S.F.F.S.P. Episode 12: The Tot-Rito

• Get a flour tortilla, a pretty big one, preferably one of those awesome ones I think they must make with lard or something that come in bags unmarked except with a ruler to measure the diameter.
  
• Have your roommate be just taking some onion-flavored tater tots out of the oven.
  
• Put about 10 tater tots on your tortilla.
  
• Put some ketchup, some sriracha, and some mayo on there.
  
• Microwave it for too long, in order to make the tortilla do that thing where it gets kinda dry and crunchy.
  
• It sure tasted good last night, though it may never again...

G

G is for a lot of things but for today let's say G is for Gravity.

Because when I was oh let's say 12 I must have learned about Gravity, probably there was an inset on a corner of a page of a brown-paper-bag-dust-jacketed book. It must have been from some source less reputable, though, that there was, there in my 12 year old mind, the strangely potent word Vortex, that fascinating kind of scientific word with both a V and an X, its definition vaguely trailing behind.

The two ideas were there in my 12 year old mind, in my 12 year old brain inside my 12 year old body, inside a blue dodge van that hurtled what I imagined to be tens of thousands of miles from Akron to let's say Utah. They must have been there still beneath that tree, where on a family hike I found it slightly harder to stand from a crouch than it ought to have been.

This is the place, my 12 year old self thought. This is the Vortex, this is a glitch in the structure of Gravity and it has only this subtle effect: that it is slightly harder to stand from a crouch than it ought to be.

G is for Gravity but F is for Fishing pole, and as I recall it now, I guess I had one in segments in my backpack, the longest and most elastic of which arched like a Bow-flex between backpack and tree limb as I rose and fell, flush with the sense of the Momentous.

Help me complete my Magical Bandana Color Vortex

Thee Fyne and Sordid Taile of Gabblecocke the Crabgath'rer

Well, I guess all we know for sure about the guy is he lived long ago, he was a brilliant board arguer and the first Dean of Arguments, he was known for his zero tolerance approach to scab-grappling and filimandering, he probably had a flowing, white beard, he practically invented modern techniques of both ghost-tittification and wang-wrangling as we know them, and you gotta imagine he carried some manner of staff or scepter.

A point about baseball and money I think it is important to keep in mind in these boring times

Yes, it is boring and predictable that the Yankees, what with their payroll about a third larger than that of the next biggest payroll in the mlb and closer to double their NL rival this year (according to this), won the World Series. We have all heard it before, about buying a championship team. And listen, I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy. I felt almost physically sick when they were talking about A-Rod's and Texeira's first rings like the endpoint of a great hero's journey instead of the result of playing on shitty teams for a few more million until now.

BUT, I submit to you the following counter-arguments before you point your hate the wrong way:

• Spending money is American. That is the American way. The Yankees wouldn't make all that money in the first place if they weren't putting out a great product, both on and off the field. Sure they live in a giant metropolis, but I'd be interested to find out how much of their income doesn't filter in from the immediate area. They have I guess what people call a "brand." That is American. Baseball is American. Capitalism is American.
  
• So-called "small-market" teams (don't know about you, but I would love to be the guy with the biggest take of the Florida Marlins' 36 million) still make a SHIT TON of money. Where does the majority of that money go? In the owners' pockets. Every time you go to these annoying new stadiums, with their mall-like interiors and their $10 beers, most of your money is going into the owners' pockets. Every owner in the mlb is making all kinds of money. But guess what? Some owners don't give a flying fuck if their team does well (see the Chicago Cubs up til recently) and some do. Some owners, like some players, will take a couple million less to put more money into building a better product. Don't think for a second the Yankees wouldn't pull in just as much dough if they came in second, and then more of the dough could go to the owners' pockets. But instead they go out and buy the best team in baseball. That is American. That is baseball.
  
• Amid all the talk of Pay-Rod and stuff, it's easy to forget about some long-time Yankees like Andy Pettite or Mariano Rivera. Those guys are old-school, man, playing for the same team for so long. Pettite's salary isn't even all that ridiculous. Almost any player in the mlb will tell you they want to play for a contender, and therefore the Yankees are easily the most desirable team for the players, since they know every single year the front office is going to do everything possible to win.
  

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, ya, I hate the Yankees, but also I am pissed at every other team for not spending more dough. You know they got it. There's no such thing as an underdog, just owners who don't care enough to make a mil or so less. And I guess that, too, is pretty American. That's baseball.

Shitty Food for Shitty People Episode 12: The Weekly Diet Edition

• Monday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
  
• Tuesday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
  
• Wednesday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
  
• Thursday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
  
• Friday: cereal
  
• Saturday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
  
• Sunday: go to Subway

One or more of these statements is true

Needing life is stressful. Life needs stress, but life puts stresses on one's capacity to need. Needing stress is a part of life, because stress isn't just needing life-- stress is also living need.

Shitty Food for Shitty People Episode 12: The Dessert Edition, aka Eat Shit and Die

I went camping and had some leftover marshmallows from "S'mores" (man that is a terrible name, why is it called that, it makes me cringe to even type it). So I made some rice krispy treats, you know. Easy. Not blog-worthy. But then a few days later I realized I still had more generic rice krispies, a few marshmallows, and a chocolate bar I hadn't noticed. So in a temporary fit of over-confidence I decided to try my hand at one jumbo...

Crispy Chocolate Dooky Roll

• Melt some marshmallows and a little butter in a pot
  
• Not too much butter, now
  
• Put just a little shake of generic rice crispies in there and stir it up as smooth as you can get it
  
• DON'T just pour it on some wax paper-- I did that and regretted it
  
• DO pour it onto like a dough-rolling type surface that you have sprinkled with-- get this, this is my real innovation here-- fuckin' NON-DAIRY CREAMER, people. Seriously. It works.
  
• Roll that shit into a little shit.
  
• Meanwhile be melting the chocolate bar you found in your cupboard. Maybe add a dash of milk.
  
• Oh ya I think it seems like a good idea to put the crispy marshmallow dook into the fridge while you melt the chocolate.
  
• But then take it out and pour the melted chocolate over it, and roll it around in the chocolate to coat it.
  
• Then sprinkle a bunch of salted roasted peanuts on there, and roll it around in there so they stick all into the chocolate
  
• Put that shit in the fridge
  
• Save it for when someone special comes to visit
  
• It looks quite literally like shit. Eat it and die a happy man/woman/man-woman.

It was supposed to be like a mixture of

and Instead it turned out looking like something you'd find here. What you gonna do.

Regular generic cheerios mixed with honey nut generic cheerios

I have discovered the greatest cereal. Let me share with you this new recipe.

• Get some generic cheerios.
  
• Get some generic honey nut cheerios.
  
• Pour some of each into a bowl-- oh, half and half, I'd say.
  
• Put milk in that bowl. What kind? Get creative-- there's 2%, 1%, whole, soy, rice, goat, mother's, reconstituted powdered, anything!
  
• A spoon is recommended
  
• I am thinking of commandeering some sort of tupperware container to store this new cereal pre-mixed, since I am, as they say, "on the go."
  
• Careful research has shown generic cheerios take on more milk and exhibit a greater degree of softening/bloating behavior than do their name-brand counterparts, increasing both their refreshingness and deliciousness indices by up to 20%.
  
• However, it is literally impossible to open the inner plastic bags of generic cereal in a way that allows a controlled pour into the bowl; I for one am convinced this convenience is what you pay for when you shell out the big bucks for that ebullient bee on the label, and depending upon your baseline patience level, may just be worth it.

New words for these new times

You guys. It's 2009. We don't have time to say all the syllables we used to say. We're on the go. We're fast-paced. We're active. That's why I will never again ask you if you want to go eat at a restaurant. Instead, I will say "yo you wanna hit a 'straunt?"
You might reply, "ya let's go to [your favorite 'straunt], they got great apps and some bomb-ass 'trées."
Then I might say "ya, man, those 'tizers are to die fer, plus it's like the only place in town where I always order some 'sert."
You will reply "LOVE their 'sert, let's hop in my 'yota and get there."
"Chicks," I will think to myself, "do dig the 'yota, helps you score like Nino Rota," but I will not say this aloud as I get up and start towards the door, suddenly doubling back and explaining, "hold on, man, lemme grab my red bandana, I'm fully 'steenin it tonight."
You will nod thoughtfully and summarize "tonight, every street is gonna be E street."

Recent revelations and sub-revelations

• Adults shouldn't have to say words like "panini," "sammy," or "yummy."
  
• If you think you're good enough, maybe you'll be just that. If you think you aren't, maybe you can be great.
  • Here are the particular memories which have led me to this startling conclusion:
    • When I tried out for the track team in 10th grade I was sprinting, and then suddenly for the first time ever asked myself if I could go any faster, and found out that I could, a lot.
    • When I was in 4th or so grade I was in music class and was singing along all bored when I realized by controlling my throat and mouth I could actually sing the actual pitches I had theretofore falsely imaginined myself to be singing.
• Somehow every previous time I listened to Bach's St. Matthew's Passion I just thought it was "pretty good."
  • Bach, as I have recently been told, as paraphrased by me, said writing invertible counterpoint was easy-- he would just talk to God and write down the conversation.
    • Bob Uecker, on the other hand, said catching a knuckleball is easy-- all you have to do is wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.
    • Charlie Lau, on the other other hand, said there were two theories on hitting the knuckleball, but unfortunately neither of them works.
• Doing the dishes is actually pretty easy, plus then you have something clean to put your food on.
  • Example: eggs.
• The right music, editing, and narration can make you feel sorry for planemos that have been kicked out of their solar systems by gravitational conflicts.
  • "...They're by themselves" -- a real honest-to-God scientist, not some wistful poet.
  
  

The lottery: fuck it

Have you ever noticed that the only people you ever see wasting their money on the lotto is usually really poor people? Plus how many times have you been at a checkout counter waiting to buy like a beef jerkey and a four-pack of Stag, but first you have to wait for someone to buy ten scratch-offs, do them right there, cash in the $4 they won, buy four more, do them right there, cash in the $3 they won, buy three more, do them right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, do it right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, do it right there, bust, fish in their pockets for another dollar of change, buy one more, do it right there, cash in the $2 they won, buy two more, do them right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, bust, fish in their pockets but come up short of a dollar, look around to see if anyone in line looks like they might give them a quarter, then see how everyone is impatient (either to buy their beef jerkey and Stag or to go cash in the $3 they won on scratch-offs) and finally shuffle off after taking like a full minute to count and recount their change and put it back in their pocket?

Wait I started out pissed but now I am just sad because I accidentally remembered the scratch-off buyer's essential humanity, damnit. But still, fuck the lottery.

"Put your tits on the table"

This is a new phrase I'd like to hear used in earnest. It means to assert oneself, like "damn, girl, you really went out there and put your tits on the table tonight." Or it means to be really frank and up front about one's business, like "Ok, let's just all sit down, put our tits on the table, and see where the cards land," or "all right, bitch, you talk a big game, whyn't you put your tits on the table and let's see what's what."

The great thing is that I mean as far as I know it seems like people don't really literally put their tits on the table that often, so this metaphor doesn't have that messy overlap with the literal that can really ruin a phrase for everyone, especially foreigners.

tromboneorfart.com

This is a new website concept I thought of yesterday where users would submit small sound files, and people would vote on whether what they were hearing was a fart or a trombone. Also I think it would be funny if every once in a while it would be Chewbacca.

The local farmers' market: fuck it

I finally got my ass out of bed early enough to go to the little farmer's market in my neighborhood, all excited to buy some basics and maybe some bacon or something. But no. All the food is twice as expensive as the grocery store. That is not why I go to a farmers' market. That is the opposite of why I go to a farmers' market. I guess some people do though, because it was packed with people and dogs, despite the heat. Guess I'm stuck riding to the big one, where I can get three onions for a buck and some asparagus for 75 cents, instead of almost tripping over six dogs so I can not pay four dollars for a tiny purple potato.

How to make me hate your bar 101

• Be located in a pain in the ass sort of place
  
• Don't give bands free drinks, or even drink discounts, or even one free drink out of shame at your stingy ass
  
• Get your sound guy to tell me how to use a microphone
  
• Kick me out of an empty bar stool because apparently like an hour ago someone ordered food there and now wants to eat there
  
• Have the sound completely and totally suck
  
• Oh also could you make it all hot and muggy and fill the place with annoying cocks in white caps?
  
• Congratulations, now I hate your bar!
  
• Maybe if you suck my balls I will ever go there again!
  

SFFSP Episode 12: Breakfast sandwich of the gods, if the gods ate breakfast (I have it on good authority that they do not)

• Have a barbecue where someone leaves some hamburger buns
  
• Hardboil some eggs that are pretty old but not too old
  
• Cut up an avocado and I like to squirt some lime juice on there
  
• Wash off a couple pieces of romaine lettuce
  
• Put some spreadable cheese (laughing cow or that like armenian knock-off) and some mayo (for once in my life not miracle whip but mayo) on those buns
  
• Cut up the eggs and probably hit them with some salt and pepper
  
• Put all those shits together in whatever order you see fit; I'm not one to tell a man how to stack his sandwich, that shit is PERSONAL, but for me, from top to bottom, it was like this:
  • bun
  • mayo
  • lettuce
  • eggs
  • avocados
  • cheese
• Oh my sweet lord it is delicious

Figure 12: How are you to know whether the cow, whose earrings are a packaged cheese product, is laughing at you.

Dear everybody,

I am sorry that I never go out with you anymore. I am really really poor and also I am seriously always working on these movies, plus I have a girlfriend and forget what bars are for in the first place. Maybe we can hang out after the two big shows on September 27th and October 31st. By then I bet I have a little dough too so like we can go to a bar or a show or something. Also I will get you back for those beers you bought or for that time when you paid for a pizza that I ate some of. It'll be fun. I hope you will still be my friends, everybody. I miss you.

Love,
Matty Lite

Well I'll be... (repost from last year)

Wouldn't you know it, but the league run by some kind of strange tribal warlords who have instituted a form of cheating into the rules of the game won again. I for one am shocked that the league which builds its teams around this institutionalized form of cheating ends up being better every year. It just doesn't seem to follow from the fact that said cheating increases revenue, attracts more sluggers and lets them play longer, and allows pitchers to focus solely on pitching. So why, since the DH was first introduced to the mid-summer classic in 1989, has the AL won seventeen games and the NL only three? Beats me. In the words of my favorite cartoon cat, Ray Smuckles, "Dear. God. I. Am. Not. A. Religious. Man. But. Please. Help. Me. See. The. Connection. Here."

Also, there is the matter of this:

The Shin Ramyun they don't want you to know about

• Get a pack of Shin Ramyun.
  
  

  Figure 12: Some of a Nearly Life-Size Pack of Shin Ramyun

• Smush up the noodles before you open it.
  
• Put them in boiling water, along with the dried vegetables.
  
• Meanwhile sautee like 1/5 of an onion in a little leftover bacon grease.
  
• Once that onion is all nice lookin' put some garlic in there too.
  
• Then here's the kicker-- get a couple eggs, a dash of that Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce, a dash of rice vinegar, and little bit of plain old barbecue sauce. Put all that in there with the onions & garlic.
  
• Oh shit forgot about the noodles, go strain them with a plate or a lid or something (can't use a collander or you'll lose the not-dried-anymore vegetable bits). Put some of the flavor packet on there now.
  
• Stir up that "omelet" all nice til the eggs are mostly cooked, then pour it in with the strained noodles and mix it around over a lil' heat til the eggs are all cooked in little slivers and bits.
  
• Probably add some more of the flavor packet too.
  
• Just eat it out of the pot in order to stay under the two-dish rule.

This meal does not taste like it cost $1.03 at all. It is more of a $4.28 taste we're talkin'.

---

--Brought to you by Shitty Food for Shitty People, Inc.

Even bluer

This one was too easy so I only did some.

A time to die

I heard Gram Parsons talked them out of this version.

Crossword nerd humor in today's Wondermark

Also remind me sometime, dear blog, to try a post in the style of Rex Parker like I've been meaning to do for a while.

Land World!

There is a place under the sea, somewhere under where the Bermuda triangle is, called Land World. It is a theme park. When people disappear in boats and planes sometimes they end up there (sometimes they were drunk and just crashed). It is a bubble. Like in that movie The Abyss. In the bubble there are rooms in which they have air, and in those rooms they have bugs, rodents, dogs, dancing bears, and people. If you are a shark, or a whale, or a fish, or a squid, you can go to Land World with your children. You can walk with the dogs. You can show up at 2:15, 4:30, or 6:15 when they feed the humans. This one shark mom let her stupid ass sharklet reach through the bubble and this human punched the sharklet pretty bad. Some people thought it was sad but mostly it was considered hilarious, at least on the internet.

This was the idea I had last night. It seemed a hell of a lot funnier then. Now it just seems like a scenario for that one-panel Far Side rip-off they run in the Post.

Rare Vincent Price outtake from the Thriller sessions

Most people don't know this, but they actually had to bring in a ringer with a spookier laugh.

Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do?

Flannery O'Connor asked that question in the author's note to the 2nd edition of Wise Blood. Then she answered herself:

I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

I kind of hate it when good writers can just take four concise sentences and cut to the core of ideas I've spent a lifetime chipping around the edges of. The plurality of will, the complexity of freedom, and most importantly to me, the deadly serious task of living comedy.

Fuck you O'Connor. Fuck you to HELL.

New names for my balls

Inspired by that Love track, I want to name my balls after streets. I am gonna name them Spring and Gustine. Then I can make all kinds of jokes about living between Spring and Gustine. Get it?

Please update your iphones and your circular mailing lists.

Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale

Here is a rare outtake from the Forever Changes sessions. Arthur Lee and the trumpet player both nearly passed out after the passage beginning around 1:43, so they decided to shorten it in the album version we all know and love.

Ritchie Valens rare studio outtake

I recently came across this rare recording of Ritchie Valens' Come On Let's Go. I guess he had to shorten some of these notes so the song could fit on a 45. Also I never knew he was part robot.

The Internet

The internet is a battlefield where every hour of every day some motherfucker is trying to get you to click on their useless link instead of the other guy's useless link.

It isn't easy but I'll try

I woke up with this terrible pun in my head, then spent the past hour or so trying to build a joke around it. I think it was gonna have something to do with that movie Throw Momma From the Train. It was gonna be something like "What did Sidney Poitier say to Danny Devito on the set of Throw Momma From the Train?"

Figure 12: Toss her with love.

Dear blog,

I am sorry for being away for so long. I have been busy with other things. But don't think I haven't thought of you. I have some ideas. Wanna hear them? Want me to make an unordered list? You got it, B!

• a hilarious new youtube video based on the law and order theme
  
• the story of how my friend got mugged and then became a softball hero
  
• plugs for shows I am in
  
• new stand-up style jokes I made up, like this one: "Seriously, though, it's great to wake up next to a beautiful girl . . . [comedic pause] . . . who's still alive."
  
• a song-by-song comparison/review of Alex Chilton's and Chris Bell's first (and, in the latter's case, only) post-Big Star solo records.
  
• stupid ideas for commercials that would be funny once, but then irritating as HELL
  
• versions of famous songs where certain parts repeat too many times, or where certain sequential processes are carried on for too long, to comedic effect
  
• brand new nicknames for my balls
  
• anti-bird propaganda
  
• a memoire of the challenges inherent in trying to love, or at least not hate, a dog I hate
  
• not smoking for a year
  
• my continued love affair with the unordered list tag

Another matched pair of T's

When you and your buddy go out with these babies on, people's minds are just gonna turn straight to DUST, my friends.

Figure 12: Matched pair of paradox T's

Nothin' special here.

Just a custom-tailored, double-wide, two-headed Van Halen T-shirt and the tell-tale smiles from the happiness it brings.

I talked to the people down in creative...

...and here are a couple new designs they came up with.

Figure 12: A matched trio of T's


Figure 12: Another matched pair

I've been thinking . . .

. . . about getting into the T-shirt design game. Careful research and focus group data suggests this initial prototype:

Figure 12: Matched pair of novelty T's

The cutest in medical terminology

I broke my toe. It's the first bone I've ever broken. It hurt and it turned all blue. It is the second from the left on my left foot. My "ring toe," as you might call it. I wouldn't call it that, though, because I mean when am I ever gonna wear a ring on my toe, you know?

Well I don't know if you've heard, but there isn't much they will do for your broken toe if you go to the hospital. Even WebMD admits it, and usually they are great at convincing you a muscle cramp is leprosy and a cold is lupus (who agrees with me that WebMD is a scam to try to get more people to go to the doctor?).

Figure 12: It's never lupus

Instead, they recommend the cutest-sounding medical procedure on the books: the "buddy tape." This is the process of taping your broken toe to the toe next to it, so they can be "buddies" (I got a certified nurse's assistant to help me with this part; as far as I can recall it went something like this).

Naturally I spent the day imagining the fun times my "ring" and middle toes were having together now that they were buddies. In my mind my toes were like two adorable kittens that had been taped to one another.

Figure 12: What my full complement of left-foot toes would look like if they were five adorable kittens duct-taped together

The only downside to the buddy tape is it made it hurt less to walk, so I wasn't able to limp around and pretend I was House anymore.

Figure 12: Never forget

Way early, but...

...mark your calendars. Write it down in your date-books. Update your blackberries. Or is it blueberries? Whatever. Put this shit in your iphone already. Etch it directly into your forearm, if you are a goth and a cutter. Tie a string around your finger. Don't cut off your circulation. You'll need that. Buy your tickets. There's only a hundred. It comes with a pint of beer. I recommend the English Brown Ale. I just had three of them yesterday. Each one more delicious than the last. I drank them as I talked to a guy who agrees with me that you should come to this show. Listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to us.



Check out some sneak previews if you don't believe it's all that.

Late to the party, part 12

Holy titty-fucking christ these things destroy me. (not even close to SFW, probably not at home either unless you are totally 100% sure you are NOT a pussy).

You ever try and use this shit? Fucking impossible.

I don't know what happened

I was trying to do some schoolwork when all the sudden my scanner went to work on the box from some novelty salt and pepper shakers my brother got me for Christmas and my photoshop opened and then this happened:

Sweep out the old, sweep in the new

• I changed my picture there and my background color. Do you like it?
  
  
• Have you heard of "the modulator"?
  
  
• Did you know there are over 150,000 parts in a piano? We invented that shit. Humans like me and you invented that shit.
  
  
• It's the today, ghost titty.
  
  
• Also, this:
  
  
  
• Well that's all folks.
  [insert youtube video for Fleetwood Mac "That's all for everyone" here, the only one I found was a soundtrack to someone feeding a baby]

To my St. Louis reader(s), please come see this tonight

You'll cry.

But take heart– you can can come back to my place afterwards and do any one of the following:

• Shoot a BB gun at some cans or maps of Europe
  
• Drink one or several beers
  
• Give us adulations various and sundry
  
• Listen to a recitation of some of the Illiad, if it turns out to be That sort of night.
  
• Spill things on my floor
  
• Listen to music on my ipod until someone decides to change it because I have the same seven or eight non-party-friendly albums on there I always do
  
• Make merry

Soft boiled eggs have changed my life

Examples:

• Avocado, hard salami, cheddar, and soft-boiled egg "burritos"
  
• Hot Sopressa, provel cheese, and soft-boiled egg grilled cheese sandwiches
  
• Soft boiled egg with salt and pepper
  
• Hard-boiled egg you meant to be soft boiled but I mean who cares right
  
• Soft boiled egg just stuck in a leaf of romaine lettuce with maybe some cheese? (I haven't tried this but there is always lunch and I am out of bread products)
  

They also have such a stunning visual appearance. They make anything look like it is in a food porn magazine.

Figure 12: Soft Boiled Egg Food Porn

All thanks go to my mom who showed me how to soft boil eggs over Christmas vacation. Also, thanks mom for that time I called you about how to bake a potato and you told me to turn on the oven and put the potato in there. There's some kinds of advice you just don't forget.

Man I can't wait til I'm hungry.

I was a highwayman

Willie Nelson says:
I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

then Kris Kristofferson says:
I was a sailor
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

after which Waylon Jennings says:
I was a dam builder
across the river deep and wide
where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

and finally Johnny Cash concludes:
I fly a starship
across the Universe divide
and when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..


In this song Willie Nelson is a dude who robs ladies and kills soldiers. A bad ass. An outlaw. But eventually he gets caught, and hanged. But see, then his spirit returns, a bit later in History. Now he is Kris Kristofferson, who is by far the most likely sailor of the bunch. Now who can say how glorious it is to make a boat go around some land (I mean, what the fuck, are you gonna go through the land?), I guess in this chapter it's just he's kind of an idiot and he fucked some kind of thing up with the sails or jibs or whatever, I dunno, go ask some blue-blood yacht dude. Anyhow, you'd think this spirit was gone by now, since it got hanged and also drowned. But nope. It comes back, a bit further into History, this time in the person of Waylon Jennings, who got a hand from FDR what with the WPC building a gigantic dam. Here things might be said to get a little metaphorical. The place is called Boulder but it's getting filled with concrete. The Colorado was wild but they are taming it. Steel and water did collide, but at what cost? At the cost of one Waylon Jennings. Granted, he was clumsy and he was the guy who didn't do the smart thing and be extra careful while walking around on top of a giant not-yet-solidified dam. So anyhow now the spirit got hanged, drowned, and encased in what was at the time the largest man-made monument named after a vacuum in History. This brings us, dear reader, not to the present, because the present can't really mean anything to itself, now can it, so instead it brings us instead to the Future, in the person of Johnny Cash, starship pilot. He is flying the entire distance of the universe, not just lurkin' around outside a town, or going around some land in a boat in the water, or spanning the distance between two sides of an enormous gorge. As we well know the universe is finite and who knows what is on the other side. There are those who say it is the same, only backwards, only you can't even tell it's backwards, since you, too, are backwards. There are those who say it is just sort of boring. Nobody knows for sure. Johnny Cash doesn't even know for sure, but he has whittled down the possibilities to two: either he will become a highwayman again, thus starting the cycle anew, or, alternatively, and I'd like to put in my vote for more likely, he may become a single drop of rain. Here is where I like to imagine that every drop of rain used to be a highwayman, an inept sailor, a clumsy dambuilder, or an astronaut. One of those four. Nothing else. I myself, when I reach the other side, may turn into a single grain of sand. I think that is the fate of the musician, the logger, the banker, and the flight attendant. Whereas it has been demonstrated that piano tuners, butchers, systems analysts, and tinkerers shall return a single breath of air. We will all try to find a place to rest our spirits if we can, but chances are we will be back again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, only each time one step lower in a major scale, until we get almost back to the tonic again, at which point I suppose you should just restart the song because not even Johnny Cash could hit that bottom one if he tried.

I never thought this would happen to me.

Figure 12: I have a tail now

I swear to god it was an accident. I never planned it out this way. If I could turn back time, maybe things would be different. Nobody can live a life without regrets, you know, and if I could choose just one thing to change over all these years so various and full of detail, I'd never have accidentally grown this tail.

Look, I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore. I mean, I have a tail now. Things are gonna be different. I can accept that. I got no one to blame but myself. I let my guard down, you know? God help me but I let my guard down, and now I have a tail.

I thank you all in advance for your continued support/condolences as I ponder my next course of action. Certain tails are reversible, but that's pretty much only in the movies. I'm afraid this one may have reached a certain "escape velocity," so to speak, and has now doomed me to a life of sitting in ever higher chairs to keep my tail from brushing the ground. I hate high chairs.

Don't cry for me. Don't you dare. You have a wonderful head of hair with all the correct protuberances befitting. Don't waste this gift. Sometimes the Lord will open a window, and another window will open out into a door with a window, but sometimes when He closes a window He opens a window. It's like, you can see the Universe in that window. Its like, there were two footprints in some places but in others there was a third footstep, but only the third footstep was just a faint dragging line, because all along my tail was behind me, and now it is all sandy. And it's like in each grain of sand is a whole entire Universe, and in each Universe is a man, a man who has accidentally grown a tail. There is a place for us, though. Dont you cry. Don't you cry tonight. For everywhere a child is mesmerized by the ever-rising spiral of the classic barber's pole, I will be there. Everywhere a man walks into Great Clips not looking like Bob Saget but walks out looking just like Bob Saget, I will be there. Every time a woman tells her hairdresser to make her look like Jennifer Aniston, but then she doesn't, I will be there. No, don't cry for me. As sure as "two bits" must follow "shave and a haircut," as sure as each day somebody responds "all of them" to "did you get your hair cut," as sure as even the most unobservant man happens once in a blue moon to guess correctly when asked if he "notices anything different about me," I will be there, my glorious tail fluttering majestically in the breeze behind me, the mane of the mightiest lion, the tail of the mightiest ass.

Know this: the mightiest ass is me, dear reader. And this is my tail.

Jesus fucking christ did I pick the wrong fucking day to try to take a fucking nap.

Fuck.

I made up a new word

"Adaptacious." It's a word for when you are trying to describe why some trait evolved. Kind of a mix of "advantageous" and "adaptive."

Example usage: Flashing lights capture our attention because it was adaptacious for early humans to notice sudden luminance changes in their visual environment, such as those when say a giant flaming meteor was coming down to kill their dinosaur buddies, or a burning bush was trying to tell them it was that it was.

I will fight you if you don't start using this word.

Tiny Fractal Tuba: Science Fact or Science Fiction?

Hey, look, I'm not one of those dudes who's all into fractals as a Thing. I mean, you're not gonna see me hangin' around in like a fractal shirt and you're not gonna hear me talkin' about how if we could understand fractals we could like solve hunger and racism and probably travel to distant reaches of space besides.

Figure 12: I'm not this guy

But check it out: have you heard about fractal antennas*? It is so cool. They can make antennas with a ton of surface area but still tiny, because all the surface area is from all the little tiny details instead of in broad lines, you know? Shit, there's probably one in your cell phone! Believe it.

Figure 12: Believe it

Well anyhow I was thinking: why can't we use this technology to make a tiny tuba? It could have a pretty small tube, diameter-wise, but one that is just outrageously long, but you know, long from being all bent around into outlandish, somewhat psychedelic shapes that are produced from the same kind of self-similarity iteration type processes as those t-shirt patterns.

It would make such a low sound, but yet it would fit in the palm of your hand. (If your spine isn't tingling right now, either you don't care about the inconvenient size of the commercially available tubas of the day, or you maybe have some sort of neural problem you maybe should get checked out). I'm serious. This could change everything.

Scientists! Metallurgists! Help me! Now we make our millions! This is the dream that John Phillip Sousa never even knew he had!

Figure 12: Every Single Music Video in the History of the Genre was Leading Up to This Moment, But Still, Imagine it With Four Tiny Fractal Tubas

*I dare you to tell me I should say antennae. I fuckin' DARE you.

A new tongue-twister / This is serious.

I accidentally thought of a tongue twister. It is "ghost titty." You gotta say it ten times fast, but you can't just make one "T" sound for the end of "ghost" and the start of "titty"-- you gotta do the full stop there to get both "T"s in. Go ahead, try it.

* * * * *

I'm gonna not be funny for a week. Starting today. I'm not gonna make any jokes. I'm not gonna share any creative mishearings. I'm not gonna tell any hilarious stories. I'm not gonna say things with any weird timing to make people laugh. I'm not gonna make any funny faces or deadpans even. Please don't laugh at me. Not this week. I'm gonna walk real carefully to make sure I don't trip, since that is also funny. I'm gonna keep really alert so I don't seem stupid in a funny way. I'm gonna eat food that isn't funny (caesar salad), watch TV shows that aren't funny (Everybody loves Ray), go to movies that aren't funny (that one where that mopey actor is a child-molestin' priest), and hang out with people that aren't funny (shit I may need some new friends). See, nobody takes funny shit seriously. Bein' funny never got nobody nowhere. I am on strike. I am on strike until people take funny shit seriously. This is a call to action. People who are just always trying to be funny, are you with me? Let's not try to be funny. Not this week.

God damnit, though, I'm pretty sure it's gonna turn out just fucking hilarious. Fuck.

I got a cool idea for a commercial for a dryer or maybe for a hairdryer

Actually that is a lie, it is a Terrible idea. It is to use that James Brown song but change it to "dry me" instead of "try me."



I'm sorry.

Shocking confessions

Here are some realizations that I came to much later than by rights I ought to have:

• That word that sounds like "shiek" and that word that is spelled "chic" don't just have similar meanings, they are the same word! (2001)
  
• It's "up and at 'em," not "up and Adam." (2000)
  
• "News" is just the plural of "new." (2007)
  
• "Specific" and "general" come from species and genera. (2009)
  
• Just as that old cheap beer called Meisterbrau is the lion of beers, the lion itself is the lion of the animal kingdom. (2003)
  
• Mickey Rooney and Andy Rooney are two completely different people. (2007)
  
• Tom Colicchio (the bald judge from Top Chef) and Andrew Zimmer (the bald dude who eats weird food) are two completely different people. (2008)
  
• The Indian dude in Short Circuit isn't Indian at all. (2006)
  

I know I have had some more hilarious ones than this. Such are the consequences of not demanding too much sense out of the world. If I should die after all please let my epitaph be "late to the party." Do this for a man who only this year finally unravelled the concepts of Judge Reinhold, Judd Nelson, and the guy who played Judge Harry Stone on Night Court.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE A MOTHERFUCKING BLACK PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!


*in the style of this.

Karaoke fail

Heart's These Dreams: too high to sing like them, too low to sing like me. Every second on the stage, the further I was away... from not sucking.




Genesis' Invisible Touch: the lyrics got to me and slowly tore me apart.


Better luck next week.

It is hardest to lose what was never found

When I was a kid I used to cheat at Battleship sometimes. What I'd do is keep track of all the squares my opponent guessed and keep moving my ships around to the remaining empty spaces. You'd be surprised how many misses it would take to eliminate every group of five contiguous squares, to just the extent my brothers and friends were surprised at how many rounds it would take to get that first hit on my aircraft carrier.

I am trying to tell a story whose moral is this: it is much harder to let go of something that doesn't exist than something that does. Things that actually exist have edges and locations. Ghosts cling to every cell and will take up residence in any space they can find. Made up things are even harder to sink than that tiny little destroyer I'd keep moving around until I'd win.

Hobosexuals

They're freakin' everywhere. Watch out. They're comin' out of the walls. They're increasing in numbers. They can really squeeze it into a place, too, to the tune of an entire OC* per barroom. They might... bump into you. They might... question your authenticity. But also they are loveable little ragamuffins who deserve all the love and respect you'd give their new-tymey counterparts. I'm just sayin', some of my best friends are hobosexuals.

*Oliver Cast: the basic unit of number of hobosexuals in a given horde is the amount needed to cast the movie Oliver.