Run Down

I had to take yesterday to rest as I got full on whacked upside the head by the cold Biffy was spraying around willy nilly. I was actually feeling okay compared to Sunday night-Monday where I slept the sleep of the feverishly sleepy.

So I apologize for no post, but I would like to share a few things that occurred this weekend:

I awoke late one night to tend to a tiresome cat when I noticed a cheerful orange glow coming from the living room window. How nice, I thought until I walked up to said window and realized that there was a car on fire out in the street in front. Boy, I know how that feels, I thought as I watched until the fire department came to put out the car.

Biffy ran herself a marathon. I rode the wave of the coming runners and tried to reach her at different points. She did real good, she was smiling each time I saw her and didn’t have that look of, “for the love of god, please cut off my fucking legs” that she did last time I watched her run a marathon. On my side of things, I learned how to navigate unfamiliar parts of the city with plenty of marathon cops blocking a variety of routes and realized that early mornings here in the winter will make your toes numb when you are wearing well worn Doc Martin’s.

Mandy asked if I was okay, because according to recent blog entries, I seem to have been in a bad mood. I thought it was sweet of her to ask, but I didn’t think I was in any worse a mood than normal. But I am not always the best to judge these things. This was mere hours before the full force of Winter Cold ’06 was to take me over.

Fever dreams of mountain crossings and spiders. Something to do with gingerbread mushrooms or something… Best not to think too heavily on these things.

The weather folks promised snow and went so far as to panic the public with constant reports of school closures and treacherous, icy conditions on the roads. They never actually said, “stay in your house or you will most likely die”, but you could see it in their eyes. Even though they were only predicting 1-2 inches. And yeah, snow never came.

I’m back to the world y’all, buckle up.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Long Distance Drunk by Modest Mouse

Thanks...

I realize that yesterday was Thanksgiving, but what would I really be thankful for now? For fan boys to quit talking about Phil Spector’s resume. Every piece of Phil Spector trivia is being tossed around right now.

Did you know that Phil Spector accused Brian Wilson of being a spy? Did you know that Sonny Bono used to work with Phil Spector? Did you know that Phil Spector produced a Ramones album? Did you know that Phil Spector pulled a gun on John Lennon? When he produced Let It Be? He didn’t produce Let It Be. No, he did, that’s why they released that Naked version. No, Phil Spector just came on later to work on the album, and that Naked version is awesome, I didn’t even bother to upload the original version on my ipod.

Shut the fuck up! Seriously, in the name of all that’s holy, shut the fuck up! Fanboys!

The conversation has now moved on to that picture of Nixon and Elvis shaking hands. And they’re talking about it seriously, as if they were curing Down’s Syndrome. It makes me want to jump on a wheelchair and run them over.

Random McNally

It’s sort of strange, this duplicitous, almost schizophrenic behavior I’ve got going on. Part of me (and some people blame it on my Capricorn, but seriously, blow me) really likes order. I mean really likes it. I mean it’s almost fascist in its complete desire for pristine, fucking order.

Yeah, my CD and DVD collections are in alphabetical order, and though quite a few people who see this seem strangely affected by it, it’s not weird to me. How else are you going to find what you’re looking for? What is even weird to me is this desire to fold my freshly laundered underwear in a particular order, is the need to have the canned goods placed in the cupboard in a certain way, is the fact that the knives on the magnetic bar must face a certain way and be in a certain order. Not quite obsessive compulsive, but I can see their house from here…

And then, as if to balance it out, part of me has this huge desire for randomness.

But to be completely honest about it, part of me has this huge desire to thrust randomness at other people. I want to surprise, to shock and awe. I often think about the (again) random person who might come across this blog and just what the hell goes through their mind if they hit one of the particularly random posts.

I love that for the constant readers, most of the time you have no idea what you’re going to get; that I have no idea what you’re going to get until I sit down to write it.

So thank you for letting me get my random on, for putting up with it. I gotta go though, someone put Dead Man back on the shelf in front of Dead Alive.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Ball and Biscuit by The White Stripes

Was the Litter Box Always on the Freeway?

I’m feeling scattered and just a little confrontational. Some of it could be that the cat, that stupid little rodent, kept me up all night with his running around and meowing and other ridiculous cat nonsense.

I’ve been having dark thoughts today of testing that cat vs. curiosity angle with tuna in electrical outlets and fake birds on very high and teetering planks…

But honestly, I’ve felt a little tired and out of sorts the last few days. Is it the winter? Is it the impending doom of family Thanksgiving dinner? I don’t know, leave me alone! You wanna fight?!

I’m sorry, I tried to warn you. That shirt really brings out your eyes by the way.

The problem mostly is that I feel myself getting insular, crawling up inside for comfort and protection. And this really hampers my mission of bringing a healthy dose of the random to my little corner of the corporate world. And I’m afraid it makes for a not so cohesive and rather boring post.

Hearing Red Red Meat on the headphones is sort of alleviating the problem, sort of. But honestly, until I am ready to either stand up and “shake the crappy” on out of here, or at least take a nap, I’m going to blame the frigging cat. And I’m gonna send this guy:


He’ll bust a cap in Brody’s ass, but good.

Haunted By A Memory That's Not Mine

Of driving down an unknown street made dark by the towering trees on both sides, Bowie’s The Bewlay Brothers on the stereo; near tears, but ecstatic. Remembering people that have forgotten me, I’m sure, and reveling in the way their memory impacts my emotions.

Completely alone and mired in this contrary need for someone (anyone) and the relief of nobody.

Made uncomfortable by a grocery store customer who seemed to have a seriously unhealthy attraction to the bag boy; deviant about to turn dangerous.

Up ahead there’s a storm about to break over the trees, somewhere over the water, and I can feel that sick smile spread that is bound to disturb anyone who sees it.

Naked Guy, With an "I" and a Monkey Head

It’s really my own fault in a way. I was on my way into work and delving way too philosophically into the nature of human behavior when I should have been walk-dancing to Frank Black B-Sides.

There’s this person I know who ends up upset and out of sorts because they expect life to just sort of sit still, to just sort of reach this moment of sameness and stay there. I think that we all do this to a degree. The idea that life and the world is an endlessly changing and evolving experience can be a little daunting and uncomfortable. And so we set up routines so we have the illusion of sameness - so that no matter what happens I know I will get up, brush my teeth and head off to work just like I did the day before.

This painted humanity in general in not so pretty a color, which made me feel frustrated. Apparently, this general feeling was cruising the airwaves down here on Utah Avenue South, because people in my row (people who can under normal circumstances withstand the wildly inappropriate things that I will eventually say) were not having it. My co-workers, my partners in crime, were in shitty moods and that pushed me over the edge and into crappy mood mode.

So what does one do to “Shake the Crappy”, as the kids are saying these days? Well if one is me, one prints up this picture:

And then one cuts out each guy individually and makes finger puppets out of them. To up the “shaking the crappy” quotient, paste a monkey head on the guy with the “I”.

I’m totally not kidding…

Rise of the Machines

Getting us just a little closer to the future that The Jetson’s promised, the new bathroom on the floor here at work has nifty automated functions.

The toilets and urinals all flush by themselves. Well, I mean they’re triggered by something, micro changes in air density or something. And the sinks begin spouting that clean, Washington water when they detect your hand is there to receive it.

I’ve seen all this before, but a new one to me is the automatic soap dispenser which pumps out pearly goo when your hand is near the spout. My problem is that I have big hands, and after I have been thoroughly soaped and am setting off the water sensor, my ginormous digits wander into the sight field of the soap and the soap begins spurting like a porn audition.

Sure, not a big deal. There’s usually just this semen like puddle on the side of the basin (which refills itself when I try to wash it away with the automatic water as I keep finding my way beneath the automatic soap dispenser again). But it seems indicative of that technological breakdown that will eventually destroy us.

It’s like HAL 9000 developing a consciousness and going crazy, it’s like the Yul Brenner robot shooting tourists in Westworld, it’s like Frankenstein’s monster going after Frankenstein. It’s like that automated future house in the Bugs Bunny cartoons. It’s a small step now, but I’m telling you, that fucker’s gonna come running.



Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Watching TV by Roger Waters

Not The Voicemail I Was Hoping For

I gotta warn you good people that Billy is in a crappy mood today. I’m in such a crappy mood that I spoke of myself in the third person. I hate that!

I’m trying to deal with a minor setback that is bumming me out harder than it should. It’s actually a little weird, ‘cause I’m kind of divided about it. Part of me really is okay with it and wants to get past it. I respect that part, I look up to that part, one day - when I grow up - I hope be that part.

But there’s another part of me that feeds off of those chattering voices of fear, disappointment and unending self doubt that roll up all black and toxic from rooms I’ve tried to torch. That part won’t let go, that part lets loose giggling whispers that become echoes that build to destructive frequencies, that part somehow makes dreams seem useless and dumb.

Yet another little internal critic, from some other wing in the house, chirps up from time to time to tell me to suck it up and that I’m feeling sorry for myself. He’s probably right. What I can say for sure is I feel a little sad, I feel a little disappointed, and I feel like I’d rather take a boat ride out on Puget Sound than sit in my cube and stew.

Music, Sweet Music

I have this CD lens cleaner that opens with this music, this awful cheesy music. That music is so cheesy, it's like cheddar. It's like colby, swiss and cheddar, blended all together. It's like melted Velveeta spread over a brick of monterey jack.

You get the point.

So, I was listening to this travesty of smooth jazz (which in and of itself is a travesty of regular jazz) that opens the disc before a pleasant sounding man congratulates me on purchasing the most advanced CD lens cleaner on the market. Which is essentially a little brush glued to a CD.

But I got to thinking that somebody wrote that god awful music for this CD lens cleaner. I mean they got paid to knock off this random tune, again, for a CD lens cleaner. And I got to feeling for the poor sax player, who I'm sure had dreams of being a musician that performs music that stirs the souls of others, that speaks in magic and births moments of absolute brilliance. But this sax player is butchering music to be ignored while some twit cleans their CD player.

Sure you say, the guy's getting paid to be a musician. And it's not like a lot of big bands are using sax in their music anymore; I mean Pink Floyd isn't touring right now... But it reinforced the idea that there are jobs out there to be had that had never occurred to me needed to be filled.

R.I.P. Danny Sturdevant

It’s pretty well known in the biz that industrial film shoots are some of the rowdiest, most hedonistic shoots on record. Is it fair to say that there tends to be more intravenous action that at a very busy hospital? Is it fair to say that there tends to be more back door action than at both Sodom and Gomorra combined? Probably not really fair, but bordering on true.

On one particular shoot a few years back, Huffer and Saltz Publishing Presents: Safety in the Workplace (Or Mr. Malorkus’ Super Shiny Suit of Distractions), the Best Boy was killed in a bizarre accident. Huffer and Saltz, as well as 1 Sided Perf (the production company) have tried their best to keep it quiet, it has almost been relegated to urban legend at this point, but I’m here to spread the truth.

Most of the crew were done up on a drug cocktail that was in heavy rotation in the industrial film circles; medicinal cocaine and paintball paint. This was mixed together, baked in an oven (around 200 degrees for 2-2 ½ hours) until it was dried, ground into a fine powder, re-moistened once again with Rebel Yell whisky until it was of paste consistency and then spread on Ritz crackers and eaten.

Well, Ritz or its nearest generic comparison.

The crew spent their lunch break so high they actually thought that this project might just change the world. The rangy smell of anal sex filled the set like a fog. And one of the actresses (I will not divulge her name here as it turns out she is extremely litigious and doing her best to dispel this as a rumor) was riding around the board room set on one of those Hippity Hops. She was an actress from the legitimate world of television sitcoms, and so I don’t think she was quite up to the weirdness quotient, as riding around on a Hippity Hop was as ‘far out’ as she tended to get.

It does stand to reason then that when Best Boy Danny Sturdevant attacked the Hippity Hop with a near religious fervor, brandishing a box cutter and screaming, “Hellfire and damnation! Who says you can’t change the world?!?” that this actress would get a little defensive.

Unfortunately, poor Danny was so hopped up on coke-paint that he didn’t see her coming, and she was able to swing a 10k fresnel light straight at his head. Oh, and it didn’t stop there; she kept swinging that bloodied C-stand until Danny… stopped… moving…

1 Sided Perf and Huffer and Saltz managed to cover it up as an ‘industrial accident’, and through enough gin this actress has managed to almost believe it. But we know the truth, and we will get it out there.

Episode 7: Commentary

Seth Tavola (Writer): “This one was actually originally titled, Sky Dog versus Captain Obvious and was about Stephanie coming to terms with her brother being gay.

Marianne Marlow (Stephanie): “What happened with that story?”

ST: “Billy thought it was too cliché and wanted to do a story where he accidentally mails a naughty letter somewhere inappropriate and has to find a way to get it back. That and he wanted gang bangers, not like bloods and crips though… like a… gang bang.”

MM: “He was drinking a lot back then.”

ST: “Yeah, constantly. In fact we changed the title of this one to Drinky McDrunk Takes on the World.”

MM: “Okay, now I remember this scene took about 15 different takes because Michael, who played Derek in the show, kept making this face every time he said, ‘cunnilingus’ and we’d all break! There was…”

ST: “Hey Marianne, I’ve been dying to ask you something. I had heard that you… after the series died… that you went into making industrial films.”

MM: “Yes Seth, I made one.”

ST: “And I kinda heard that one of the people involved died on the set.”

MM: “And where exactly did you hear that?”

ST: “I read it on some fan’s blog.”

MM: “Jesus. You can’t believe anything you read online!”

That's My Billy

At nineteen, the television show of my life involved me living in a ginormous work/live loft in some part of downtown Los Angeles that doesn’t exist. There were floor to ceiling windows on three sides of the place (a brick wall on the fourth) that looked out onto this fantasy neighborhood of tall buildings, fun shops and bistros along narrow and quaint (but clean) streets.

I would be a film director, a young and famous film maker. Everyone wants to work with me, I get blowjobs for breakfast. And despite being fabulously wealthy and famous, I’m down to earth and charming. I have a young assistant named Ethan who gets into all kinds of hilarious situations.

There would be the girl, Stephanie. We worked together, she’s beautiful and unattached. We’re not together, but there’s this constant sexual tension that leads to a number of silly misunderstandings. Occasionally one or the other of us will realize that we should be a couple, but the other one will suddenly be starting a relationship with someone else. Someday…

I would have had these roommate neighbors, two guys (young and attractive) that we would one day do a back story episode on how they became roommates. One of them would have been a stoner guy, Derek, sweet and funny, but pretty dumb. The other, Jonathan, would be sort of an uptight business guy, his ideas would never pan out and his disappointed outrage would be a source of much amusement for the rest of us.

Of course it stopped being funny when, in a rampage Jonathan accidentally kills Derek with a Cuisinart bar blender and then dies from a self inflicted gunshot wound. It turns out that Ethan had a closet meth habit that is now firmly out of the closet. Stephanie and I get shit faced drunk one night and end up fucking. She gets pregnant and runs off home Iowa, never to be heard from again. I’m busted on trumped up charges for deviant internet porn and the agents that bust into and bust up my beautiful work/live loft look an awful lot like the guys who were on that show Project UFO.

Admittedly, the final season was a little rough. In hindsight, we should have quit while we were on top. The first season DVD’s are due out just in time for Christmas. You should check them out, the commentary is funtastic!

New York Stories #2

I get easily suckered into believing what television shows are selling me. Part of me really believes that you can move to New York and live in a huge loft in the Village and be an artist for a living.

But wait Billy, that soft-spoken, rational part of my mind says, how could you afford to live in a place that you could easily ride your bike around in while you work 20 hours a week as a waiter, spending the rest of your time being an artist type guy?

Because people don’t… they don’t want… people hate old buildings with tons of room, the petulant and immature voice of all that’s television bread states.

Truth is that an affordable place in New York City, in that city that doesn’t sleep, is most likely a small and dingy room in a tenement building, with quite possibly a bathtub in the kitchen, and in a shitty neighborhood to boot. Them’s the breaks.

I assumed that on moving to San Francisco I’d be spending my time in a glorious Victorian flat with my glorious and open-minded friends. Yeah, back in ’94 it was almost possible, if you didn’t mind living with 6-8 people. Shit, I mean part of me still seriously believes that if I moved back to LA, I could live in an adorable place right on the beach and be an actor for a living.

It’s almost like there’s this deal between television and NYC where the shows agree to put a happy, magical spin on the city, and then just sprinkle in enough crime shows to scare the shit out of any god-fearing yokel from Nebraska who gets the brilliant idea to move there.

City life can certainly be far more banal and sad, and quite often more dangerous and squalid than Friends makes it out to be. I believe late 70’s era Scorsese hits closer to the mark.

But then again, the ultimate point of television is to not depress you more than your own life and to convince you that you need so many things…


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Two of Hearts by Stacy Q. Don’t ask…

New York Stories

I pass a Krispy Kreme “factory” on my way to work every day. When I was passing in the dark cold this morning, that fried dough smell reminded me of my first trip to New York.

New York was an amazing adventure my first morning there. We took the red eye in, getting to JFK first thing in the morning, and then jumping on the subway into downtown. Biff and I walked everywhere.

We walked to the Empire State Building, and to the Met, and through Central Park, and down to Greenwich Village, which of course we fell in love with.

Nearly everyone who moves out west from the East Coast complains that there are no diners; that and not being on the East Coast. I could divert into a whole other rant here, but I will control myself. We partook of the East Coast tradition of lunch in a diner (a lot of not great food) and cup after cup of that wonder that is diner coffee. Diner coffee is an element of its own, a thing that provides its own definition of warmth and earthiness.

Another mandate from people who learned that we were going to New York was to “get a Krispy Kreme donut, they’re amazing!” We found one near where the World Trade towers once stood.

Whatever, they’re donuts. I’m not a huge donut fan and Krispy Kreme certainly did not change me of that. (Top Pot here in Seattle though might just turn me around…)

But that smell just reminded me of cruising through the wonder that is New York City, again thrilled at having a partner with whom I can travel well with, smiling like a goon all the time. That cold, that coffee, that just thrilled to be there feeling when drinking a beer in a Village bar with my honey, that fear and desire of standing beneath the towers and wanting to spin like Timothy Speed Levitch.

Liquor, Guns and Money (Without the Guns and Money)

The plan was to leave by midnight, at the latest. Couple beers in me, a good 5-5 ½ hours sleep and then off to work. Well, there were free beers involved. Still though, being mature damn it, and went and said goodbye to some people and they put up a fight, impugned my manhood by comparing the small (in relation to normal) amount of alcohol I’d had, and essentially told me I couldn’t leave. I said I would chug another beer, but I’d have to go.

Rob believes that he was the enabler, he wanted responsibility and I let him have it. The truth is I just have little self control. Did I mention free beers?

So after a few more free beers somebody finally busted out a bottle of whisky. Now as most people who know me know (did that sentence seem like it shouldn’t make sense?), if I turn down whisky:

1. I am trying to be responsible and by that point I’ve probably had more than my fair share.

2. I’ve got the spins and I’m about to vomit whisky out my nose.

3. I’m near death. Scratch that one. If I’m near death I’d better be sucking off a bottle like a 400 dollar whore.

So yeah, I ended up having a good time, but at what price? AT WHAT PRICE?!?

Sleep attempted at around 2AM with too much alcohol on an empty stomach. And yes, as the old song says, it’s nobody’s fault but mine. I am finding it difficult to dredge up the empathy at work today for the dumb asses who spill a hot beverage on themselves and expect me to supply them with a lifetime supply of said beverage because they’re dumb asses.

Wrong day to call…

Father?

I don’t have a fear of clowns necessarily, but this picture made me wet myself in absolute, irrational, screaming terror.

I didn’t think dad had been photographed in his “special day” outfit.

I Said, Brrr...

It’s getting’ cold up here. I mean not to the point of thinking to yourself, “holy fuck, my eyeballs are going to freeze and then crackle like ice in a tumbler of whisky”, but it’s just around the corner. It’s that almost cute uncomfortable, where you laugh when you have to leave your incredibly warm bed because your balls have suddenly crawled up into your body and your nipples have hardened to frozen peas atop a cold, cold coin; not painful, not yet, but it certainly makes you nostalgic for that bed.

This late fall/early winter cold is sort of like a plate of cute little appetizer morsels filled with raspberry seeds that will get stuck in your teeth (but you can floss them out fairly easily) before the main course of poop pasta with broken glass.

Last night, as I was crawling between sheets that were refrigerator cold, I moved my foot over towards the outside wall. It was cold, really cold. I was instantly reminded of childhood overnight stays at my grandparent’s house.

When I slept over at my grandparent’s place I would sleep in the room that had once been my Uncle Jim’s. The bed lay right up against a large glass window, and if it was winter, and if you were a religious man, you would pray that you did not roll up against that window. I would climb into that cold bed and lay in one spot, perfectly still, until my body had managed to warm up a section of the sheets and blanket. I would then slowly venture out to other colder parts of the bed, always being able to retreat back to my center of warmth if things got too hairy.

I called this my foxhole. Not like a trench war foxhole, but like an underground den where foxes all nestled together and kept each other warm.

Despite the bitching that will probably come to a fever pitch by the end of December, I like being cold. I like being forced to wrap up and from time to time uncontrollably shivering. But it’s along the lines of being able to eat this fantastic dessert after the plate of gross and painful pasta. I like getting cold so that soon afterward I can get cozy with sweatshirts and sweaters and warm beverages and blankets and steamy kitchens…

Pusherman

When walking to work, I have to walk up above the mighty I-5 on a pedestrian walkway. In more litigious parts of the world, there would be some sort of chain link barrier to keep people from either doing a lemming or from forcing someone else into doing a lemming. But not so here, there is nothing but a thigh high guard rail above a 6 story fall to North and South bound traffic to hold back suicidal/homicidal urges.

Honestly, I’ve always sort of feared this part of the trek, but I’ve tried to trick myself into thinking that I haven’t. I walk right up against the guard rail and look down at those asphalt lanes stretching off towards Canada, towards Portland. But it’s not the heights that I fear, fuck the heights, it’s falling off and then, adding insult to injury being pounded flat by a car.

And more honestly, it’s a fear of being pushed off.

I can only assume that that meaty little evil fucking part of the brain that occasionally spews out bad ideas in a laugh-hoarse whisper has convinced me that if it had occurred to me that someone might attempt to push somebody off of the overpass and into traffic, than it has occurred to everybody. Last week, I skirted by an adorable little waif in a Catholic school skirt at a flat out run.

And this morning, seriously, there was this guy that just seemed unstable. If unstable had a smell like cabbage and worn brakes, this guy would smell like it. He had on second hand suit pants and jacket and red tennis shoes. Oh, and a ubiquitous beanie. That’s not what did it though. It was that and the combination of the quick head jerks he would make as he was walking along, that and the red beard. Guys with beards, I tell you… I got caught having to walk past him on the freeway overpass and damn it if my breathing didn’t get all clipped and spotty. I had to keep my fists clenched tightly to keep my hands from flailing wildly and screaming like a eunuch jumping into snow melt. Plus I was sure the guy kept jerking his head over to look at me while I passed him.

He didn’t push me, obviously, but this is a fear that creeps through my head like a shadow every morning. It’s not keeping me from leaving the house or anything, but I wouldn’t mind drinking heavily before crossing. But then we would move from the realm of irrational fear and probably on into self-fulfilling prophecy.

One Year

Sunday represented our one year anniversary here in Seattle. I would have said something yesterday, but I figured a slow rotting Easter bunny episode was a little more holiday oriented.

It’s shocking how quickly the year has gone by, seriously. And it’s funny to think about puttering around that box filled apartment, scared but excited, spending money that would have been more wisely spent elsewhere to buy a Subway sandwich for dinner from perhaps the surliest woman in Seattle, and knowing absolutely nobody.

Well Chuck, but the son of a bitch ran off to Dallas. That’s happened to me too many times in my life…

I was walking around the neighborhood on Sunday, it was cold and wet and somehow perfectly Seattle, and I felt so happy to be here, it just seemed right. I again thought about my life a year ago and getting up in the morning to read for a couple hours in the cold kitchen and making Irish soda bread out of the margarine mom had given us as a moving in gift before unpacking something or painting something and drinking massive amounts of French Market coffee. While they were nice memories, they did not hold onto the fear that constantly filled those days; fear of abject failure and fear of absolutely no fucking money.

It was nice to later lie on the couch in our put together, painted and comfortable living room, two cats curled up and warm on top of me, the smell of coffee and left over soup coming from the kitchen… and think to myself that we were doing pretty damn good.

Oh and by the way, we went to this restaurant to celebrate the anniversary and found our new absolute favorite place in the city. We can’t wait to take you there!