Thursday, November 30, 2006

Hey Riley

You, my beautiful new son, were born at 4:20 (well technically 4:22, but...) on November 29th. You were 9 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 inches long. You came out with a conehead from all that pushing on mom's pelvis, but thank god it's flattening out; I love you and all, but seriously it was a little freakish.

I was telling kc! today that it's a little tough for me to put this into words, so I beg a little leniency and I apologize.

We went into the hospital at 5:30. After a couple minutes in Triage, and another view of someone putting vingers up in my wife, we found out she was at 4 centimeters which put her immediately into a birthing suite. The moms showed up and told war stories while Biffy went through her contractions. And while it did turn out very difficult to watch her in that much pain, it really took so much focus to be there with her that it became a little secondary.

Biff finally got an epideral (man I really don't know if that's how to spell that, and don't have the time to look it up), and no longer had that 12 year old with his leg caught in a bear trap look on her face. After many, many hours, the nurse (that reminded me a little of Hellby) told her to begin pushing.

I really have to say, Biff was not only the biggest trooper through the whole pregnancy, but she just shone like the sun during the contractions and pushing. You got yourself a pretty amazing mother there.

After about an hour and a half of pushing, they told us that a C-section was in order.

I tried to keep all of my attention on keeping Biff from being too scared, but couldn't help being amazed at the casual conversations all those doctors and nurses were having while cutting into her; it was like they were just doing a simple jobby job.

I heard you cry first, and everything seized up. I couldn't breathe all of the sudden, I kinda forgot how to for a second. Someone laughingly told me to stand up and look at the baby, see what we had. I gotta tell you buddy, I was so sure you were going to be a girl that I was flabbergasted by the sight of your johnson hanging in the wind. Biffy asked breathlessly what it was, and when I heard my own shaky voice say, "it's a boy", I lost my shit.

I cried those immense, blissful tears that come only once every so often; the ones that run with force when you're granted for just a moment to understand how truly amazing the world can be.

Those tears came again when I put my hand on your shrieking, red and bloody body, when I said softly, "hey Riley", and you immediately calmed down. The Hellby nurse had to prod me into touching you, I was afraid to break you.

Oh, and after I picked you up and you looked into my face for a second with those already familiar eyes, and I told your smiling mom you had blue eyes, I was overwhelmed all over again.

Everything since has been pretty blurry; the attempts at trying to get all the calls made, the crying, the vain sleep attempts the changing of diapers filled with this awfully sticky proto-poop. But those are the things I remember clearly, that and thinking that Doug Martsch singing in the backgrounf while your mom tried to push you out into the world seemed so right.

I gotta get back to the hospital now and see you. I already whispered this to your sleeping ear last night, but even when you turn 16, and all those "sins of the father" turn around to bite me on the ass, when you are so damn sure that you hate my guts, I will still be somewhere with my arm around you to keep from crying and smiling at those funny little murmurs you made.

I love you like crazy Riley Phillip. You've blown an amazing hole in this already amazing world and I can't wait to take this trip with you.

Hey Critter, Again

Had I written a post yesterday, it probably would of read like something a homeless dude on PCP wrote on a BART station bathroom wall with a mustard packet. I was out of it, and emotionally drained. Things aren't a ton better today, not a whole lot of sleep, but we're gonna try it valiant readers, we're gonna try.

I probably would have remembered to tell you that the clouds broke long enough for me to see the Olympics covered in snow on that walk home from work on Tuesday, that Tuesday that seems like weeks ago, on someone else's calendar. Had I posted this yesterday, I probably would have told you that seeing the mountains, and thinking of you coming so soon made me cry, and certainly not for the last time.

Had I posted yesterday, I would have told you that you kept me up far longer than was necessary, and put your mom through a lot. But today, I cannot blame you for anything. You are way too beautiful when you fall asleep on my arm.

Had I posted yesterday, I would have ended with the No!vember songs of the day: No Surprises by Radiohead and No Quarter by Led Zeppelin.

Chill out, I'll be right back...

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Coming Soon

Got the call. I was at work for a whole of about 7 minutes when Biff called and told me it might be time to come home. And so I walked right back, all the glorious Pixies that my ipod could dish up couldn't wash out the heart palpatating news that we could have a baby today.

Currently at home, waiting on contractions to increase, moms on their way...

Oh and hey, by the by, something I never need to see again (besides The Cutting Edge): A doctor placing his hands up inside my wife's vajayjay and saying, "there's the head". At least this time he managed to not say, "2 fingers going in".

Then again, I guess this is something I'm going to need to watch at least one more time.

Hopefully news soon, we're jumping in.


No!vember song of the day: Oh No! by Camper Van Beethoven.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hey Critter

On the day that you were due to be born, Mandy ran her first marathon. She rocked it like star she is.

We also got our first snowfall of the winter in Seattle. I had a nice couple of minutes walking through it to the store to get an eggplant. Apparently eggplant has something in it that can help getting labor started. We'll see how the eggplant parmesan works tonight.

It's time to come out, there's a lot of folks who can't wait to meet you.


No!vember song of the day: Ain't No Right by Janes Addiction and No One Else by Weezer.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Thanks

Much like the Thanksgivings of old in San Francisco, when we would sleep in, go see a movie or three and come home to make ground turkey burritos, Bif and I managed to avoid any family drama (directly anyway) for Thanksgiving. To which I give thanks.

Being she can begin having a child at any moment, she decided she did not want to make the hour to an hour and a half drive to Bremerton for the family Thanksgiving celebration. We had dinner at Mandy and Jason's, just the 4 of us, and just delightful. To which I give thanks.

We got dropped a small bit of family drama in that as Biffy's mom and dad have come up here to be with us with the impending baby, Thanksgiving itself was in jeopardy. In a glorious, passive-aggressive move from a grandmother who had attempted some other delightful passive-aggressive moves to keep the parents-in-law from leaving Los Angeles, the news came down the wire that Grandma did not know how to cook a turkey. As it turned out, the other grandmother claimed to not know how to cook a turkey either.

Okay, what? Not only did these two woman hail from the generation where they cooked every meal ever eaten in the household as the husbands obstinately refused to cook - and this is DEFINITELY true of these ladies, cooking a turkey is not akin to roasting a pig in a pit with hot coals. How did Thanksgiving go down when mom-in-law was too small to cook the damn turkey for them? What happened to their cookbooks?

And then other family members began jumping into the fray and throwing blame on popular family scapegoats... Whatever, family drama. As I was saying, we managed to avoid the great brunt of it. To which I give thanks.

Dinner? Just a giant slice of fantastic. There was turkey of course, which Jason also did not know how to cook, but managed to do it without purposefully trying to cause trouble and make people feel sorry for him at the same time - he's awesome. There was enough mashed potatoes to make an actual sized replica of Devil's Tower, gravy, sweet potatoes (and not that sickeningly sweet variety of them), corn, cranberry sauce from scratch, stuffing with apple and walnuts, brussel sprouts (thank you again Eric), and homemade rolls that I managed to burn on the bottom a little - sorry guys. There was also pecan pie and Mandy's chocolate pudding pie creation. Insert sound of smacking lips here...

Good dinner, good friends, inappropriate conversations and board games. Apparently Mandy will not play Scene-It with me anymore though...

Thank you M&J for having us over, for a great dinner and for a brief reprieve from the formless fear of what's to come any minute now.


No!vember song of the day: An Ode To No One by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Into Every Life...

As it is getting to be winter, we're getting into our rainy days. And we're getting into those intolerable days where born and bred Seattleites start bitching about the weather. I've said them before, I'll say them apparently as long as I have to endure the prattle: 1) It's Seattle, it rains here. Don't like it? Move. 2) It's winter, the weather's supposed to be crappy. Suck it up.

And yes, we've been inundated with biblical deluges up here; people are building SUV arcs, gathering spoiled lap dogs and trophy pets in twos. Whole towns have been washed away, which would theoretically be horrible if we hadn't lost a whole crop white trash, current regime supporters.

Hyperbole aside, we have apparently broken records for rainfall - again. Didn't this just happen not so long ago? Yes, we've broken records that have been kept for a total of fifty-some years. None of this changes the above bullet points people, shut the whining.

Last night, in a less harsh and judgmental mood, I stood at the window in the living room and watched shifting patterns the rain was making in the halo of the street lamp on the saturated street. It was a calming, sort of Zen moment.

I remembered, being a child, curled up in the silent living room, bathed in Christmas tree lights and listening to the rain hit the roof.
I remembered a little film called Regen that we watched in an avant-garde film class, one that I fell in love with.

Regen is a Dutch short that was made in 1929 and is essentially made up of varying shots of rain throughout Amsterdam; rain on windows, rain on streets, rain dripping off of cars. It's all a languorous song with a melancholy and hazy feel to it. This memory in turn made me lament the sort of child like wonder of filming that around you that fascinates, the ballsiness of creating beauty from something as simple as the rain and how this is missing from most popular film makers.

Anyway, if you're in drier climes, check out Regen if possible. It's available on some experimental shorts collections out there, possibly at the library even, and it's about 10 minutes out of your day. If you're here in Seattle, settle down, relax, enjoy the show out your window for a little while.

Everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving.


No!vember song of the day: Ain't No Good by Cake.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A Special Place For Special Moments

The day has come and gone, the day that I predicted like a drunken Nostradamus. I awoke from a fevered sleep the week before last with the words "the 19th" clinging to my dry, chapped lips. I became fairly certain that Biffy would have the baby on that Sunday.

No go, my flu induced psychic abilities have been debunked. But it's coming folks, it's close, it could be any minute. There's a lot on my mind, and more than anything, it's the memory of Shakey's.
Shakeys

Shakey's was a pizza parlor that had flourished around the Seattle area when I was a kid. It was a place that we went to for special occasions, like birthday parties or after baseball games. There is a little Kodak Instamatic picture that I remember very clearly of me, Kenny, Tom and my brother at the Shakey's near Kent's East Hill, where I believe it was a birthday celebration, and I want to say I have a Greedo action figure in my hand. The Shakey's was also so very close to the Skate King!

Shakey's had this old timey thing going for it. The guys making the pizza used to have to dress like this:
shakeysguys
There was a player piano, and the one in Kent would often show old Laurel and Hardy shorts on a projector. All the signs in the place were made of wood and had like this "Robin Hood" font.

Shakey's was started by a man named Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson in Sacramento, so named due to nerve damage caused by malaria. Ahh, back in the day when people weren't afraid to take a malady and make a nickname out of it. I can't say why, but this makes me want to snigger behind my hand like I just overheard the teacher fart.

The pizza at Shakey's had this thin crust with an almost overpowering beer/yeast flavor. Eventually the Shakey's developed a buffet style deal where you could get fried chicken and freaking mojo potatoes. Sometimes I see those seasoned, fried potato discs in my dreams...

On thinking back on it, the pizza was probably not so good, the mojo potatoes even less so, but the memories! All those drunken memories...

This was before you could call up and have a pizza delivered, and back before there were many pizza parlors out there at all. At least in Kent, WA. If you wanted pizza, and much like today I always wanted pizza, you went to Shakey's or made it yourself. Pretty soon, other places like Godfather's and Pizza and Pipes opened up. The Chuck E. Cheese's took over the special occasion pizza market for awhile. And then it just became easier to have some stoner 19 year old bring you a pizza and a 2 liter in his battered Honda, free if it took longer than 30 minutes, than to take the kids out.

Shakey's is now apparently huge in the Philippines, but not really anywhere else. There are about four left in and around the greater Seattle area. There was one left in the Hollywood/LA area a couple of years back that I went to after my brother-in-law's wedding. But this wasn't a particularly good memory as I was tired, hot, hung over, and had spent a majority of the night before cleaning up someone else’s regurgitated Filipino Bar-B-Q. Irony?


No!vember song of the day: a 2fer Tuesday selection, a double negative, of No Children by The Mountain Goats and No Love Lost by Joy Division.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Playing Doctor

I have this inherent distrust of doctors and pharmaceuticals.

It wasn't always this way, it was drilled in through bad experiences and far too many commercials for unnecessary "medicine" for manufactured illness. Now, every time I enter a doctor's office, even if it's not for me, I immediately flash to countless visits where I would wait in agony for a shot that was a short lasting band-aid on a big scar.

They are all fairly similar, those doctor's offices. They're all beige, fastidious little rooms with bland watercolor paintings. They all smell the same.

I know there are doctors out there that are good, that care for their patients, that care about helping people and making them well. But doctors seem to have been forced to bend to that sort of American "fast food" mentality - just fix it now! And if you can do it in pill form, all the better.

There seems to be very little interest in getting to the root of the problem, of attempting to cure someone on a more holistic approach. But Americans don't have the time for this, isn't there a pill that will fix it? Hey fatass with the Cheeto crumbs lodged in the corners of your mouth! You probably wouldn't need your heartburn/acid reflux medicine if you wouldn't eat like a fucking pig and got out of your car once in awhile to walk your ass around the block.

Oh and yes, there are pills that will fix anything for you, even problems you didn't realize you had. Turn on the television, you can't go ten minutes without a commercial for some brightly colored pill with a Latin-lite type name. And the litany of symptoms that they begin to list off begin to seem like a daily paper horoscope; just generic enough that any hypochondriac out there will realize they have that symptom.

Restless Leg Syndrome? 12 million people suffer from this? Are you fucking kidding me?

Pharmaceutical companies have pimped out our doctors to becoming nothing more than drug pushers. There's big, big money to be had in avoiding actually fixing a problem and causing side effects that more pills can take care of for you. I've heard too many stories about psychologists (psychiatrists?) prescribing mood stabilizers and anti-depressants faster than a fax to your insurance company, but don't seem terribly skilled in a regiment to get you off those pills.

It's even gotten so bad with me, that I fear taking over the counter medicines, I fear all of those unpronounceable chemicals that take up a side of the box. And yes, there's the herbal route, but then people fall into that sort of weird brainwashing of, "it's all natural so it’s good".

I realize that it's something I'm going to have to get over, this fear of doctors. At some point there's going to be some sort of ailment that all the juice and bed rest in the world won't fix. I just hope to god it's not Erectile Dysfunction.


No!vember song of the day: Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine by The White Stripes

Friday, November 17, 2006

Deviled Egg Flavor?

Bless you Jones Soda!

I can't remember exactly when I became a fan of Jones Soda, if pressured by some enraged looking Cossack with a rusty bayonet, I would probably say it was the blue Bubble Gum flavored soda that won me over. I am a fan of both odd flavored soda and foods that are blue. But it was the fan picture posted on a bottle of root beer, one of a Port-a-Potty apparently named Biffy, which enamored forever.

Jones Soda operates out of the Seattle area here. When we first moved up here, there was a job posting for them that I applied for but didn't get. They also introduced their holiday flavors around this time. A limited supply, 5 pack of holiday themed sodas which included the flavors: Turkey and Gravy Soda, Green Bean Casserole Soda, Mashed Potato and Butter Soda, Cranberry Soda and Fruitcake Soda.

I learned about it too late to find any in the store and it stuck in the back of my mind in that hateful file of regret. Effing Turkey and Gravy Soda? I had to try that shit!

I don't know what happened exactly, but I missed the last holiday offering as well: Turkey and Gravy, Broccoli Casserole, Smoked Salmon Pate, Corn on the Cob and Pecan Pie.

However, on a beer run with Eric, I saw the majestic packaging up above all of that beer; the 2006 edition:
holidaypack-2006
Turkey and Gravy, Dinner Roll, Sweet Potato, Pea and Antacid.

The first sip of the Turkey and Gravy proved to be... disturbing. Instead of the sweetness that accompanies a swig of soda, there was a wash of salt. It took a lot to get your mind around it. And beyond that, it didn't really seem to taste much like turkey and/or gravy. Mercedes nailed it when she said that it tasted like Slime.

Remember Slime?
2slime
I effing loved slime! Chemical smelling goop in a plastic trash can. I cannot explain what the god damn fascination was, but I wanted some Slime so damn bad. And I never got any... As the years progressed, they also introduced Slime with worms in it, Slime with eyeballs in it...

So yeah, the Turkey and Gravy did sort of taste like what Slime generally smelled like. I moved onto the Dinner Roll. Again, the non-sweet, uber salty made me wince because of years of programmed soda expectance. This was mildly better than the Turkey and Gravy, you could taste the butter, but still so salty it made old sailors seem tame.

The Sweet Potato was at least sweet, but it did have the flavor of a tuber. It was okay, not something I would buy on a regular basis, or probably at all, but it did at least taste close to the item it was supposed to approximate. It did also unfortunately lead to a Sweet Potato vs. Yam discussion which can, if you've ever found yourself in one, last much longer than you'd ever want.

As the flu came back from hiding around this time, I have been nervous about continuing on with the Pea Soda, so it still sits in the fridge unopened. I am curious though, very curious indeed.

And I'm pretty sure I know what that pink Antacid flavor is going to taste like, and I have to say that I feel a little jipped in the desert soda department, the Pecan Pie Soda sounds good.


No!vember song of the day: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Protected From The Rain

It's funny when people come to visit you from out of town. You want to show them the best of what your home has to offer, and while this may not necessarily include things on the universal tourist checklist of things to see, you as tour guide somehow feel responsible for every time your guest is forced to say no when asked by some well meaning person if they saw such and such.

Okay, well I do anyway. I also feel this overpowering urge to tell people that it doesn't always rain here. Part of me likes it when visitors get the full Seattle feel of things when they get rained upon, but then I also wish they could have one of those spectacular days when it is crystal clear and you can see water and mountains everywhere your eyes go.

So Mercedes and Eric got the rainy days while they were up here, rainy and cold. But damn it, they were troopers! Did they stand in the pissing, cold drizzle to watch boats come through the Ballard locks? Yes they did. Did they walk through downtown and down to the market in the rain? Yes they did. Did they jump on a ferry to Bainbridge Island just to jump on a ferry to anywhere? Yes they did.

And that is exactly the sort of tourism that I love, they can handle what comes at them with a joke or bitchy comment, and will go check something out for no other reason than to go check it out. Having had the experience of traveling with Mercedes, I already knew that we fit together well; I drag her hung over ass around when she can't find the motivation, she buys me shitty Circle K coffee when I'm locked in a bout of post Hand Grenade vomiting.

While I'm not sure if I played the perfect salesman for Seattle, I know Mercedes at least would tell me if there was something else she would rather be doing. And she would tell me in a very caustic fashion...

But the things that make me smile thinking back on them are not the Touristy McTour Guide things we did. It was walking through the downpour to the grocery store with Mercedes, both in bright yellow rain gear, to get ice cream and then mock fighting over the honking duck dog toy she decided to get. It was watching Eric cook up a feast in our little kitchen, giving tips on boiling greens and cooking rice all the while. It was sitting, or laying, around the living room with the heater going, listening to music and talking shit.

Thanks for coming guys, it was great seeing you. I hope you will at least think about coming back in the spring or summer when it doesn't get dark at 3:30 and you can see the mountains from atop that water tower.


No!vember song of the day: No New Tale To Tell by Love & Rockets.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Remiss

I've been remiss in posting today. I have been doing actual work type work, and the flu that I was pretty sure that I had kicked last week with that squinty-eyed near suspicion that the fucker's just hiding, has morphed into a head cold that is slowing the world down considerably.

I've been remiss in not having eaten brussel sprouts before this weekend. Oh hell yes. Thank you again Eric , you've shown me a light that I didn't know was not on.

I was remiss in not teaching Eric the A,E and G chords on the guitar. I did bust the guitar out to show you sleepy man, but you were sleeping. Next time...

I've been remiss in not collecting stories of Mercedes' and Eric's visit to our fair city for today’s posting. I'll revisit this thought tomorrow, but as I pointed out above - worky work and head cold tired.

I was remiss in not waking up early enough to see the two of them off this morning. I awoke to find the blankets and such in neatly folded piles atop the empty air mattress where once lay a tumble of bodies. There's not a lot more that can break your heart so quickly as that.

I already miss those kids…


No!vember song of the day: For No One by The Beatles

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Been Caught Stealing

I was thinking of writing a diatribe on how I really hate it when people abuse systems set up to help people who legitimately need them; selfish fucks who insist that their accessory pets are service animals, selfish fucks who abuse work disability systems... This also brings to mind those who claim discrimination to get their way when they know it didn't happen. This horridly mocks those who actually have been discriminated against. There's a special death squad fantasy place for those folks, here in my heart.

But then, as I'm wont to do, I started thinking about porn.

My dad kept a small supply of dirty magazines in his bedroom - usually the sock or underwear drawer. When I was 11 or 12, my friend and neighbor David and I snuck one of my dad's Penthouse magazines into the small tract of woods behind my house. We sat there and looked at the lurid pictures.

I don't remember being particularly aroused by the soft focus pictures of heavily made up ladies with digits strategically placed. I think that it was really that faint thrill of flirting with the forbidden. It was knowing I wasn't supposed to be looking at the magazine, that I had snuck it from my dad's bedroom.

"What are you guys doing?" my dad yelled from the backyard.

The two of us, wide-eyed, quickly closed the magazine and rushed out of the woods. David, saying only a hurried goodbye, rushed past my dad and went back home across the street. My dad again asked what we had been doing and after making some lame excuse, he told me to take him where we had been. I began to lead him down one of the paths away from the clump of huckleberry bushes where we had left the Penthouse, but in that particular moment my father proved to be far slyer than I had given him credit for. He left my following and went directly to where we had been.

I don't remember any words he might have said, I'm sure he understood the curiosity of a prepubescent boy, I only remember him grabbing the magazine and pushing me before him out of the woods. I remember him making me clean the garage as a punishment, but I had the feeling it was more of an excuse to have someone clean the garage so he wouldn’t have to do it.

I do also remember him getting mad at David for leaving when he returned a couple hours later to play catch.

From what I understand, if donating sperm, the clinic will provide magazines such as these to get things going. I wonder how often the folks are asked if the donor can get something "a little raunchier" if the Playboy provided doesn't work out.


Because I feel that I have been remiss to dedicated readers who have asked for it... No!vember song of the day: No Depression by Uncle Tupelo.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Ketchup

Been out for a week, so a quick follow up on the going-ons around about here:

My beloved Jen Jen is now a married woman. With Beth being in the condition that she is (y'know, exasperatingly pregnant), we were unable to take the trip to the OC for the event, but I have mad love for those crazy kids. For some reason I imagine the four of us making popcorn balls in a kitchen somewhere, kids playing loudly in the background just underneath the sounds of some triumphantly indy band playing on a record player. Congratulations Jenny and Michael, I love you two something crazy.

I went to a fathering class on Saturday. One of the other fathers made a joke about having to be out at a certain time to get to a bar and watch the Seahawks with the guys. Oh boy, was that funny. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it was the diaphragm shattering laughter that ensued which made way for the illness that put me down for the last couple of days. We learned about how to pick a baby up without damaging their fragile little heads and necks (fuckin' babies), we learned about diapering and swaddling, we learned about having a plan for those times when the baby starts crying uncontrollably for hours on end and you have the urge to induce some sort of brain damage just to shut it up. My plan is to put baby in a separate room, close the door, open a beer (which will from here on out be in steady supply) and watch a couple minutes of Jaws, or The Big Lebowski.

On Sunday we visited the hospital and the "birthing suites" where the child shall enter the world. They're nice, a lot of wood trim everywhere. They seem very Scandinavian somehow, which is apropos for a hospital named Swedish. I imagined myself floating around the "baby entering the world" floor for hours, Biffy apparently imagined for the first time how real this all is going to become. She began to get worried about being able to do this, and tried in vain to reassure her that she'd be fine.

My beer supply is diminishing quickly.

I spent Monday rearranging the office which once held bookshelves and a desk and my amps and guitars so that it could now hold baby things. Things like a crib and changing table and all of these things that I would not know about, or realize that I would need to know about, two years ago. I am still holding out hopes of one day having a house with a basement where the amps can make a triumphant return in all their loud, feedbacky glory.

Tuesday I awoke to a flu that felt like it had taken a playpen to my joints and whacked unmercifully. Things have been pretty fuzzy since then. I tried to watch some Star Wars movies, but ended up sleeping through them in a feverish state instead. But I can say that even a fever does not make Ewoks palatable.

Ewoks still suck...

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Not Quite Heaven, Not Quite Hell, But There's A Sharper Image

I just awoke from a flu-filled sleep where there lived a fever-induced dream of what purgatory is like.

It’s not that bad.

Purgatory is a ginormous river front shopping pavilion. Oh the shops that are there, my stars. I actually don’t remember what shops were there, except that they stretched on as far as the eye could see. Oh, there was a Safeway, a great big Safeway with generic looking produce. But this Safeway always seemed to be playing the Best of the Cure over the loudspeakers, but it was the latter, less enjoyable, post-Disintegration era Best of the Cure.

Everyone there was dressed fairly nicely; everyone had sunglasses. It was sunny and hot on the sidewalk, but the lazy river that curved around the shops was constantly in the shade, and cold from what I could gather.

I believe that there was a zoo somewhere in purgatory, and I believe there was also some sort of experimental lab on the premises. Which naturally brought a gaggle of protestors.

People wandered around shopping, girls were stealing the boys that their best friends were interested in. kc! and I sat on a bench singing What Is And What Should Never Be, discussing Jimmy Page’s slide playing.

I’m hoping to be back to normal tomorrow everyone – lots of rest and apple juice.

Friday, November 03, 2006

But I Won't

I could tell you someone else's story about their roommate's immense porn collection which apparently contained a tape of amateurish, black and white and quite raunchy gay porn inside a straight porn cover which had been found accidentally...

Or I could tell you about the flash of a movie scene that came to me this morning: A man crosses a freeway overpass as monstrous squid tentacles begin to wrap over the safety railing from below. A young woman who had been walking about twenty yards ahead, suddenly turns, clutching what appears to be a box of Hostess Ding Dongs to her chest. She throws out the sort of snarl one would imagine a cornered mother badger would, clutches the box tighter to her chest, turns and runs. There has been a sort of aural mix of Angelo Badalamenti score and seedy bar, honky-tonk piano through this, but now a distortion heavy guitar picks up. The man looks over to his left to see a fairly conventional looking rock band playing on a makeshift stage made of plastic milk crates. The crowd surrounding them dance in a pagan frenzy, somehow setting concrete pillars on fire...

Or I could tell you about the odd, calm, but melancholy feeling I have after the raging frustration that had built with the man period I had been experiencing the last couple of days, and how it feels made and built by the odd combination of things; excitement for the unknown and being tired of looking for things to be angry at, the inane chatter around and the lonely wail of the train whistle outside...

Or I could tell you that I really want to be at home on this rainy and cold day, wrapped up and watching a movie, drinking coffee and eating a chicken pot pie...

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Madonna And The Whore

So I was watching a network "news" program, which admittedly was my problem, and it got me to loudly and aggressively ponder some things.

And I was feeling good, I'd gone out and gotten some beer and tots, I was cuddled up on a couch. But apparently, my bullshit acceptance valve has been broken by the lack of television watching.

First there was Madonna. She was doing an interview in response to the ghastly media attacks in regards to her adoption. Shhhh, did you hear that? That was the exploding sound of me giving a fuck. There was a brief teaser trailer for the upcoming chat with Madonna that the grave voiced announcer promised would be coming right up. Commercials quickly followed, and one of them was for the network's showing of Madonna's concert.

Coincidence? I think not.

I'm sure Madonna is a great lady, I'm sure she loves her children and I certainly hope that she has the best intentions with raising what I'm sure was an expensive African child, but using this non-fascinating hoopla to pimp her show is a little tasteless. "No! You're wrong! Madge would never do that!" I can hear legions of her fans saying. No, she has certainly never been a publicity whore before.

See, stars have publicists who earn their paychecks making sure their client's names are kept in the public consciousness. And then there are celebrities that don't use a publicist, or don't use it to the extent that the Jessica Simpsons and Paris Hiltons do. How often do hear about Robert Deniro's kids? Is the name of Johnny Depp's child more of a household name than some of our best writers?

So avoiding Madonna's oddly disturbing British affectation, the channel was turned to the local news. One of the news stories, I shit you not, was telling us that if you rent Blockbuster movies online, you can return those movies at a store.

How the fuck is that news? That my friends, is a commercial for perks to having an account with Blockbuster online. Did Blockbuster have to pay money to get that onto the local 10 O'clock news? Viacom owned Blockbuster, Blockbuster which bowed to the Religious Right and refused to carry The Last Temptation of Christ and carries edited versions of other films for their "family" demographic, had a commercial in the guise of a news report.

It's 7 degrees of awesome that Blockbuster is righteously indignant at the thought of carrying a film rated NC-17, but has no problem turning the "news" into a whore for their services.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Long Live The New Flesh

I'm in this strange head space. You can taste transition on the air - it tastes like slightly overcooked caramel by the way; you can feel it pressing in. It could get to be a paranoid downer if I didn't feel good about this, if I didn't feel, if not ready, at least ready to face changes.

On the walk in to work today, I stopped at least three times realizing that the prior five minutes or so had gone by as if in a blackout. No memory of buildings passed, no memory of the music in the headphones, no memory of the thoughts I had been thinking. This is not normal mental behavior on my walk, I may become uber focused on something and lose myself, but I can always ask the inner stenographer to read back the inner dialogue. Not today...

I feel my mind trying to adjust itself to the change.

Everything right now sort of feels like driving over a bridge with someone who is afraid of driving over a bridge. The passenger takes in sort of a hurried, nervous breath on leaving solid city ground, holds that breath as best as possible while driving over, only to let loose a sigh when safely on the other side. I didn't realize at the time, but all of that rush of fear and excitement was the long pull of breath in.

We're in the held breath section right now, a place where every action seems to hold far more responsibility than it does, a place where it seems every superstition is necessity and is only held together by this supreme force of will.

I have this memory that I'm not sure is mine - someone getting their tarot cards read and getting this panic stricken look when the Death card is dealt. The reader very calmly explains that death is not a negative thing, it only represents transition, change. I feel like I'm preparing for the death of everything that has come before - and I'm realizing that this is not a negative thing in the least. My life is about to change to the very core of things, and I think my mind is trying to give me a reassuring hand on the back while it ushers me to a whole new focus.

I've always had a tumultuous relationship with change, but I'm even excited by the change that will come to that as well.