who?
july fourteen | twelve ten post meridiem
Paging Dr. Amar, PLD, NRPLD
The pie-nanni is in need of your immediate attention.
link |
july thirteen | twelve post meridiem
Keep choice legal, your wardrobe regal; Chekhov wrote The Seagull, and Snoopy is a beagle.
I. Love. Frank. Kogan.
link |
july eleven | eleven thirty eight post meridie
Today I went to visit my grandpa. I love my grandpa. The only authenticated badass in my large extended family, he grew up on a farm-slash-ranch in rural North Dakota, where at the age of six he would wring the lambs� testicles and brand the cows. On winter mornings he had to rise early and ride out deep into the fields to watch over the herd, out of sight of any lights from houses or barns, where frost broke the sparse blades of the dead grass, and the wind whistled like a siren that would rise and then fall, and the sky was huge and grey and blank. He left school after the eighth grade to work full time, then served in the navy during WWII. This gave him a lifelong hatred of the military, and when my uncle turned 18 in 1972, during the last days of the draft, he threatened to move the family to Canada. He drove a bread truck for more than 30 years, was a lifelong Teamster, a hardcore Democrat and a raging alcoholic. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in a pastel waiting room, with its rows of orange and brown chairs repeating at irregular intervals, for hours on end while my mom sat nearby but out of sight, next to his hospital bed, waiting for him to regain consciousness. He�s been sober for at least 15 years, and I can�t ever remember seeing him drunk. My Dad tells me I missed out on some great sloshed political rows between my grandpa and his Republican brother that would end with them near blows. He says I would�ve loved it.
A few years ago my grandpa bought a big pink van from a former Avon lady, painted UFF-DA in huge blue letters on the side, installed a bed in the back and drove it around the country. He�s divorced from my grandma but has girlfriends in at least three states who he visits from time to time. They were divorced after she discovered he�d been having an affair. He�s still close friends with the woman, who is very fanatically and properly Christian, and won�t allow anyone to swear or mention Satan in her home. She�s kind and sentimental and treats my sister and I as if we were her own grandchildren.
I�m not at all close with any member of my extended family, and this goes for my grandpa as well. We�ve had very different lives, and almost diametrically opposed opportunities and educations. Yet I respect him more than most of my relatives because he�s attentive and secure in his role as grandfather but doesn�t pretend that we�re closer than we are, or that we even should be, merely because of the contingency of our consanguinity. When we meet we shake hands, look each other in the eye, and say how glad we are to see the other again in a lightly joking way. We�ve never hugged, and I�m glad. I like the honesty and mutual respect in our mutual reservedness. Last Christmas we shared the most intimate conversation we�ve ever had. He was telling me about his trip to Nashville and, stimulated by the warmth of the room, the post-turkey glow, and the unusual conviviality our family enjoyed that year, he leaned in close and asked in a slightly conspiratorial tone, �Do you know why Dolly Parton�s husband wears a mustache?�
Almost thinking it a serious question, I replied, �I�m not sure. Why?�
�To hide his stretch marks.�
His office is a shrine to Marilyn Monroe, he owns the largest television I�ve ever seen, drives a brand new cherry red Monte Carlo with a giant gory crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror, is unrepentantly Norwegian, worships the old skool of country music and talks about their personal tribulations as if they were old friends. If there�s any chance that bull-headedness and eccentricity can be passed on through the genes, all I�ve got came from him. Like I said, I love him.
link |
july ten | eleven fifty three post meridiem
I've realized, with seven minutes to spare, that this is the one year D*land anniversary of that dude who used to be me. In honor of the occasion, I just went back and reread his debut entry. I can see some superficial similarities in the style, but for anyone who really knows these two, anyone who's just, like, basked in their totally unique individualistic vibes, maaan; knows they're like, whoa. Waaay different. I mean, sometimes I don't even know what that guy is on about. We've reached a truce, though: he stays back there, and I carry on from here. This helps us get along fine. Matter of fact, I don't even think about him all that much anymore.
I'm less embarassed than I probably should be that my present immediate life goals are almost the same as his. I'm also more broke (broker?) than he is. I really should just say 'brokest', since there's not a mot plus juste pour moi than that. I've spent every last cent of savings the sucker had, and am now restarting completely from scratch. I just thank the goddesses of cheap education that I'm not in debt in any meaningful way (thank you goddesses).
And what about all those dudes in between? They all sort of blend into each other, don't they? It's been a rather static year. Not a lot of set changes, not a very large cast. There's been the occasional dimming of the lights for one of those dark night of the soul numbers, and a few flashing lights and wheezing fog machines as angels soared on wire harnesses. Apologies to those who thought they were catching the show where Nicole Kidman gets nekkid. Unfortunately, there are no refunds.
I want to ask, "What next?" But I won't, since that's a big, hairy, stinky question which should only be approached from the side, with a radiation suit and a butterfly net. A change of scenery is imperative, obviously. Some stipulations: it should be metropolitan; it should involve people who talk funny; and it should preferrably pay me to go there. These are not very limiting (except for the last one, which sabotages its potential limitations by being the most flexible) and sometimes starting on the first level sucks when you've got eight warp zones to choose from, and yet there are so many turtles to step on and bricks to break before getting to any one of them. Being paralyzed by indecision is a good way to get bit by a giant toothed plant in a pipe, and it's disheartening when each goal seems merely to say, "Sorry, but our princess is in another castle..." It's enough to make a pixelated plumber shoot fireballs out his mouth.
Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, the Dude. The Dude abides. But we're neglecting the consumer. What would you like to see this year? Something with even more stain fighting action? More oddly angled kitchen appliances? Can I Super-Size something for you? Because, you know, I'd be glad to. When the consumer demands more! more! more! you've got to give it to them. With the hard sell.
OK, that's enough. Year Two starts... now.
link |
july nine | twelve twenty seven post meridie
Dispatch from the land of WE REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND IRONY...
I had a few semi-witty snide remarks to make, but really, they'd just subtract from the absurdity of this as it stands.
Update:For the sake of clarity and fairness (sort of), I should mention that the inverse is already law in the Palestinian Authority: selling land to a Jew will get you the death penalty. This was also true for Ottoman post-Zionism pre-Israel Palestine, even if it was rarely enforced. But given the current state of things, trying to equivocate these is a bit like trying to argue for affirmative action for white people. Israel is also in the tough position of having to reconcile its democratic ideals with the undemocratic tendency of its original monoracial raison d'etre. The PA leadership, because of its thuggish autocracy, isn't. It's like the Patriot Act times 1,000: if you're willing to lower yourself to your enemy's standards, then what are you fighting for? All of these factors being further complicated, of course, by that pesky historical irony...
link |
july eight | five twenty five post meridiem
Salutations, Americans. I am pleased to be speaking with you again, now that the metal shards are removed from my mouth. I come to you with one more important plea. I do not wish to be taking up too much of your busyness time, so I shall be brief.
I know that your soldiers are of the most educated in your good country. I am to understand they have R & R time, which means to Read Russian Formalism, as well as play chess and invent precision electrocutions. I know that they are wise men who are passionate for the Art, and that sometimes this passion must be conjugated physically. But I must ask you please to not be conjugating your Art with my poor people. I prefer you to a description in your esteemed -- how do you say -- toilet tissue New York Times, which tells of your conjugation like this:
"Around her in the orchard, there was unspeakable gore. A woman's torso had landed in one of the small almond trees. Human flesh was still hanging on the tree five days after the attack, and more putrifying remains were tangled in the branches of a pomegranate tree, its bright scarlet flowers still blooming."
Which was I do not doubt inspired by the following words in your much-loved military classic Lolita:
"Lovely mauve almond trees in bloom. A blown-off surrealistic arm hanging up there in the pointillistic mauve. A flowergirl tattoo on the hand."
This is good, and as wholesomely American as apple pies, but it hurts our torsos. So if you must needs to make live of your art, please be not using my people. Thank you for your time.
link |
july eight | twelve twenty eight ante meridie
I�m not much of a sports fan, but I do like baseball. I like it because I grew up playing it, and therefore have an acute appreciation for the subtleties of this very aesthetic and, yes, mental game. I also like it because it�s one of the few things my Dad and I can discuss for more than four sentences at a time, unless he suddenly immerses himself in French Symbolist poetry or I start collecting antique porcelain salt and pepper shakers in the shape of anthropomorphized pigs. I also like that it�s a lazy, sunburned, beer-drinking sport, which fits my saturnine sloth better than those kickier, jumpier games.
But mostly I like baseball because it helps me delay ejaculation. I know this is the world�s oldest sports & sex clich�, but it�s precisely the too-prevalent clich� aspect that made me think of it when I needed it most: there I was, thrusting away inside a moist vagina, when I felt the hot and heavy tread of the approaching wolf. Realizing there were only a few huffs and puffs left until the house blew down, I desperately searched my mind for anything that would ease my ardor without shrinking it to sardine size. That�s when the clich�, burned into my brain through so many bad sitcoms and stand-up comedy routines, came to my rescue. My mind now filled with double play scenerios, I was able to hold off for another 2 � minutes.
But over the course of a few weeks, the ploy started to break down. In the morphing fantasias of my mind�s eye, my girlfriend�s face would suddenly take the place of Derek Jeter�s; Barry Bond�s prominent pecs would flop out of his uniform, revealing a cavern of cleavage; Nomar Garciaparra, reaching down to idly scratch himself, would instead slowly, seductively slide his fingers under his red silk panties. I didn�t know what to do. Should I start watching golf? But, ever the giver, baseball came to my rescue a second time.
For those who don�t know, Wade Boggs was one of the best hitters in the game. A 5-time batting champion with over 3,000 career hits, he played from 1982 through 1999, mostly with the Red Sox and the Yankees. Boggs was also affectionately (if unimaginatively) known as the �Chicken Man� for his habit of eating chicken before every game. Eureka. This was it. This was my image. 
Any time the jets of pleasure threatened to open too soon, I pictured in my mind -- in minute detail, down to the last greasy napkin and discarded leg bone -- Wade Boggs methodically working his way through a big bucket of KFC. Thank you, Wade. You've given the fans more joy than you'll ever know.
link |