren Beatty, who took 45 seconds to answer whether or not he still ever talked to his sister (that would be Shirley MacLaine, for all you OK! magazine readers out there) ; David Lynch reminiscing about moving to Philadelphia for art school and all his insane neighbors, including a tiny old lady who would crawl around her back yard barking like a dog for hours.

Snyder could even make a dimwit "intellectual" like Bob Costas sound cute. Go YouTube that shit. He's up there. I know some Snyder maniacs have put up ENTIRE complete shows (TV and Radio) on the YTub and other spots on the nets cause I been checking and wrecking them for days. IT'S ALL I DO. I would link to it, but I'm lazy and your fingers need the exercise. Fat fingers! Anyway, why should you go look for Snyder right now? Watch a cardboard hairdo turd a'la Brian Williams dry shellac his way through the evening newscast now, and you want to just nuke the entire fucking planet and start over. I hate this country. And that's why you should go watch Tom Snyder! He hated it so much he went and died on us.

So anyway, the other day I was talking to someone who shall remain nameless about our current listening habits. I had to explain that since I don't really like music or other human beings too damn much any more, it is slim pickens out there (and no, not the dude that rode the A-Bomb in Dr. Strangelove). Basically, I just want to return to the womb as soon as possible and avoid all the bullshit, so I listen to blurry noise and metal and numb and doom. Nadja, Panda Bear, White Rainbow and not only that but I'm back on Aphex Twin and Fripp N' Eno and Basic Channel and even the Orb! And then a few weeks ago I got stupid and read the fab new (New Yorker music critic) Alex Ross book about 20th century classical and can tolerate ought else these days! So fiddle my faddle! Can you taste the colortinis yet, you fucking cretins?

Liberty, sir, was the primary object.

Big news: Robin (the umbrella lady; link to your right) and Ian are the proud parents of America's newest and best ever Memorial Day weekend baby, Max. Word on the street is that Max is pretty fat, still in diapers, and already ruling it. More information/pictures as they become available.

It is public knowledge that I am indeed the world's worst gift buyer/giver. I had the brilliant idea that we could get Max his first book and Hopper was all like "I've bought him 8 books already" so now I'm going to buy ahead for Max's future. Fuck that Dick And Jane bullshit. I was thinking the Library of America's excellent "The Debate on the Constitution: Volume One: September 1787 to February 1788"...

Part One: September 1787 to February 1788. The Debate on the Constitution charts the course of the bloodless revolution that created the government of the United States and the world's oldest working national charter. The extraordinary energy and eloquence of the ratification struggle is captured here firsthand in a unique collection of speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets and letters. Part One presents press polemics and private commentaries from September 1787 to January 1788. Highlights include the state ratifying convention in Pennsylvania, where James Wilson confronted the deep democratic skepticism of the frontier delegates, and in Massachusetts, where John Hancock and Samuel Adams forged a crucial compromise that saved the country from political convulsion. A detailed chronology of events, biographical profiles, and notes provide fascinating background. An appendix prints the complete text of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution with all amendments. "The best resource for understanding the morning headlines I've seen in a long time."—Bill Moyers

That sounds very useful to me. And "Volume Two: January to August 1788" is the perfect Xmas stocking jam to complete Max's set! Then, also, when I'm babysitting I'll have something to peruse. Regardless, Max needs to meet my homeboss Patrick Henry, ASAP. We could all learn from a bloodless revolution or two.

I've come to grips with the fact that I'll never have children of my own, so I need to get my friend's and family's progeny the under the radar presents they need. Kids need knowledge that the public school system can't provide. Parents overlook this type of essential stuff because they have to wipe noses and make dinner: constitutional history, the Void/Faith split LP, Raymond Chandler paperbacks, M*A*S*H DVDs, etc. When he's 23, Max will be stoked. He'll also think I'm deeply weird if he remembers me at all. I'm cool with that.





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And these are his words. He held up a chunk of rock. He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things.

Part of this is from a few days past, so sue a dude:

Cold and rainy day out, hopefully the last burp/fart of winter. Probably not, but we can hope. Just bumpin' to the Rinse FM and keeping it on lock at the Wicker Park/ Bucktown CPL branch. What are you up to?

Did you see Mark Buehrle's no-hitter the other night? Totally 100% sweet. Caught a bit of it on the radio...thought Ed Farmer was going to xxxplode through the Myopic stereo speakers. He didn't talk about it the entire game until the damn thing was sealed. Old baseball superstition, if you didn't know, not to talk about the no-no in progress. Good for Burls! I hope his next contract is fat like the back of a baby's neck.

Sox have been inconsistent as heck, bullpen snapping one day and dogging it the next, rotation getting all underhanded, lineup mashing then crashing. Typical April hijinks. They're a game or so out of first, and the Angels of Los Angeles of Anaheim (real team name!) are coming to the South Side this weekend. Can the Good Guys pick up a few games on the Twins?

Lately I've been reading stuff you'd hate. French dudes, mostly. Apollinaire, Guy De Maupassant, Huysmans and on into Bataille...that type of thing. I like these "decadent generation" types. Lots of stories of wealthy barons utterly bored by existence, locking themselves in their large castles, wasting vast inheritances and going mad. Apart from the wealth, I can relate. And then there's Georges B., who writes about his sister sticking warm bull testes into parts of her body where the sun don't often shine, and rutting with (and urinating upon) just ritually-murdered priests. Doesn't that sound weird? Beats the junk out of Ayn Rand! (Queen of capitalist hate sex...full blog theory/post on this coming soon...)

Miles is DJing at Continental right now, and I should be over there offering moral support...but I'm sure he's slaying them real good. Besides, I was there LAST night (offering moral support of another nature) and too many nights at the ol' 4AM can get migh-TEE tiresome. Areif asked me the other night if it bothered me to be surrounded by drunken brutes (my term, not his) when I'm keeping it on the regular. Actually, people ask me that all the durn time. My easy answer: think of how stupid you were acting last time your ass was yanked on firewater. Now imagine the utter opposite of that. It's like a Jerry Lewis movie, and I'm always Dean Martin. Wait...bad example for sobriety. You know what I mean. That crestfallen stranger you made a cross-eyed war whoop at and then flashed your tits to, when the Journey song was playing? He was me and he was not particularly impressed by the tits in question. But keep trying! Its bound to work for you someday.

Speaking of tits and the bar (whoever takes a law school class with this title first; I'll pay your entire tuition), last Sunday marked the first occasion of a *completely random/clothing optional* Empty Bottle hook-up, at least in my somewhat illustrious career. Not to be all TMI, but if you can hold your utter disgust with me for a few more moments, there is full-bore Jimmy Durante pending. The subject came up (oh stop it!) the other night downstairs, and when bartendress (did I just invent that?) Jill asked what facilitated this event (the fellow hook-up-ee was as sober as I was, btw) all I could say was that she was on layover at the time. As soon as I said that, four other friends/patrons surrounding me at the bar all shouted "LAYOVER" at once, just like in a deformed episode of Cheers. Apparently this is some kind of registered excuse for casual out-of-town heavy petting. Who knew? Last time I was on layover, I feverishly shouted obscenities at Tony La Russa in a St. Louis Internat'l Airport gift shop. True story...but for another time. SUCKERS!





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Watch Maximilien Robespierre Throw Some D's

Those of you out there Google-ing for:

"mouth cupcake chasing Wicker Park"
"incapacitants t-shirts"
"ugly ozzie guillen children photos"
"merry go round called denial"
"attention deficit disorder adult romance"
"alexander haig you have the army"

in the last 48 hours or so, welcome to the blog! All this and more in the archives. I would blog more, but I'm devoting all avail free time far and away chasing mouth cupcake action in Wicker Park.

I'm not going to lie, I've done some sick, donkey-style shit in my time. Truly. But the concept of "mouth cupcake action" is far too advanced for my feeble, aging brain. However, "attention deficit disorder adult romance" is the STORY OF MY LIFE IN A SEEMINGLY INNOCENT WEB SEARCH! You have defined me as no other human ever has, random Googler! That might be the new name of this blog very soon. Don't front on the 1996 Blackburn College English Dept. Student of the Year, bloods! I'm makin' a comeback like Ken Caminiti!

****TIGHT PANTS UPDATE****

Speaking of, um, attention...the class of 2007,2008,2009 and 2010 currently attending Roberto Clemente High School at Western and Division are truly *so* not down with my fashion grind. I get cat-called 50 spirit-crushing times a day because of my new summer 2007 (AKA The Summer of Forgiveness) gay hustler look, which includes a blinding white pair of cowboy boots and some Crackin' Ron Wood accessories. Bitch, I've got more accessories than Lee Harvey Oswald. That makes no sense. I'm a sucker for punishment. Summer of Forgiveness! Kathy Horyn, I'm coming!




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She used my name to talk in another way that I wanted to know

Two months! I know you're hanging on every word, chuckles. Thanks for sticking around.

Big news: probably no Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league participation this summer. Can it be true? Yes. I keep bitching about not having a functioning computer of my own to love and cherish, but then I keep realizing that I don't give a rat's hairy raisin sac if I'm on the internet for more than 15 minutes a day or not, since I feel that American KULTUR, in a nutshell, is growing ever more incredibly coarse, vulgar, and just generally gross. It's just ME and Walt Whitman and Herman Melville and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker and YOU and noone you know from here on in, folks. And by the way, did I mention I loved the new Rocky movie?

So what did I do this week? Let's see. Went on a rad date, watched the Ken Burns doc on Huey Long, worked on the WORK blog, started reading a book about Ben Franklin, enjoyed the sunlight and March in Chicago heatwave (not too fucking dazzling but we'll take it) by taking long walks along our mighty yet polluted great lake, went on another rad date, and another rad date (!!) and basically hung in there with my fly homies Dan Higgs and William Wordsworth. If I didn't like the first JESU record so much, I don't think I'd be listening to anything made after 1950. I think Hopper can tell you that isn't an idol threat (or a minor one).

21st century take a hike!




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