With One Hour Of Television

Sweet Mother McJuggles, what an effing day.

It’s getting a bit old, this work thing, I’m sure almost as old as hearing about it. Wanna hear about a baby crazy cranky with molars coming in? Molars that apparently take 3 and a half months to make their appearance? Neither do I.

I will say that as The Simpson’s keeps the Kickers placated for half an hour, I had the TV on for a bit. And in just a half an hour, I learned such things. Oh, the things I learned.

Firstly, there’s the Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus concert coming to theaters in Disney 3-D. I’m not sure what many of those words mean when they’re strung together like that. But by the sound of the voice over actors voice, I should be really freakin’ excited about it. You might say it’s a once in a lifetime sort of thing this Miley Montana 3-D thing.

Excited, me, for sure.

Second, guess what’s opening on Valentine’s Day? Don’t really guess, I won’t hear you. Step Up 2: The Streets. I am completely unsure what Step Up 1 is, but from the commercials it appears to be partners from either side of the economic divide coming together, learning something about themselves, and dancing their asses off. It’s directed by Jon Chu, the commercial goes on to excitedly tell me. The commercial tells me this in the same sort of hushed, excited tone that I feel a commercial would tell me that the long lost actual first Orson Welles film had been found.

Jon Chu? Jon Chu! Do you know what Jon Chu has done besides Step Up 2: The Streets? Silent Beats. What? You’ve never head of Silent Beats? You’re not alone.

And before I was finally able to extricate myself from the pull of the TV, there was one more commercial.

WalMart, that bastion of all things American, informed me via their marketing folks that there will be all kinds of women all over the country making food and putting snacks into bowls this weekend for their burly men who will continue to sit on the couch watching the Superbowl. Afterwards, I’m sure the women will go back to the kitchen and clean it up, ‘cause well that’s what women do – they don’t watch football.

Sometimes I get so tired…

Sperms Of Endearment

Speaking of 4 and a half minute cum shots…

Wait. Sorry. No one was, but I’ve already started down that path.

A weird thing that I was talking to some friends about the other day; when I was in high school, me and a bunch of my friends – male friends – would all get together and watch porn.

It was typically at Damon’s place as his mother was typically either out of town or so out of it she wouldn’t notice 6 or 7 teenagers in her place, and there was typically beer. Well, there were typically wine coolers the first few times as we hadn’t developed a taste for anything that didn’t resemble Fanta left to ferment in a Southern California garage. At the time, nothing seemed strange about a gaggle of guys, done up on illicit booze and hormones, sitting around together and watching people acting poorly and fucking hard. It was this strange thrill of doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing. Now, looking back on it, it seems a little odd to me, a little strange.

I would like to end this with some teenaged misunderstanding – a sexy misunderstanding – but there’s nothing. I wish there was a tale of one of us discovering something about ourselves…

Wait. There was that guy John. You know, the 22 year old hanging out with a bunch of 17 year olds. I don’t remember how he ended up orbiting our circle except that he at one time dated our drum major. On one of these porn nights, while if I’m not mistaken we sat on Damon’s couch and watched some guy getting blown in a hot tub, John suddenly busted out with:

“You guys only hang out with me because I can buy you beer.”

We all sat looking at him for a minute, no one refuting it, but no one brave enough to admit to it for fear that our alcohol supply would dry up. After an uncomfortable silence, we all went back to watching Intergalactic Hookers, or whatever.

And so that sad day John learned a little something about himself; that he had no friends and we only put up with him as he would occasionally show up with a half rack and a bottle of root beer schnapps.

I guess I also learned a little something that day; I no longer watch porn with my friends.

Week In Review

I have been an awful blogger lately, last week’s output was embarrassing and I beg your forgiveness. If I had a picture of myself on my knees to post here, I would.

And let me make that clear, if I had a “clean” picture of myself on my knees…

My last week was fairly miserable. I mean it started off fine enough, but then things just continued to slide. There was a moment on Wednesday when I could feel a crack in my composure that I was trying to mend (and by mend I mean ignore), but then as things started piling up, the cracking just kept happening.

It was like that scene in The Lost World: Jurassic Park where the RV is going off the cliff and Julianne Moore hits the back window and as she stares through the glass and into the tremendous fall down a cliff, stress cracks start radiating out underneath her with every move. It was exactly like that, without the T. Rex and without Jeff Goldblum saving me by grabbing onto my lucky backpack.

Where were you Jeff Goldblum, you with your stylized speaking cadence?

There was no big issue, just a bunch of little ones; all of them fantastic examples of the ridiculousness of holding an office job. On Thursday I walked out of the middle of a meeting. On Thursday night I got to one of those points where I couldn’t see past the big Monster Truck of Anger that was gunning its engine in front of me, it felt like all the blood vessels inside of me were going blow. On Friday it entered my mind, albeit briefly, that I could just walk away from this gig and not come back.

Which brings to mind a number of questions, like: Why did Heath have to die for Britney’s sins? And what does this say about the poor timing of Brad Renfro? Does anybody else suspect an Olsen twin of performing murders that look like suicides? And seriously, where were you Jeff Goldblum?

Yeah, it all seems pretty petty and ridiculous now, particularly when you get home to a little man who’s so excited to see you that he starts jumping up and down and clapping. How are you gonna beat that? You’re not, not with a ten foot stick made out of crappy office job.

So, I’m hoping to prioritize my time a bit better and get more posts in, realize this job is what it is and get on with doing what I need to to get on out of it.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock. Don’t ask…

The Mood And Australia

I’m in an all day class today and I’m really excited. Read “excited” as “bored by the prospect of” and “really” as “really”.

I’m going to learn about the power of my career. I’m hoping it’s the ability to breath under water. Or super heated laser beam eyes.

I’m a little beat as I spent a better part of last night tossing and turning. Part of me was worried about not being able to post today – seriously. Part of me was obsessed with Australia coming up with knock off versions of everything in the world. This seemed funnier when I was losing sleep over it.

I’m going to recommend that you read the Australian Billy Cleans His Plate today. If I had the time, I would totally build one and fill it with stories of vegemite. And marsupials, man you cannot go wrong with marsupials.

I’m off for class, books in hand. I’m still really excited (see above)


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: “My Iron Lung” by Radiohead

The Moon and Antarctica

Cold one this morning. It was absolutely clear out, which is honestly a nice break from the recent weather. I realize that being a denizen of the Pacific Northwest (or the PNW as the kids are calling it – they’re not by the way) I’m gonna see some rain. I’m okay with it, I don’t like to complain about it, but when it comes down to it, I’m ready for a break. But with the clear sky in January, comes the cold.

Not the kind of Antarctic cold that will freeze your eyelashes or anything, but certainly the sort of cold that will turn every exhale into swampy condensation on your mustache – if’n you have a mustache. I do, connected to a beard, so I imagined that I must have looked like some sort of rabid mountain man by the time I climbed off of Capitol Hill and entered downtown.

All of the puddles were iced over giving the city hundreds of mini ice fields that grabbed onto whatever light was being tossed their way and held onto it like a secret. All of them shown like scratched up magic; the trapped neon looking particularly, beautifully tarnished. I had this mad, childlike desire to run to every one of those surfaces and crack them with my boot, let that frozen light out. I was almost stopped completely by the icy reflection of the moon.

It was a cold and lonely, pale silver, but somehow it was calming. I looked up and noticed for the first time that morning the nearly full moon up above the dark buildings. I immediately thought of Kickers looking for the moon outside the living room window and, unable to see it from his already tiny vantage point, bending his knees, squatting and tilting his head to try and catch it. I thought of all the chaotic change soon to be entering my life and laughed in its face.

It felt good.

The Earth itself seemed to feel an accommodation to change, and had begun to begrudgingly turn a bit differently, allowing the sun to show up a bit earlier than it had been. The last third of the walk was beneath a predawn blue sky that is a color that seems pulled from my very dreams. It’s seems like a blue created by the right combination of words in a Pixies song, a shade of blue that evades any camera or painters brush, a blue that feels like your first solo drive in a car – and you’re gonna take that ride all night and find yourself in a small and empty town when the next day comes to shake your hand.

If you gotta go to work, this is not a bad way to do it. Not at all.

What I've Got

Nothing.

I’m bogged down in work and bothered to no end that I have to concern myself with the end of the fiscal month. I’m bothered that the combination of the words fiscal and month were ever put before me.

I’m bone tired, dog tired, I’ve been tired. T-I-R-E-D spells it. I keep looking at things on my desk as if I’m expecting an answer, as if the stapler will tell my future with its black, boxy, body. I feel that in response to questions I’m turning my head slowly, that I’m moving in dream time. I find myself resting my head in my hands when I read an email. I’m yawning so long and hard it’s almost erotic.

I’ve got an empty coffee cup. I’ve got a bag of almonds. I’ve got a little, green plastic mermaid that’s designed to hang of the rim of a cup holding a cocktail and I wonder why I don’t go to bars that serve their drinks with little plastic things hanging off of them, or piercing food that’s in them. My typical bars don’t have little plastic cutlasses or monkeys or ring tailed lemurs. And as I yawn another porno yawn, I realize I would probably just choke on it in my mad rush to shove alcohol into my waiting maw.

I have a mad desire to walk up to a coworker and start writing on their face; perhaps the preamble to the Constitution. “We the people…”

I like that a preamble comes before a good regular amble.

I’ve got “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” by Whitney Houston stuck in my head.

Negativity Just Makes Me Stronger

I’ve been, again, being slapped around by some coincidence lately. Typically, as I’ve written before, I start to notice a trend for coincidence and will wait for 3rd occurrence to call it such. This one is new, a new trend in forecasting coincidence, not multiple examples of the same coincidence, but multiple coincidental anomalies stacking up.

I have been spending way too much time at work looking at spreadsheets. Yet on I charge…

Instead of a big, massive, “something’s going on in my world” coincidence, it’s like being in a swarm of coincidences. But unlike bees, which would hurt, this is more like say a swarm of hummingbirds with tickle feathers.

It started with Nikki 2 K’s and me talking about “Bone Machine” by the Pixies. He had it stuck in his head and was digging it fierce. I told him how much I loved that it starts out with this strong and almost backwards drum beat, and then the bass comes in all sly and understated, and then you get slapped in the dick by the guitars. Around about an hour later, we’re in a supervisor check in when, just to shake some shit up, the assistant office manager starts playing a guess the song by the lyrics sorta game. We’re given a “I was talking to preachy preach about kissy kiss” straight outta “Bone Machine”. I almost won that round, but unfortunately left out one “he bought me a soda.”

Later, we’re having some lunch and talking about 80’s movies. We were specifically talking about 80’s movies that we may have loved when we were younger, but should not be revisited. Footloose may have come up, but Footloose comes up in this circle a lot. I mentioned Fletch and how I feared going back to watch The Breakfast Club, not wanting to sully the fond memories I have. At some point Singles came up – not as a movie to avoid seeing again, but because it also comes up in this circle a lot. Talk then naturally turned to the Singles apartment building which is up the street from where I currently live. Y’know, the Singles apartment building:

And the next day, what did I pass on the way to a staged reading? I passed a Safeway. But, soon after I passed the Singles apartment.

There was a third one that I cannot remember unfortunately, completing this coincidence by three rule I seem to have. But today, in the middle of quality scoring some of my reps work and listening to my iPod, I decided I needed to look at something else for a couple of minutes. I went through some blogs that I check on a regular basis, including Dave’s. He is currently playing the shit out of The Basement Tapes by Dylan and The Band. I read this while The Basement Tapes by Dylan and The Band were playing in my ears.

So what, if anything, does any of this mean? Not a damn thing, it’s just a hummingbird ticklefest that will hopefully stop before I pee myself.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: “Sick Of Goodbyes” by Sparklehorse.

Billy's Sense Of Snow

On the way home last night, there was a delightful rain/snow mix; those fat and frigid drops that feel like they’re made of some sort of metal from the future that will eventually learn of their own mortality and turn on the human race. It wasn’t terribly surprising as it was pretty frickin’ cold out, but I begin to become wary of possible snow because of what will inevitably happen, like what happened this morning.

Later in the evening last night, it cleared up. It was no longer raining, but still ass cold. It seemed like a good opportunity to get Kickers out the house for a couple minutes and walk up to the record store. Nothing really happened saved for an arm that felt on fire after lugging a toddler around the used CD section and further evidence that the kid loves a good drum beat.

Soon though, it began to snow. The two of us walked out into it for a minute, the streets and sidewalks collecting the stuff in a manner that seemed pretty fast. It was a really gritty snow, like small chunks of hail that quickly lost any charm. I was reminded of that clichéd fact that people with little imagination often throw out about Eskimos and their 812 words for snow. Great, hurray for the Eskimos.

It stopped snowing and cleared up, which leads the way for a good freezing of the compacted snow into treacherous ice by morning. Did this happen? Oh my, yes.

A precarious walk to work this morning. I was reminded greatly of just last year, at about this same time, when on after throwing my back out I ventured out to the roads only to slip on the sheet of ice that was Pine Street, throwing out my back again, ripping open a brand new pair of jeans and trying to roll out of the road before a car was sent out of control on this very same ice.

I spent a bulk of 3 miles walking a prissy little step meant to keep me from a slapstick, banana peel pratfall. With the exception of the occasional slide, this mostly worked; until the feet decided to betray me horribly and shoot out in front of my body. I managed to wrap my arm around a handhold to keep myself from a full body smack down, but there was the comic effect of those betrayer feet doing a spastic dance skating routine.

I knew it was eventual, so chalked it up to the fall that was due to me and kept going. I guess as the next two miles were without incident, I got cocky. Crossing the street in front of a line of cars looking to get into Interstate 90, I was offered the chance for a full on, face down in the sharply iced pavement, fall – and took it I did. I felt a digging into my knees and watched the cloud of steam that my harshly barked “fuck!” produced float out of my mouth as carefree as, as… I don’t know, something carefree. And I am apparently unaware of a graceful way to lift oneself from an icy street, mere inches away from many cars waiting on a light. But after a few false starts I was up and on my way, David Bowie still playing loud and proud in my ears and no rip in my pants to boot.

Sometimes I feel like life should offer hazard pay.

It's All Hating Faces That I Have To Chop Up With A Machete

And seriously, speaking of Chuck Norris – yesterday - what has happened to this guy?

I was watching some political coverage with pictures of Huckabee looking religiously triumphant and spouting words that I frankly blocked with my patented Ignore-O-Shield.

P.S. I cannot hear the name Huckabee without in the back of my mind hearing Naomi Watts harshly whisper “Fuckabees,” which makes this pre-campaigning more entertaining for me.

But I’m looking at the joshed-up visage of Huckabee, the will of God shining in his eyes, and notice what appears to be the grinning face of Chuck Norris. And no, I know that Chucky has thrown his lot in with the guy, when I’m saying it appeared to be Chuck Norris, I’m saying that it was unlike any Chuck Norris I’m used to seeing. Which granted is not a lot, but…

At first I literally thought that there was a plastic cut out of old Chuckles Norris back there, no joke. It looked as though it might be a life sized bobble head version of him. Well, the head being life sized. Being a bobble head, that would mean that the body is considerably smaller, and I didn’t see his body in this footage, but the head appeared to be made out of cast plastic.

I seriously focused on that floating, tanned face with all the attention I could muster, waiting for a sign of movement; and waiting to ascertain if that was in fact really a person. Nothing moved. There was no sort of reaction to anything, no movement, just this shiny stare into the crowd and a wide smile made up of teeth so white that it burned black spots onto my retina just looking at them; teeth that looked like they might eat the face. This mannequin version of Chuck Norris, this Mannequinorris, finally nodded slightly at some word or phrase, sending out the approval message to his legion of Jr. Texas Rangers, and allowing me to realize he was in fact there.

And what sort of message does having the backing of The Mannequinorris send?
“We will single handedly return to Vietnam and free the prisoners of war.”
“We’re the most karate-choppingest team on the planet!”
“Fear us, or we will kick you repeatedly in the throat!”

I know that you don’t necessarily pick your celebrity endorsers, but I’m a bit puzzled. And a lot of that puzzlement comes from people who might think that The Mannequinorris would be a good judge of presidential candidates.

Direct Action, Pure Prairie League And A Jar Of Garlic Pickles

Yesterday's post being… well, posted, I sometimes dream of living in a world where I only watch movies available from Stop'n'Shops in podunk towns; only listening to cassettes purchased at interstate truck stops.

I revel in a world where I pick up a copy of any direct to video release while I pick up a twelver of Schlitz. I long for a world where my film viewing options are limited to DVD’s with covers that have a lot of flames as their artwork, to movies with robots – lots and lots of robots. I roll in the stink of desire for diving into the filmography of Chuck Norris, Chuck Zito… all the Chuck’s. I positively make my pants wet and sticky thinking about a wide selection of movies starring former NFL players, current/former/current again WWF wrestlers, all within reach of the no name brand snack chips on the shelves behind this spinning wire rack.

I wanna lose my shit to Stone Cold, starring Brian Bosworth.

And think about it, think, think about it: All those dollar cassettes that flood the counters at gravy smelling truck stops all up down the arteries of interstates. Life is a highway, and I wanna ride all night long listening only to TV’s Greatest Theme Songs, The Best of Frank Stallone, some stuff by the guy who sang “Somebody’s Knockin’ At The Door (Somebody’s Ringin’ The Bell)”. I’m feeling the need for all kinds of Conway Twitty, 8 kinds of Alabama, and a sprinkle of The Oak Ridge Boys.

Whew!

By the by, GarageBand on the Mac is my new porn. Older porn included Legend of Zelda on the original Nintendo system and… well, just regular porn.

Land Of Confusion

So I was doing some shopping, standing on line for a register when I took a quick look at the discount DVD’s on the shelf to my right. I can’t help it, I’m constantly looking for a bargain copy of I Love Trouble… There were some movies that I had heard of, Minority Report and Runaway Bride (thank the lord we finally got the Pretty Woman dynamite duo of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts back together), but there was also an ass load of some penguin movie.

Penguins On The Move, or Penguin Insurgence, I don’t remember the exact title unfortunately, but the cover made it pretty clear that this company was trying to jump onto whatever glow remains with the success of March Of The Penguins.

And I realized that this is a gambit that will work on a lot of people. Someone will surely walk by and say, “Hey it’s that penguin movie everyone was talking about. And it’s only $7.99!” Said person may then buy it and (maybe) watch it, never the wiser. Which I guess is fine. If said person had a burning desire to watch March Of The Penguins, they would probably make an effort to remember the name of the movie; probably…

It just made me think of all the chatter out there, all the television shows and mindless movies and overly produced and unoriginal music that we use to block out our lives. "American Idol" may be a fun show to watch, I don’t know I haven’t seen it, but I’m against it philosophically. My issue with it revolves around two women I used to work with who watched the show religiously so they would know what to listen to when a winner was announced.

So this is what was bumming me out under awful florescent lighting while the person in front of me tried to return or exchange some tacky brass candlesticks. Then, as if to illustrate my point, a young woman behind me grabbed a DVD case and explained to her friend:

“It’s that [Interchangeable Young Actress’ Name] movie. I think we saw it. You know? The one where she has a best friend and the mom? Someone gets pregnant?”

I fear leaving this life remembering only a list of vague notions.

Took Flight, First Light

I may have me a coincidence brewing. I typically wait for at least 3 occurrences of something before I consider it a coincidence – and I may be pushing this one a bit. It’s a stretch, but bear with me.

Seriously? It’s “bear” with me? It seems a little strange to me, and it seems like it would leave the door open to polite misunderstandings over honey, and to mauling.

So I was walking in to work along a route I don’t take every day. It’s a route that’s a tad shorter, but involves a little more uphill than others, so I typically just use it on those days I’m running a little late. Say a day I had to have a big boy sit down before leaving, perhaps a day where there was a misunderstanding with the bear with me – a sexy misunderstanding… But on the way in I’m passed by a bus whose advertisement covered side tells me that my job’s in Wyoming. I didn’t know this, and frankly was unprepared for the trip.

Wyoming’s trying to gather itself a workforce thought I. Good for them. Then I sort of stopped walking so quickly (I was running late) while I tried to yank something out of my memory that was tickling back there.

I remembered the week prior, walking the same route in (just didn’t want to get out of bed that day) and at the same block had been listening to the Calexico song “Sunken Waltz”. “Sunken Waltz” tells the story of Carpenter Mike who sets aside his tools and leaves for the empty spaces of far away where he begins listening to his dreams and builds a flying machine. I remember this clearly because as I was focusing on the words, I felt like Carpenter Mike took off to Wyoming – I don’t know why, I just did. But I looked up to check the traffic light, saw the Alaska Building, and realized that this here city was once the fabled far away West. I guess it was the idea of all that empty space that made me think of Wyoming.

And here I was, almost exactly a week later, being again reminded of Wyoming. Why?

Maybe no reason, maybe because it’s where Captain MIA, my drug addled ex-roommate on the run, was last known to be. Maybe next week, when I sleep through my alarm, I will see him standing on a corner across James Street.

By the by, Kickers loves him some Calexico. He dances a mad, crazy dance to some Calexico. No that you should base what you listen to on an infant necessarily, but why aren’t you listening to Calexico?

It Still Has That New Year Smell

I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. And I’m feeling like I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts for awhile. I’m unsure what sort of recharge is necessary, what sort of reboot, but it is apparently not frozen egg rolls and a half rack of PBR. I feel like I’m in a bit of a quandary, like I’m unsure how to go about this post. Do I do a year in review sort of thing, or do I look forward into the new year?

2007 (quick, but with feeling): A tough and rough year in spots, but generally the payoffs were better than I had guessed they would be. I got to watch my son take his first shaky steps into the person he will continue to become, watched him laugh, watched him figure out the joy of cheese, watched him shake his booty to pretty much any music with a beat, watched him live. I did my first role in a full length film and got to do a play that I’m crazy proud to have been a part of. I got out of this year with an amazing lady still by my side and some great friends who held me up from time to time (even if they didn’t realize I was starting to fall).

Enter meandering guitar solo with tasteful distortion, maybe a little flanger…

We welcomed in our own Rockin’ New Years Eve on the couch with the above mentioned PBR and eggrolls, a few episodes of "Arrested Development" and the last half of Poltergeist (starting where dude eats maggot chicken and then tears off his own face). At a couple minutes to midnight we cracked open a bottle of champagne and went outside our front door where you can see the Space Needle. They typically shoot fireworks off the Space Needle, and started to again this year.

We watched the show start and stop after about 45 seconds. We stood there thinking that the displays were a tad longer in years past, a tad more impressive, but we were also under a far deeper influence in years past. We didn’t find out until the next day that there was a computer glitch that kept the show from going on until someone went out and manually lit the fireworks; we had already retreated inside. I also learned that when the news cameras didn’t have fireworks to show, they began to wildly tune back into whatever newscasters they had stationed around our fair city – including going back to a couple of them who were caught passionately kissing. Awesome.

Resolutions? Aside from being resolute in finishing a couple more PBR’s before 12 rolled around, I didn’t make any. It begins to be a bit grating to me when people make a big deal out of not making New Year’s resolutions. It reminds me a lot of vegetarians who spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the meat they don’t eat. I don’t care, just shut up and don’t do it.

Top of my head resolutions for 2008:

• Stop being so hard on people who make a big deal out of not making resolutions. Same goes for vegetarians
• Stop trying to convince my son that crying just means he’s doomed to go to Hell.
• Eat more Brussels sprouts. And more sweet potatoes. Not necessarily together, I just feel I’ve come to them late in life and I have some catching up to do.
• Try harder to mock my own sense of self importance.
• Plant a tree.

I hope everyone had a great start to Aught 8, let’s go…