Know this: surfers are mean, scary people.

Me and the fam are currently on a week-long mini-vacation in Santa Cruz, a little beach city just north of Monterrey. There's a funky old boardwalk and nice sandy beaches with very, very cold water.

It is also home to some of the most venal junkyard dog surfers in the world. I had somehow blotted out that little fact.

I briefly was a bad surfer in my late teens and early twenties. Mostly I’d sit far away from the line-up and wonder about the dark shapes silenting undulating under the WICKED cold water.

I used to go with a kid who grew up in Hawaii and could actually surf. He’d encourage me to get in the lineup at Santa Cruz, without really taking me through the etiquette of the water. Of course it didn’t make a difference, because a) I rarely put myself in a position where etiquette was needed, seeing as how I put myself as a far away as possible from the twitching mass of devil-eyed and tattoo-neck speed freak carpenters that I shared the water with, and b) I’m pretty certain the guys in the line-up had already mentally indentified the tire irons they were going to use on us when we were suiting up on the cliff.

They HATED us… well, me mostly. “I’m going to break your faggot fucking neck if you try to get into this lineup.”

My friend told me that these guys are very serious about safety, and perhaps they were concerned by my green appearance. Their concern was touching. Especially touching was the way a thoughtful soul has keyed the word “fuk” into my friend’s mom’s stationwagon. My friend’s dad said “Well, at least you had the last laugh – they left out the “c””

I got a very slight whiff of the thug fumes when I took Owen for a walk along a bike-path that runs above a well trafficked surf spot near our rental. You get down to the bay via a string of short cliffs. Atop those cliffs are a series of homemade where surfers on land could watch surfers below, uh, surf. They all watch in rapt, grim attention, as if they were watching a particularly violent and grisly end to someone attempting to scale the Berlin Wall.

So into this scene Owen and walked along, LAUGHING and ENJOYING ourselves or something bourgie like that.
Three heads swiveled, three towheads with saddle leather skin and bright eyes, mean looking thick necked bastards that managed to look like Hell’s Angels and football players all at once. It was like Owen farted the best parts of “Lady’s Chatterly’s Lover” at Mother Theresa’s funeral.

Dudes, fuck off. I’m taking a walk with my kid. I am not here to steal your fucking precious locals-only treasure. I’m sorry my kid laughed, I’m sorry I laughed during the comtemplation of the holy mysteries of your little hobby. Please don’t slash my tires. Please don’t send your girlfriend with the sparrow tattooed to her neck to scratch my wife’s face.

Please don’t borrow your boss’s nail gun and write LOCALS ONLY in ha’penny nails on the hood of my Honda. I only want to have fun.

Otherwise, Santa Cruz = wonderful. Lovely people.

This is great.

There's this American woman who somehow lives in Norway.

Yeah, I don't know either. But here's her blog if you don't believe me: Sidestepping Real.

I like the writing. Jesus, get off my neck already.

Things I would pay US$20 to see.

* A vibrator applied to Bruce Valanch’s neck folds

* A 15-pound block of ground beef in a wind-tunnel
* A capuchin monkey dressed as a cowboy riding on the back of a Jack Russell terrier
* The facial expression of Gobi desert nomads coming across a nurse shark swimming in a free-standing tank somewhere in the wilds of Gobi
* Donald Trump being bound up in truss with the help of two small, swarthy bellmen with waxed moustaches
* A paint-bomb going off in the Pope Mobile, with Il Papa inside
* Live eels swimming in watery aspic
* A bowling ball going down an escalator full of flightless birds. Kiwis mostly.
* Two NFL players spontaneously making out during the coin toss
* A half-dozen or so eight year old girls making up Lemmy
* A drugged cat strapped into a first-class airplane seat, wearing a baby bonnet

If you can make any of these things, I got a Andy Jackson for you.

Toilet fun!

I was in the gents at work this morning, washing my hands. There's a row of six or so toilet stalls along the wall.

Things are quiet.

Then, from one of the stalls, I hear:

"Tetrissssss. Nice."

Complete CV w/ Life Lessons

Paperboy
*People in nicer houses tend not to tip and are more likely to lie.
*The newspaper boy’s lot is not unlike that of the sharecropper’s
*Deer are not potential pets
*There’s plenty of room in the dumpster behind the gas station for those heavy Sunday inserts


Mowing lawns for old people
*People are fussy about their lawns.
*Old people are really fussy about their lawns
*People who are fussy about their lawns are also tightwads
*Weed killer is an uniquely flexiable tool for revenge

Picking up golfballs at the old people community
*Old people have surprisingly good aim
*Old people complain that golf ball picker upper scare off pretty geese
*Old people complain about goose crap endlessly to teenager that have no influence over the GI tracks of geese
*Middle-aged men who manage golf-ball picker uppers are very angry
*Running away from destroyed speciality equipment is sometimes the only reasonable course of action

Vacuuming a department store at 4:00 am Saturdays and Sundays
*Large department stores don’t scruntinize the punch-in and punch-out times of housekeeping crews too closely
*Having a boss with a mental handicap requires patience and a well-developed sense of irony
*Sobriety rarely impedes the successful operation of a vacuum
*Department store inventory control is wonderfully lax at 4:00 in the goddamn morning.
*At 4:00 am, the constabulary is profoundly curious about comings and goings of a large black ’69 Cadillac Calais with large orange dayglows skulls spraypainted on the side

Deli clerk
*When you spill a full mop bucket in the cat food aisle, you become hyper aware of the passage of time
*Pickle brine stings
*You tend to learn the price per pound of various sandwich meats very quickly when your boss threaten to shove your face into the display case “to read the goddamn price up close”
*Older men, bosses in particular, should wear belts
*If you plan on going out for the evening after handling sandwich meats, shower


Video clerk – large chain video/music store
*The large chain video/music store is a bottomless fount of vileness
*The large chain video/music store is aggressively clueless about anything cool or interesting
*When the large chain video/music store says your break is fifteen minutes long, you must on principle take an eighteen minute break
*Petty professional jealousy is often fiercest among people required to wear nametags
*Manage smokes as much, if not more, weed than you do
*Stocking the shelves is a wonderful way to pass an afternoon, though not in the porn section. That’s just creepy.
*Inventory control is surpisingly lax at large chain video/music stores
*Evil is real

Department Store Café Worker
*A department store café is not a real resturant
*If you work in an environment where you have to watch any sort of instructional video in a small beige office, you know you’re in for an existentail hellride.
*When you are told in a job interview you have to wear a tie, the job in question rarely pays enough for you to afford to buy a tie
*Toadies are not management
*”Chefs” at Department Store Cafés are angry drunks

Frozen yogurt slinger/barrista
*If you must stare at your boss’s bleeding hairplugs, do it indirectly, via reflective surfaces
*Suburban-type moms don’t appreciate Black Sabbath as much as you do
*Giving free lattes to the hot-looking professional woman ten years your senior aint going to get you nothin’
*The milk is the perfect temperature when the bottom of the metal carafe is warm to the touch (this is actually true)
* Massive daily intake of free frozen yogurt does weird things to your digestion

Video Clerk -- small Mom and Pop shop
*after establishing a repore, you can convince the owner of a small video store to stock any kind of weird crap you can think of if you know what you’re talking about
*Small Mom and Pop video stores have suprisingly lax inventory control systems
*You can be an effete snob and only make five bucks an hour
*Old people are angry at technology
*Jacques Tati is pretty good
*People will believe anything you say if you throw enough technical jibberish at them
* People really do like good movies
*Rutger Hauer was once a pretty big deal in Holland
*Making out with coworker in the toilet, while not the responsible thing to do, is the hot thing to do

After-school care/Summer school day-camp, uh, guy
*Sometimes daycare directors have a little problem with Bolivian Marching Powder and they have to take some time off, like, very abruptly
*”Free paint” is a half-assed activity that may seem like an easy out, but is actually more trouble than it’s worth
*Evil kids become evil adults
*The parents who are late picking up their kids are always late picking up their kids
*Kindergarten enrollement does not mean a child is potty-trained
*Flushing a jump rope is bad for the toilet
*Making disparaging remarks about a parent to a particular vile pair of twins on the last day of one’s employment, while not “right”, is quite “enjoyable”

Live-in Au Pair
*Hanging out at the pool everyday, comparing professional notes with hot chicks from New Zealand is not a bad row to hoe
*Coming back from vacation to find that the dad holed-up in your little cabin in the back of the house after a coke-and-prostitute binge can lead to some awkward questions from your wards
*If one of the kids (the five year old) takes off to the creek, make sure he clears in with you first
*Dude, get a real job

Clerk – Independent community bookstore
*Working in a good bookstore is awesome
*Regular customers are very proprietary of their favorite section
*Hipsters all read the same transgressive crap
*Hanging with crazy, gabby old guys is awesome
*Live music at a bookstore is usually bad
*Don’t show up with a sunburn after calling in sick
*Lots of people hang out all day
*Stocking books is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon
*Independent community bookstores have surprisingly lax inventory control systems

Hanging out with Japanese Exchange Students
*Japanese Exchange Students don’t listen to instructions
*Japanese Exchange Students want to shop
*Japanese Exchange Student are scared of me

Assistant – Toddler Art Program
*Three year-olds are fun to hang out with
*Three year-olds rarely give you shit
*If a three year-old DOES give you shit, it’s sort of cool
*Asking a three year-old to help pour juice will make that three year-old’s day

Sander – Faux Texture Wall Painting Class
*This is the weirdest job you will ever have
*Sanding drywall is pleasant when you’re mildly high
*Muncipal art programs are the nurseries of the surreal

Clerk – Corportate Chain Bookstore
*I really have a hardtime learning lessons
* There are people working in bookshops who have to ask, “Is London the country? Or is England the country?”
*Ties are the devil’s instestines
*There are bookstores in the world that are suspicious of books
* Corporate Chain Bookstore have surprisingly lax inventory control systems
*Quiting your crappy job over the phone on New Year’s Eve so you can go party is a really great feeling, especially when the manager tells you “I wish I had the balls, man.”


Receptionist – Publishing company
*”Breezing in any old time” is not really a good habit for a receptionist
*The warehouse guys downstairs usually are good for a few laughs
* Don’t get stuck sitting next to Dave the warehouse guy at company function, because he’s a drunk
*Distribution people are no-bullshit and kind of scary.

Editor – Publishing company
*Don’t date coworkers
*The cartography guys on the other side of the room usaully are good for a few laughs
*Learn to distinguish between“fun” laughter and “nervous” laughter
*Publishing is not a good field for people that want to write
*People get weird about music is an open floor environment
*Jesus, publishing people need to lighten up
*Iquanas smell

Copywriter – Small regional agency not in California
*California is sort of despised by a lot of people
*Drunks are hard to work for
*If someone asks you to write a press release, say “no”
*Being fired can be a good thing. The best thing, really

Copywriter – Big regional agency in California
*Being around lots of people your own age when you’re in your twenties is fun
*Sometimes, psychedelics can help one’s professional progress
*Date your coworkers
*Ask dumb questions discreetly
*Learn to recognise when your creative director is merely indulging your idiocy
*Xanax can be recreational

Copywriter – “Hot” interactive shop
*Christ, the internet is boring
*Bosses really do throw stuff
*The less desireable the vendor, the more they want to give you free crap
*Successful corporations are often full of breathtakingly stupid people
*The 90s were a crock

Copywriter – Dowdy musty giant international agency
*Feh

Copywriter – Less Dowdy, less musty giant international agency
*LA is fun
*So is New York
*Smartassness can be rewarding
*600 people is a shitload of people
*Looking out the window can be tiring
*Advertising is sort of dumb
*But I think I already knew that

Hazing rituals of the Catholic Hierarchy

(In a rustic house in a small village in Corsica Father Roland is administering the rite of exorcism. Jean, a boy of twelve, is levitating over his bed, shrouded in a funky purple orb of vicious hardcore evil.

Timothée, also twelve and a classmate of Jean’s, is assisting Father Roland. He’s tending to the thurible, keeping the incense stoked.)

Jean (sounding like Vincent Price): Sabbath Bloody Sabbath! Your mother knits socks that smell!

(Jean’s head does a full 360 revolution on his neck. Timothée pees.)

Father Roland: Oh, Demon! In the name of Christ, tell me your infernal name!

Jean: Blurb! Cthulhu! Blech! Bella Abzub!

(Several small black toads wiggle out of Jean’s armpit. Timothée pees again.)

Father Roland: Steady on, Timothée. Steady lad.

Jean/Demon: Bwa-ha-ha!

(Just then, the young, fresh-faced seminarian Brother Xavier enters the room with a frantic look in his eyes. He looks nervously for a beat at the levitating kid, and then averts his eyes.)

Brother Xavier: Father Roland!

Father Roland: Out demon! In the name of…

Brother Xavier: Father Roland!

Father Roland: Xavier, I’m kind of dealing with something here….

Brother Xavier: Father Aloysius sent me! I need your help!

(Jean’s vomits a whole cat. Timothée pees.)

Father Roland: I have a kid here vomiting whole fucking cats.

Brother Xavier: Father Aloysius said I… could interrupt you.

Father Roland: What do you need? Quick!

Brother Xavier: Father needs a left-handed chalice.

Jean/Demon: Merkin! Engelbert Humperdink!

Father Roland: Wait… a what?!? A FUCKING LEFT HANDED CHALICE?

Brother Xavier: Well, Father Aloysius said…

Father Roland: I know what he said. He wants a left-handed chalice for the Blessing of the Snipe.

Brother Xavier: Yes! You know of this rite?

Father Roland: Fucking rookie bullshit. Hey, kid, uh…. Timothée. Hold this crucifix… no, just hold it. AND FACE JESUS AT THE FLOATING KID… that’s right.

Timothée: What do I do?

Father Roland: I dunno. Say a shitload of Hail Marys. But you gotta point the crucifix at the kid.

Timothée:AVE MARÍA GRÁTIA PLENA DÓMINUSTECUMBENEDÍCTATUINMULIÉRIBUSETBENEDÍCTUSFRUCTUSVENTRISTUI…um… uh…. JESUS.

(Father Roland turns to Brother Xavier.)

Father Roland: Now, shithead, get me a fucking pen because I have nothing better to do than tell your greenie ass about how a fucking cup works.


Timothée: …GRÁTIA PLENA… oh, fuck… oh, fuck….

Father Roland: Stick to the text, Timothée. Anyways, Brother Corndog, gimme your fucking pen AND I WILL DRAW YOU A FUCKING DIAGRAM.

(Father Roland finds an old comic book on poor possessed Jean’s dresser.)

Father Roland: THIS IS A CHALICE. You see?

Brother Xavier looks on with fearfully.

Father: There’s no handles, no nothing. It’s a FUCKING CUP.

Brother Xavier: So… what does a left-handed chalice look like...?

Father Roland: Aha! Grasshopper is starting to get it!

Brother Xavier: You… there’s no…

Father Roland: Yes, shithead. There is NO SUCH FUCKING THING!

Jean: OPRAH HARPO!

Father Roland: I’ll DEAL WITH YOU IN A MOMENT, JEAN.
Anyway, kid, you got juked. You got punked.

Jean: Mommy Wow!

Timothée: Father… he just laid a cockatrice egg.

Father Roland: Yeah, kid. I’ll be right there. Meantime, Xavier, you need to get the fuck out of here. And tell that fat Irish fuck when he sees me coming, he better run. I don’t have time for his shit.

(Meanwhile, back at the Rectory)

Father Aloysius: Well, Father Stanislaw, how do you think our young Xavier is getting on with the good Father Roland.

Father Stanislaw: You’re a cruel old bastard, Aloysius.

Father Aloysius: Ah, it’s just a bit tradition. Let’s have some sherry.

Another idiotic way I make my own life difficult.

Spent Sunday night ripping CDs onto my laptop.

Today Paula is having a meeting at home with the admissions lady from Ruby’s school to discuss a website Paula is doing for the school.

Spent my BART ride wondering if I left my copy of Big Black’s “Songs About Fucking” in a conspicuous place.

I got me a Wunderkammer and I know how to use it.

Blog friend Marion has a very, very interesting blog called Mapping the Marvellous. It deals with, and I'm quoting here:

Books, articles, quotes, images, concepts, theories and thoughts related to my research on collecting, taxonomy, classification, cabinets of curiosities, the history of natural history and surrealism.

Which more interesting than most other stuff you're going to look at today. You should go visit. Marion might even classify you.

The question was: “Are you curious about She-Males?”

That was the title of the email in my inbox this morning. And I had to answer in the fuck affirmative, ie FUCK YEAH!

Because who isn’t curious about She-Males? Like what do they call ‘em in French? “Elle mâle”?

My run-ins with She Males have been sadly, few. A statesque she-male prostitute stopped me and my then girlfriend as we walked through the French quarter in New Orleans.

She put her big mitt on my chest and looked us up and down.

She looked up (or down) at me, and shook her head.

In a very sweet, feminine voice, she told me “Honey, that fe-male make you look good.”

She then threw back her head, and out came a deep, throaty barking laugh that set her adam's apple a-bobbin'.

We weren’t sure who she was insulting. I think it was me. It was interesting she was able to attack my masculinity, both as a woman and a man. An interesting super power that goes unconsidered by the society at large.

For my mother’s memorial service at the severely Russian Orthodox church from where she was to be buried, my mother-in-law had to run out to a tranny clothing store near her work to buy a skirt (no pants on ladies at this Russian Orthodox. Moustaches on ladies are somehow okay, though. It’s a russian thing).

I know what you want to ask: is my mother-in-law a tranny? No, she’s all biologically intact, but my in-law’s auto repair shop is the thick of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, which the neighborhood that Gay Pride Forgot. It’s sort of a Vale of She-Male Hookers. It’s also sort of retro, in a gays-pushed-to-the-very-edges-of-civilization sort of way.

Anyway, she managed to find something that wasn’t too whorish. She was probably the first client that particular shop had in a long time that wasn’t asked what side she wore her skirt on*.

When Paula was in the hospital, chilling postpartum with baby Ruby, several of the night nurses (or were they called something else, like attendants? I don’t know the hierarchy here) were all of the gender we are discussing here.

They were uniformly gentle and sweet, with a wonderful ability to comfort a yelping newborn into a drowsy quiet. They also had an uncanny ability to drop some science, vis-à-vis nursing technique, to exhausted women.

We asked a she-female nurse how it came to be that so many men who are becoming women were on the ward, and she explained that in the counseling that each candidate has to go through, they are encouraged to network with other transgendered folks to find working environments that were chill about their gender reassignment.

The nurse also suspect that these gals were so hyper-feminine that they sought out opportunities to act as nuturers. So, babies.

But still, plumbing is plumbing. I don't how I'd react as a woman to getting bosom coaching from someone with an adam's apple. But see? I'm merely a he-male, more or less. So I am left to imagine these things.

Anyway, these are my experiences with the She-Male community. Not an unpleasant bunch of folks. Maybe I’ll take up that chappy on the offer he so thoughtfully dropped into my inbox. There’s a whole world out there to discover: the world of The She-Male.


* This a joke about a practice that a gentleman experiences when shopping for a suit in haberdasheries of quality, regarding the proper fit of a gentleman’s trouser. Around the crotch.

Toby wrote werewolf book.

Friend Toby has written a book about Werewolves. Werewolves in LA. In free verse. They have their own werewolf gangs. And the hero is a dog catcher who falls in love with one of the, uh, bitches.

And this the point were you start getting antsy, right? Well, hold the fuck on. You don't know everything.

The book is really, really good. Here's the London Times review if you insist on not believing me.

It's out in the UK even as you read this, and will available in zee Amerika come Feb.

It's good. And because you sort of know me, you sort of know Toby, so you're deep in the currents of the zeigeist.

It feels great, doesn't it?

Ruby scatting about meat.

I was working next to Ruby just as she improved this amazing sprechstimme song about meat.


Meat. Meat. Meat.
Sad Clown with bacon lips
Meat. Hot dog with no bun.
I love meat, meat. It’s really meat.
Weird meat. Weird meeeeeat.
I love meat.
Left and right there is meat.
Meat is the best thing, my most favorite meat.
I come to town looking for meat, yeah.
Outside I’m going to find a meat meat meat store.
Going to the sea for the meat fish.
It always happen before the town, town, town wakesup.
The Meat Show. Just me and the street.
Doing meat disco. Doing meat handjive.
I’m a big shoot guy. I got meat.
Hit a nail, hit a nail, astronaut. I got meat in space.
Do you sing? Yes, I sing. There is a meat music show.
I love meat, hot dogs… chicken… chicken burritos… turkey…
Hamburger MEAT! Hotdog MEAT!
Barbecue and going to the hamburger store.
The clown is a hamburger clown.
Meat. Meat. Meat. This is the meat I love. It’s weird.
People say what meat do you like?
And i saaaaaay.... HOT DOGS!

Sad Clown with bacon lips? Damn.

Back scratching salons.

That's my new business idea.

Fifteen minute increments. Hard, medium, soft.

Each client would be given a simple illustration of a human back so they can indicate to the scratchatrix the general region to focus on.

Mmmmm, back scratching. Heaven.

Owen objects

I've had this phrase churning around my head on and off all evening, to wit: "Blow it out your ass, motorcycle man!"

It's a phrase pulled from a spoken word portion of a particularly obnoxious Frank Zappa song that deeply affected me as a boy.

The title of the song is not worth repeating.

Anyway, I was pooting around the house mindlessly when I blurted this phrase in front of Owen.

"BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS, MOTORCYCLE MAN!"

Owen, who was playing with his little plastic animals, looked up at me with reproach in his eyes, and said sternly: "You blow it out your ass, and DON'T CALL ME MOTORCYCLE MAN."

Things are looking up!

Didn’t weep today. No compulsive screaming. Fouled myself after I got off the train.

Yep, I’m making progress.

Cuticles are mostly healed. Left eyebrow has grown back!

Look out world, I’m going to straight for your gonads, because I am mostly not speaking in the voice of a small child in meetings. This is the new me, mostly free of stains, upperplate in and accounted for, truss waxed and flexible.

The gum wrappers have been ironed and filed. My neighbors are returning my gaze again. Things are looking up!

Phone soliticitors are accepting my apologies and the local priest has put away his holy water. 2007 is going to be my year!

Newspaper editorial only beg for pity on my behalf, instead of the rope. So I got that going for me.

My mailbox doesn’t tick and my wife has stopped asking for my ID.

I feel it. I’ve got the bass ring!

Now if I could just do something about this pesky stigmata.

Yep, I’m making progress.

To the people that run that little weird grocery by work.

Hello.

Your store smells like ass. It smells like lard, old ladies and paint.

And pee.

What are you doing in there?

Wait, I know. I know what you're doing in there. You're cooking with a hot plate and microwaving weird smelly things. Bad things, like dry chicken teriyaki.

Teriyaki is a sauce, and sauces are wet. This is not even tandoori. What you're doing is cloisonne.

And the "specials" signs. Oof. Get 'em wipeable, or take 'em down. Those weird, mottled cardboard laundry shirt cards are really aren't built to handle moist oily air, and they look like old gray banana peels after a while. And the airborne offal steam does weird things to the laundry marker ink. You can barely make out "Bef wi Rice".

Bef wi Rice. Heh.

Running a little retail business is not a walk in the park. That I know. You are getting old before your time, and the rent is laughably expensive. How many Bef wi Rice do you have to sell before you see one red American cent?

But maybe you like the hours, or getting gum at cost. I'm not here to castigate your dreams. Keep dreaming. And you seem to serve food that people like. Your Bef wi Rice has 'em, whoever 'em might be, coming back. But if you were to ask me -- just some mope who has bought ice tea and gum a few times in the past -- you need to tackle the stink thing.

If you just had to deal with those dominant notes I stated before -- your lard, your latex paint and the old ladies -- you'd have an uphill battle. But it's the subtle nagging insinuation of urea that really drives home the impression for consumer that somebody in your command chain has dropped the ball, vis-a-vis your sanitation strategies. Sack someone, hire someone, bring in an outside consultant, just GET THE PEE thing under control.

And call me an optimist, but I am willing to bet a month of Bef wi Rices that the process of banishing the pee stank will also address a whole slew of other, unconsidered issues that may have had a negative effect on the public's conception of your brand. For example, in the merchandising department: tossing out the top layer of unbought, dried ramen packages will allow customers access to the shiney, releatively unfaded packages hidden below. It would also remove a layer of dust, which may have been acting as a sponge for the wee-wee musk. One square foot of pee-reeking surface, GONE, out of the store, while adding the impression of success, ie sales of dried ramen packages.

"Say," the consumer says,"Something is afoot at the weird grocery. They're pushing ramen like it's the Fourth of July! And it's slightly less mindbendingly stanky. Way to turn it around, unsanitary grocery!"

Then after pee, I'd go, in order:

1. Lard
2. Old Ladies
3. Paint

Then learn to cook.

I'm mean.

You already belong. You just don't know it yet.

As any longtime reader of this blog would tell, one of my longterm interests is exploring the intersection between technology and pointless idiotic bullshit.

To that goal, colleague Alastair and I have created a group on FaceBook called In the search of the Dark-Meta, which is a bunch of idiotic crap, really. It’s about taxonomy or something.

Here’s our manifesto:

In the search of the Dark-Meta.

Web 2.0 has offers we humans a historically unprecendented ability to catalogue all our shit, then look at our various catalogues of shit and say “that is a whole lot of shit.” We can then inform an international network of loosely affiliated shit-cataloguers that our shit is in fact catalogued, and they should really come check out our large pile of shit.

Yep, we’ve reached history’s end. Or have we? Because there is one last great human project: the Catalogue of Dark-Meta, that is, shit that hasn’t be tagged, catalogue, taxonimized or otherwise corralled into service. Wild shit, free shit, sun-dappled shit mustangs thundering across the Meta-Plain.

We are on the hunt for Dark Meta. Because anything left uncatalogued by we humans may become a weapon against us all, come the Great Web 4.0 Widget Uprising.

We invite you to carry our Mark, The Mark of the Dark Meta, which brands you as one of the many good ones, Web 2.0ers dedicated to bringing shit out of the out meta-darkness, The Cursed Set of Things of Uncatalogued, into the bright world of the catalogued, ordered and pwned.

Fuck ambiguity! Up with Taxonomy! Exclesior!



I’m not entirely sure why you should join, but if you have a FaceBook account, you should join. It’s fucking awesome.

Some sentences about a Grand Inquisitor that heretofore probably never existed.

“Buttocks,” the Grand Inquisitor hissed,”Buttocks wins again.”

The Grand Inquistor handled the radish apprenhensively, as its shape was far too close to that of the Shogun’s crest.

The Grand Inquisitor nervously made his introductions then waded through the mud bath, scanning for the lost chalice.

The Grand Inquisitor shrugged at the waitress, then sheepishly gestured to the coupon stapled to the mink collar of his caftan.

Somewhere over Pitcairn Island, the Grand Inquisitor dropped his contact lens into the blancmange.

With the unfamilar feel of burlap over his lower lip, the Grand Inquistor couldn’t sleep, even as the nurse primed a new IV bag.

So the conversation ping-ponged through the night, the Grand Inquisitor insisting that Father Bongo make the concession of flattening the hides, even as the priest made a pup-tent with the bear skin as if to mock the older man.

During the relatively smooth ride between the subway stations, Renaldo set the Grand Inquistor’s beard in curlers.

Watching the teargas canisters dropped into the center of the gallery, the Grand Inqusitor flicked the curtain tassles nervously.

The fried eggs burnt and unedible, the Grand Inquisitor wept openly.

The Grand Inquistor stared at the ceiling, avoiding looking Jaime, still in the pantyhose from the night previous.

The Grand Inquisitor kept spreading the talc over the surface of the hubcap, the stump of his thumb leaving a crimson track.

Earlier that afternoon, the Grand Inquisitor advised the game keepers to stay indoors, because there was something about this vole that made it different, dangerous, and possibly demon-driven.

Butterscotch pudding wasn’t something the Grand Inquistor had much experience with, but he knew the bus passengers had been told to expect something wonderful.

Refreshingly evil life insurance ad

Did this woman not kill her husband? The hat alone screams "I DID IT. I KILLED THE FUCK. HA-HA! I'M NOT WEARING PANTIES AND I HAVE RED PATENT SLING BACKS WAITING IN THE LIMO THAT I'M GOING TO PUT ON AND DANCE ON HIS GRAVE."

Maybe I'm reading a lot into it.

As for the kid, has the ad director not seen the Omen?

Ruby on spending time with older relatives

R: Dad, when you were a kid did you think it was hard to hang out with your grandma?

ME: Yeah.

R: Yeah. Being with old people is like being with an evil witch that is nice to you but is also creepy and old and wicked.

ME: Yep.

A man experiences a strange satisfaction on the train. I am forced to watch.

I had the opportunity thrust on me last week of hearing a bulky man spend many minutes describing in loving detail a t-shirt he had recently purchased to his companion, a short woman whose wide-eyed appreciation for what this galoot was saying suggested either that she had a bottomless well of goodwill and charity, or had was in some sort of beatific fugue state brought on by a head injury that had somehow gone unnoticed by her loved ones.

He had bought on a trip to New York a Sopranos t-shirt, specifically one sporting the logo of Bada-Bing’s, the in-show hangout of the Sopranos gang or whatever they are.

To his rapt companion, he went into loving detail about how the shirt captured the typography of the sign just right (“It totally looked like the fuckin’ logo.”) and how cool it looked on him. He really lit up when he talked about how the sleeves clinged to his Slavic beef shoulders – “I look fuckin’ tough. It’s awesome.”

So, he was bragging he bought a shirt advertising a business that doesn’t exist from a show that has been cancelled. He’s a superfan, he’s passionate, and how can I fault him for that? Well, maybe if he hadn’t made it sound like his shopping coup was similar to translating the Magna Carta into sanskrit, I could be more supportive. But that’s what he did. And so I am forced to blog about it. Sigh.

Fine resources for media obsessive nerds, geeks, dorks and dweebs.

If you wanted, for whatever reason, to catalogue your books and CDs online so the world can see how rad you are, you can do so here:

Books: Library Thing

CD, Albums, MP3s, etc: Rate Your Music

On Librarty Thing your first 200 hundred listings, then after that it’s like 20 bucks or something.

Rate Your Music is free, free, free, though you should probably paypal some cash over to your friendly host if your foresee having a huge database.

I don’t know exactly what these services are good for, but it is sort of fun in a bored retiree sort of way to imput the stuff. I dunno. I’m a nerd. CHRIST, am I a nerd.

Here are my collections if you’re interested:

My Music
My Books
A Photo of Lemmy

Coffee and Classic Rock. I say GODDAMN.

This is going to be a discursive rant, just so you know. I'M IN THAT KIND OF MOOD.

Why? Because I hit the sweet spot with coffee consumption today. Two big cups, after a flippin' awesome night's sleep, made under my own steam in a quiet house.

FUCKING RADICAL. It's like ACID.

I'm right on the rightside of the stomach-butterfly cusp. Little intimations of something stirring in my gut, but instead of feeling like puke, IT FEELS LIKE VICTORY.

I spent the late morning listening to music and nursing these perfect oily brimming cups of black gold. See, the key is THE GODDAMN CONE FILTER. Don't dick around with coffee makers, perculators, french presses, or other fancy-lad BUNKUM. HOT WATER, COFFEE GROUND AND WILL. THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE A CUP OF GODDAMN COFFEE.

It helps that in Berkeley, the WEATHER IS PERFECT today. Nice hint of marine layer cuts the heat, so you get just the perfect stir of cool, slightly humid beeze. The sky at the horizon line is the very softest baby blue and it deepens as you climb the arc until you're staring at a slick royal blue at the zenith. Plus you are complelely jacked up on PURE UNCUT Sulawesi, so everthing is that much more goddamn SWEET. Go 15 miles east, into the valley, and you are under a SEALED DOME of BUTT, of so it seems, from the butt-like heat.

After my coffee, I farted around town in the car, listening to the crappy classic rock station, because there was nothing else to listen to, and with your classic rock station they at least will mix stuff up a little bit. Today when I hit the intersection of Buchanan and San Pablo, Black Sabbath's Iron Man was ending and there was some solo hessier in the car next to me, ROCKING THE FUCK OUT, ie fully headbanging. We listening to the same douche bag rock station: I could hear Iron Man leaking from his car, enhancing my Iron Man.

As you no doubt recall, Tony Iommi totally rocks the fuck out at the end of Iron Man with a full Panzer freak-out. And as you no doubt also recall, Tony Iommi has like three fingers on his stumming hand, just like Django Rheinhart. Maybe Tony is pissed off that he lost his fingers to a Birmingham metal press, but something was eating him the day they recorded Iron Man. You can hear it.

Anyway, dude is rocking out. I get the green, I slide out across the intersection, and "Roxanne" comes on. From Black Sabbath to the Police. See? Classic rock station. Of course you have to put up with your occaisional 38 Special or Loverboy, but that you know that when you put your chips in. Classic rock station is not there to CODDLE.

So, at the next intersection, what happens? Some LADY is rocking out now to Roxanne. How freaing awesome is that? A lady wearing hair extensions is listening to the same frigging classic rock station. I mean, Roxanne is kind of a douchey song, but it's better than either Nickelback or Usher or whatever the fuck they're playing on someother crap station.

Now, one of my errands was chatting with an occupational therapist that Owen has been seeing (not romantically. He is only four). I got there kind of early, and sat on the wonderfully shaded elm tree-lined tree. (This is when I figured out the day outside was surreally comfortable and just really felt good on my skin).

Then I had a very, very strange moment, when The Classic Rock station began speaking to me. As you may recall, I went to my high school reunion recently and one of the effects of that that weekend had was giving me the perspective on how I much more comfortable I am in the world than I was as a teenager. Like now, I think I can say I have some sort of modicum of comfort with myself and people and meta-issues of security and self knowledge and piles of other gay crap, whereas in high school, I died pretty much on the half-hour, so mortified was I by the indiginity I perceived in myself. Started thinking about Owen's stuff, the frustrations he'll face being the smart and (thankfully) weird kid that he is.

And it was THEN, just then, that I heard a crappy Rush song. Now, I'm not one to look for wisdom in pop songs. I'd have to agree with Frank Zappa here, when he said in effect that when people believe pop songs, and the greater pop culture is general, people get fucked up.

But here, in this dumb overwraught Rush song ("Freewill" I believe it's called) was wisdom, wisdom that is particularly poigniant to the pimply stoner Rush demographic.

The song "Freewill" is essential about being banishing all the magical thinking crap people go through, and just respecting yourself enough to trust your own will. Jesus, this a fucking RUSH song. They sing songs about Snow Elves and shit like that, but there I was, in the car, nodding along.

I hope Owen doesn't have to wait until he's 38 to hear the right Rush song, but that's why he's going to the occupational therapist.

I'm crashing. Into every coffee buzz, late afternoons must fall I'm afraid. So, to summerize: good night's sleep, strong coffee and acceptance of the classic rock can lead to some kind of good saturday.

See yers.