I behaved like a child and now I am embarassed; let me try to explain

Do you feel mature? Do you feel in control of your emotions? Do you think you are above it? Do you think you are detached enough from it? Are you "over it"? Try this:

-Pitch in what appears to be a pretty well-matched softball game
-Get two outs in the second inning
-Walk nine batters in a row, one of whom may be retarded and two of whom cannot hit the ball forward into the field of play
-Finally get out of the inning on a lead-off technicality called by your merciful merciful man in blue
-Strike out at the plate

Now, you may be more mature, but what happened with me is that I threw a fit and beat the shit out of a plastic gas can and a water bottle, and suddenly I couldn't slow my breathing or look any human in the eye lest they know that I HATED THEM ALL.

Now, try this:

-Go out and have a bit more control, but have every walk followed by a home run, or every error followed by a triple, etc.
-Despite it all have your team be hitting well, and keeping the score within reach
-Get some people on base in front of you, so you have a chance to redeem yourself
-Strike out at the plate

I know I am 31, but it was all I could do to not just throw myself face-down on the ground and pound my fists into the dirt and scream. I stopped talking to others, and did not register when they talked to me. I stared blankly ahead. I threw a pitch and stood there quietly until it was time to throw another. I tried to breathe deeply and tried not to hate everything in the world, especially softball, but I failed. I hated every single thing about everything. I was filled with hate. I could feel the blood in my cheeks, and it was the feeling of hate. I could feel the sweat building in my pores, and it was excess hate that couldn't fit in my body. My eyes were misty with hate-condensation. Every movement of every muscle in my body was a meticulously choreographed physical expression of pure hate. My focus was nearly complete, but utterly negative. You have perhaps heard of a "fuck all" attitude. This was my complete focus: fuck EVERYTHING. My mind was sharp. My thoughts were crisp. Every ball and every strike I threw were balls and strikes of pure hate. I hated myself for throwing the ball; I hated the ball for floating towards the plate; I hated the plate for being next to the batter; I hated the batter for swinging the bat; I hated the bat for striking the ball; I hated the ball for flying through the air; I hated the air for providing refuge for birds; I hate birds because, well, I don't know, that's just sort of personal.

We rallied late, and I was on deck as the game ended, one ball away from another chance at redemption. And yes, I hated the person who struck out in front of me. That final keystone of hate called "strike three" should have been mine to lay in my own perfect collosus of suck.

Raj Nachos

-Get some tortilla chips and put them on a cookie sheet.
-Pre-bake them if you want (it is a trick I learned from the Achewood cookbook)
-While the chips are pre-baking, tear open a pouch of Indian food like you can buy at the international food store for like $1.39 (my choice: Paneer Tikka Masala) and heat it up in a little pan.

Figure 12: My Choice

-If you are like me, you chose Paneer Tikka Masala. This is actually one of those dishes that I understand isn't even that Indian at all, but more a UK imperial choice. Like how General Tso's Chicken was invented in, like, Scranton PA. Don't feel bad for being inauthentic. It is a scientifically proven fact that oftentimes the tastes of other cultures are ridiculous and wrong, and need adjustment to be reasonable to us. Besides, you need that cheese to be the "cheese" of the "nachos." Cut the big rectangular chunks into smaller ones so they are more evenly dispersed.
-Drizzle it over the chips.
-Shit, there isn't quite enough to go around, and plus it looks kind of more solid than it ought to in order to get those chips kinda soggy like I like them.
-Oh, I know, deglaze the pan! With rice vinegar, Sriracha sauce, and barbecue sauce. Damn, that is a tasty pan sauce you just made! Now pour that over the chips too.
-Bake'em. I don't know, you probably know better than me, I guess at like four hundo for maybe ten minutes?
-Eat'em. At first they seem ok. Then they start to seem really good. Then they start to make you feel a little bit ill. Try to focus on just that part where they seem really good. Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe. It's so hard to tell these days. We live in a world that is full of uncertainty. Seriously. There is some crazy shit that happens, like, all the time. I bet some kind of totally crazy shit is happening RIGHT NOW. I mean, shit, some dude just broke his leg outside my house when he was tightening some lug nuts and one snapped, causing his full weight to push the tire iron into his ankle, and -snap-. That shit HAPPENED. That shit is CRAZY. Are regular nachos just too regular for these CRAZY times we live in? I'm not gonna say they are for sure, but I am gonna say if you eat regular nachos you are probably BORING and WRONG, and possibly BAD AT GAMES OF CHANCE. Not to mention PREMATURELY BALDING, LACKING IN DISCIPLINE, and possibly HAVING ONE LEG SLIGHTLY LONGER THAN THE OTHER. This is to say nothing of your HAVING A PROPENSITY TO PASS GAS IN THE SELF CHECKOUT LANE and HOLDING STRANGE IDEAS ABOUT BIRDS. Do you want to be that person? Do you?

Nobody said it was gonna be easy, indeed

Well I'll be god-damned

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 sixteen 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:

Two tips for the attentionally challenged

People, all my life I've had this thing where I'm not very good at paying attention to stuff. "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening," while honest and heartfelt, doesn't always cut it. "Huh?" gets really annoying after you use it once or twice in the same conversation. "Mmm hmm"s and head nods can help, but can also backfire, as you may find later you've agreed to something you never even registered in the first place. Randomly switching between confused shrugs (as if to say "heh, how about that crazy shit"), "amens," and various "ssss" or "clucks" (meant to denote understanding) can sometimes work in a pinch, but can also make you come off as, well, aribitrary.

Through careful research and a lot of trial and error, I have arrived in my older age at two short phrases that can actually make sense if said in response to quite literally ANYTHING ANYONE might say, EVER.

1. "Nobody said it was gonna be easy."

2. "There's only one way to find out."

Not only do these phrases fit anywhere, but they often come off as insightful and/or hilarious.


Figure 12: Example Conversation

Dude, wanna watch the game?
-There's only one way to find out.
Wait, I can't tell if that was a yes or no.
-Nobody said it was gonna be easy.
Do you or don't you want to watch the baseball game?
-Huh?
Fuck you.
-I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
I'm gonna watch the game. You wanna join me?
-There's only one way to find out.
Ya, asking you. So what do you say?
-Mmm hmmm.
Cool, I'll be over in a bit.
-Wait, what?
Were you even listening to me?
-Nobody said it was gonna be easy.
[CLICK]
-(to self): Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

How I feel is how a butt feels

Man, I feel like twenty-six types and four sub-types of ass.

• I feel like a unique blend of domestic and imported butt.
  
• I feel like a towering stack of asses.
  
• I feel so much like ass that the ass I feel like feels like butt.
  
• Count the grains of sand on the shores of the mighty Pacific– so inumerable and diverse are the categories of ass that would contain my physical description.
  
• Mountains have been moved with less than the amount of ass and butt.
  
• Ass ass butt I feel like ass.
  
• Butt, and also ass, are what I feel like.
  
• I feel like ass.
  
• There are kinds of ass and butt that are good, but they are not the kinds of ass and butt that I feel like.
  
• The stack of asses that describes my feeling is so densely packed that it has become impossible to tell whether each contiguous pair of cheeks belongs to the same or to two different asses.
  
• The butts also do not smell good.
  
• Imagine a world in which there are up to twelve times as many butts as people.
  
• I feel like a butt that got shoved up inside of an asshole which itself is afloat upon a body of water I do not trust.
  
• Strangely my own ass feels fine. It is the only part of me that does not feel like it is ass at all. It is the ass that is no ass.
  
• The shape of my feelings is the shape drawn by a skilled artist rendering a line drawing of a pair of asses.
  
• In my stomach there is a family reunion. It is the family reunion of the Ass family. The Ass family is a large family and they are rude.
  
• It is my understanding that through a complicated system of inumerable pullies and levers, one man could move the heap of asses one inch in one minute.
  
• Take all the pants in all the lands of this great world, and still you will fall short of covering even half the asses I feel like.
  

I guess what I'm trying to say is I love my softball team.

New bombshell dropped in sandwich case

Authorities recently obtained a warrant to search the defendant's wardrobe, where they found this possibly incriminating T-shirt:

Photograph 12: The Shirt

The shirt appears to be 80% cotton, 15% acrylic, and 5% "other." As of publication time authorities have not ascertained whether this is a shirt one actually might wear, or "more of novelty gift shirt," as one unnamed detective described it.

       |PREVIOUSLY...|

Even Newer Evidence! Even Newer Evidence!

An unnamed attendee at the party the night of the alleged sandwich consumption turned in this excerpt he recorded "you know, to make, like, sound art and shit."

Exhibit 12, telling excerpt from the recording

       |PREVIOUSLY...|            |NEXT...|

New Evidence! New Evidence!

Found among various papers in the suspect's chambers: evidence of what one unnamed correspondent described as "a classic brainstorm sesh."

Special Exhibit XII

       |PREVIOUSLY...|            |NEXT...|

Mystery sandwich

The other night I got pretty drunk. I'm not gonna lie to you, it was kind of excessive and ridiculous. You know, that happens sometimes, if you are a man, and you like to do that sort of thing sometimes. But this night was different– I think I ate a sandwich before I went to bed, though I have no explicit memory of doing so. Here are the facts which have led me to this startling conclusion:

• Fact: I woke up the next morning with that feeling in my mouth like I must have eaten something.
  
• Fact: There was a plate with some crumbs on it on my nightstand that morning.
  
• Fact: I had a bit of salami the day before, but it was gone that morning.
  
• Fact: My hunk of Muenster cheese looked a little bit smaller that morning.
  

Now this ain't no CSI Miami kind of shit right here. I don't have no DNA tester, I don't have no saliva sample distiller, no blood type cyclotron or retinal scanner or penile plethysmograph or nothin' like that. This is some old school Encyclopedia Brown meets the Hardy Boys shit right here. What we got here is straight up Sherlock Holmes style crime-solvin'. What we got here is some primo Law and Order shit, served up hot for your pleasure.

Ladies and Gentelmen of the jury, the defendant would have you believe he didn't eat the sandwich just because "he doesn't remember eating it." Now the lawyer for the defense is gonna come out here in a few minutes, and he's gonna try to convince you that the defendant holds strong views on eating before bedtime, and the digestive troubles it can lead to, and yadda yadda yadda. He's gonna blow a lot of smoke, he's gonna try to trick you with some verbal stunts, but I remind you to keep close to the facts of the case. I know we've all seen enough courtroom dramas on TV to expect more sophisticated evidence, but ask yourself, can you really reasonably doubt that this man before you made and ate the sandwich in question? Can you? I mean, can you really? (No, you can't.)

Exhibit L: Theoretical Recipe for Alleged Sandwich
 -Take some bread
 -Put some salami on there
 -Also some cheese (the defendant allegedly used Muenster)
 -Most likely some kind of condiment as well
 -A pickle spear, dill (stricken from the record; heresay)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask of you this. Before you put me away, listen to my words. I stand before you today a free man, on trial not for a sandwich but for a philosophy. Let me be remembered. Let me be pitied. Let me be . . . avenged.

                                    |NEXT...|

Positive effects of not smoking

I'm not the type to idealize something like quitting smoking. For the most part, it sucks. I've never minded the smell of cigarettes or the taste of people's mouths I am kissing who smoke, so I can't take any comfort in smelling better or not 'tasting like an ashtray.' Long-term health is something I can get behind in theory, but does not affect my day-to-day feelings. I'm pretty sure it is a scientific fact that smoking makes you look cooler, and I got this dorky-ass haircut to boot.

But now that I've made it a month and a half, I have noticed the following positive results:

1. Longer trumpet phrases. I had adjusted how I thought about trumpet to my shorter breaths as a smoker, so a lot of times since I quit I will get this mental thing where I think "hey, better wrap this phrase up, you're gonna run outta breath," only it is a vestige of my smoking self, and it turns out I can go another four bars or so. Which is good, because usually an idea gets better as it unfolds, since there is more already out there to react to. Also it is good because I don't have to be as careful about planning out my breaths in written-out lines.

2. $$$, $$$$, & $$$$$. I think I was about a five-pack-a-week consumer. That's twenty packs a month, at about $3.50 a pop, so $70 a month right there. But it is more complicated. Having more breath makes me more likely to ride my bike longer distances, so I buy less gas for my van, so I think I'm probably saving another $50 a month on that. That's $120 a month I can use for stuff like replacement phones and trespassing court fees and drugs and strip clubs. And wheat thins and twix bars and cheez popcorn. And peanuts. And beers and also whiskey. Avocados. Assorted fine cheeses and meats from reputable Italian delis. Low-odds investments in shady venture capital firms. AIRA's (anonymous individual retirement accounts). CDs, stocks, and bonds (that is the kind with music on them, and the other two kinds for S&M activities). Personal enrichment programs. Assorted domestic and imported salves and poultices. Haircuts, medical screenings, petty cash disbursements. Tropical snakes, macrobiotic health shake mixes, historical reproductions of compasses and sextants, tube socks, outdated pre-formatted 3.5" floppy diskettes, prescription sunglass holders. Also self-healing cutting boards, projector alarm clocks, graphite lubricant, shoelace repair kit, picture frames, club soda, and sunscreen. Not to mention a bronze and leather letter opener, an RCA converter, blank VCR casettes, gourmet mustards, a beginner's set of marbles, an Idiot's Guide to Metallurgy, sock darners in all three usual sizes, piano scores to the complete Mozart piano concertos, crocheted doorknob covers, noise-cancelling earbud headphones, lead-free solder, electrical tape, two (2) packages Hanes Perfect T's (M, assorted colors), 12 rollerball blue ink pens, one ten-gig SCSI hard drive, 3 packages Hebrew National kosher franks, and a year's subscription to the Utne Reader.

New looks

New look around here. Been tweakin' it. I know just enough html and css shit and all to knock humpty dumpty off the wall, but not quite enough to put him back together again. There's egg on your face.

Also I got a haircut. Once again I look like Bob Saget. That's ok, the last time I got as shaggy as I was, some dude told me I looked like Daryl Hall.

Um, what else. You guys should feel my pecs. My pecs are for some reason so strong now. Makes me want to set up a weight bench and a kiddie pool in my front yard, get a little Muscle Beach STL action goin' on (J. Richardson, K. Malley et al, ca. 1998).

Let's see, there's this hot new blog out there I got a hand in.

I been cookin' mostly non-comedy food lately. Some sci-fi (astronaut ice cream), some drama (using my tears to brine some chicken), even some biopic (I recreated the actual sandwich Hall & Oates shared backstage before their famous concert at the Apollo on September 20th, 1985) (I realize there isn't a biopic on Hall & Oates. Yet...)

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is such a thing as a porno cooking show (NSFW & also NSFTWADBHPSRB) (=Not Safe For Those Who Are Disgusted By Horrible Plastic-Surgery-Ridden Beasts). Talk about your Adult Education.

Figure 12: Adult Education, Live at the Apollo,
September 20th, 1985
(oh my god is that G.E. Smith?!?!)

People, I have found a new technique for making a hot sandwich of exemplary texture.

• Get a tortilla.
  
• Put some ham on there.
  
• Also half a sliced up avocado.
  
• Also some sliced up cheese (I used Muenster).
  
• Maybe some salt and pepper in there too.
  
• Roll it all up, like a "wrap."
  
  --now here's the kicker--
  
  
• Microwave it for a little.
  
  -But Matt, won't it get soggy?
  -Yes, it'll feel low. It'll get a little soggy and droopy. Also the cheese will melt.
  -Noooooooooo!
  -It's ok, because get this: once it's droopy, it'll sit flat. Then you can
  
  
• Put it on a big flat pan or griddle, turn the burner all the way up, put a plate on top of it to kind of smoosh it down, and like cauterize it forever into that droopy flat shape on each side.
  
  -Now will it feel low?
  -Not at all.
  -Huh?*
  -Put a cork in it, sandwich philistine. See, 'cuz the cheese will already be melted so you won't have that thing happen where you toast the bread part before you ever melt the cheese part. Instead you'll have a perfect amount of crispiness on the outside and meltiness on the inside.
  
  
• Maybe you should dip it in some of your regular mustard mixed with your roommate's jalapeño mustard.
  
• Maybe you should pry it open and stick a pickle spear in there.
  
• Maybe you should make two of 'em. I mean what else you gonna do with that half an avocado? Those things don't last too long once you open them.
  

* in the style of the interchange between the lead singer and the rest of the band right before each chorus of Television's Venus.

Equation #12

+

+

=

God damnit, why can't I remember to eat my bananas before they turn all gross and mushy?

Does anyone know anyone who likes to make banana bread? I will give them like four bananas a week, because I will fucking forget to eat my bananas before they turn disgusting and mushy, and then I will give them my bananas so they can make banana bread. Then they can give me some banana bread, but I will fucking forget to eat it before it turns disgusting and moldy. Then maybe I will think, it's not too moldy, and I will eat it, and it will have ergot in there, and then people will think I am a witch. Or I guess a Warlock, as they call witches who have balls.

Figure 12: Bitchez been eatin' too much tainted rye

If I become a Warlock, I will name my balls Gandalf and Dumbledore. However, this is unlikely.

Fuck cause and effect.

It's boring.

Oh man, shit, dude. Fuck.

Well that sucks, one of my favorite bands broke up. God damnit. Now all I got is one pretty good album, an amazing EP, and a fucking straight-up transcendent shining diamond of an album I can enjoy for the rest of my life, plus a handful of hilarious, confusing, tragic, charming videos. God fucking damnit. Fuck.

Hot Damn is sore

I think I've been riding my bike too much, because Hot Damn is feeling really tender today. Hallelujah is fine, though. Maybe if I ride tonight I will just kind of lean over to the right the whole time.

love

I love the people I swam with and got arrested with. I'd say all in all my time in the holding cell was kind of like going to a party that wasn't great, wasn't shitty, but was out of beer and was just kind of OK. Oh also the kind of party where someone had apparently puked in the bathroom before you got there.

I love the police officers who arrested us. They thought it was hilarious. Even the one who was an asshole at least got made fun of by the other ones. One of them tried to convince the pool proprieter to let us off with tickets, as is customary in such situations. When asked if we'd get busted for open containers as well, one of them facetiously said for all he knew, the beer and whiskey containers on the table had been there all day. One of them consoled me on the pitiable male to female ratio of this particular skinny-dipping outing (it was 9 to 2 when the police arrived). I'm sure they also get angry and act like dicks, but also eat ceral and brush their teeth.

I love the bitchy-ass desk workers of the justice center. They probably don't get paid enough. They are a pain in my own and probably most people's asses. That is their job. But I love them. I imagine they go home sometimes and eat food, or read books, or pet their dogs.

I love the proprieter of the pool where I got arrested. He probably felt it was his duty to have us arrested. He probably even felt bad about it. He probably does things like eat, watch TV, feel feelings, hug people, and drive places.

Burt Bacharach told us that what the world needs now is love. That was a while ago, but I imagine it is still true. It's easy to love your friends and your lovers and your family and your favorite people. I don't know that there was ever any lack of that sort of love. It is hard to love the petty bitch at the service counter, or the know-it-all dickhead security guard, or the stupid-as-fuck asshole who is tailgating you, or the self-righteous fuckface bitch on TV. It's way harder, but I'm pretty sure that's the kind of love that people like Burt Bacharach, J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey), and Jesus (Matthew 5:43-48) were talking about.

I love you!

Two (2) meanings of the phrase "skinny dip"

1. A delicious new summer ale from New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, CO. It is being marketed as a microbrewish alternative to lo-calorie beers, but don't be fooled. It is just a super-delicious, crisp summer ale, in which low calories are an effect, not a cause. Everybody wins.

Figure 12: Skinny Dip

2. Swimming naked. If it is the middle of the night, in a private neighborhood pool, and the proprieter chooses to press charges, this can result in your being arested, much to the embarassment of everyone involved, excepting said proprieter.

I got arrested.

It was boring.

any single one of them

any of them at all.

i'm sorry, dogs and cats I love

I lied. I was in a pissy mood and I took it out on you, dogs and cats. I like plenty of both of you kinds of animals. I guess the thing is I hold you to the same standards as a human. If you are a dog or cat and you are a dick, then I will probably think you're a dick and not like you. If you are a dog or cat and you are cool, I will think you're cool and I will like you. I will love you, even. I love a cat named Cooper, for instance, and I love a dog named Bua. I love them. I admit it. I loved a dog named Rufus who died. I cried when Rufus died. I lied. He died. I cried. I'm sorry I lied. I love you.

the comedy boner

I have this idea where you'd walk around in public with a huge boner. It'd have to be straight-faced, you'd be going about your normal business, only you'd have a totally obvious boner sticking straight out in your pants. The trick to a male over the age of 18 would be how to sustain the comedy boner, since boners tend to lose interest when they aren't used in the way God intended them to be (the God I'm talking about is into all kinds of stuff, it's cool). I guess frequent fluffing trips to the bathroom? Maybe some medicinal help? I think the comedic effect depends on it being a real boner, so prosthetics and falsies are out.

How am I gonna do this?

Nobody said it was gonna be easy to make people laugh. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.


Figure 12: Will Ferrell kind of already did the comedy boner

DABDA

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief apply remarkably well to my recent loss of Smoking. Here's how it's been for me:

Denial that I needed to quit just yet at all. (thanks, mystical understanding of the human body)

Bargaining that I'd quit tomorrow, or cut down to a limited amount. (thanks, vast powers of rationalization)

Accepting that I had to quit. (thanks, Great Uncle Don)

Depressed about how much it sucks to not smoke. (thanks a lot, past self)

Angry at people at the drop of a hat because I don't smoke. (sorry, friends)

I didn't even make this shit up

-1 Morning Star veggie patty, fried
-2 slices whole wheat bread, toasted
-Mayonnaise
-1/2 Avocado, sliced
-Some mild Kim Chee from a jar
-Some kind of pretty good salsa

You know what to do.


Also, I've developed a new sort of breakfast.

-1 banana, peeled
(eat the whole thing, it's good for you)

don't think ill of me...

...but I'm pretty sure I just plain don't really like dogs, or cats. It takes such a big heart to be a man, to be a man who tries to love and to be open to love. My heart isn't big enough to let some annoying-ass non-human creatures get all up in my face in there, especially when they also make me sneeze. No, I ain't gonna kick 'em, but no, I ain't gonna love 'em. Especially when they're dicks, too. Fuck an animal who's a dick.

Don't think ill of me. I love you.

Two (2) things about today

1. Today is the day "Dr. Phil" becomes a verb. It means to try to figure out why someone does something. As in, why did that person do that? I dunno, let's Dr. Phil him for a minute and figure out, like, his childhood situation that led to this. As in, whoa, why do I do and not do the things I do and not do? Sometimes I wish I'd Dr. Philled myself a little and tried to get some personal insight so I feel like I know why I do stuff. As in, who's that dude on TV with the mustache who's all Dr. Philling that chick about her hording problem? Oh, that's Dr. Phil.

(In the distant past great warriors became, through gradual accretion of notoriety, first heroes, then legends, and finally gods. Now the best you can hope for is the mystical transubstantiation from noun to verb).


2. I'm going camping. Bye!

Hot Damn & Hallelujah

Those are the new nicknames for my balls. Please update your address books.

Mr. Gold and Mr. Mudd

Townes Van Zandt's Mr. Gold & Mr. Mudd interpreted for your pleasure:

The wicked King of Clubs awoke
it was to his Queen he turned
his lips were laughing as they spoke
his eyes like bullets burned
the sun's upon a gambling day
his Queen smiled low and blissfully
let's make some wretched fool to play
plain it was she did agree

Pretty clear so far. The king of clubs is a dick, and his wife is a bitch. They are really excited to fuck some poor fucker over.

He sent his Deuce down into Diamond
his Four to Heart, and his Trey to Spade
three Kings with their legions come
preparations soon where made
they voted Club the days commander
gave him an army face and number
all but the outlaw Jack of Diamonds
and the Aces in the sky

Here we learn more about the world in which the dick and bitch monarchs of Clubs reside. There are four kingdoms corresponding to the four suits, each with their own Kings and Queens, and each with a social order below that more or less follows the ladder up from Two to Jack. The Aces are something like gods or angels though, and we learn that the Jack of Hearts is not a willing member of this ordered society.

So the asshole King sends his lowest three servants out to the three other kingdoms as messengers, and soon enough the other Kings come over, with all their servants, to help carry out this bitch-ass plan to fuck a poor fucker. They are so into this cruel idea they form an army for the asshole King consisting of all the royals ('face') and lower servants ('number') from the three other suits, and this in addition to all the Clubs who are already under the Asshole King's command. By the end of this verse, then, we know that the Asshole King has at his beck and call 47 of the 52 cards in the deck-- all of 'em but the four ethereal Aces and the outlaw Jack of Diamonds.

He give his Sevens first instructions
spirit me a game of stud
stakes unscarred by limitation
'tween a man named Gold and man named Mudd

Apparently in this world Sevens can do magical things, like create scenarios out of the blue. I love the order here: first the cards exist, then the game is created (five card stud), then the terms (no betting limit), and finally the players. Ass-backwards, and rightly so, since the real protagonists here are the cards, not the men.

Club filled Gold with greedy vapors
'til his long, green eyes did glow
Mudd was left with the sighs and trembles
watching his hard earned money go

The Asshole King has some kind of greed poison he gives to Mr. Gold. Mr. Mudd is a sorry fucker.

Flushes fell on Gold like water
Tens they paired and paired again
but the Aces only flew through heaven
and the Diamond Jack called no man friend

Flushes and pairs of tens are easy for the Asshole King to make happen with his huge army of cards. But so far in all the games (we start to realize it isn't just one game of stud, but a whole night of stud) there's been nary an Ace (they don't follow the laws of men) and no Jack of Hearts (he doesn't follow the laws of men either).

The Diamond Queen saw Mudd's ordeal
and began to think of her long lost son
she fell to her knees with a mother's mercy
and prayed to the angels every one

Her long lost son is the outlaw Jack of Diamonds. He is nowhere to be found, and she misses him, so she prays to the angels...

The Diamond Queen, she prayed and prayed
and the Diamond angel filled Mudd's hole

...and the angels are the Aces! The Diamond Ace heard the Diamond Queen's prayer and started this last fateful game by coming down and being Mudd's hold card (five-card stud is one down followed by four up).

the wicked King of Clubs himself
fell in face down in front of Gold

So Mr. Gold has the Asshole King in his hole. This is the makings for a high-betting game-- since there are only five cards and no wilds, a King or Ace in your hole is a great start whether or not you pair it up later.

now three Kings come to Club's command
but the angels from the sky did ride
three Kings up on the streets of Gold
three Fireballs on the Muddy side

The Asshole King gets his cronies to be the next three cards. But remember, the Diamond Queen prayed to the angels, every one-- she has called and they have answered ('fireballs' is some poker slang for Aces). So now is where it starts getting really awesome. You gotta think in terms of who knows what. Mr. Mudd already knows he will win this hand. The only hand that can beat four Aces is a straight flush, which Mr. Gold obviously doesn't have, since he has three Kings showing. To Mr. Mudd, then, it doesn't matter at all what Mr. Gold has in his hole, and it doesn't matter at all what comes up as the final card.

Mr. Gold, however, is feeling pretty good too. Really good, in fact. He knows he has four Kings, and the only way Mudd is beating him is if Mudd has another Ace-- very very low odds. Yet he knows that Mudd doesn't know he has the fourth King. All filled with his greedy vapors he is probably beside himself at what a perfect hand he has with which to bleed his opponent.

The Club Queen heard her husband's call
but Lord that Queen of Diamond's joy
when the outlaw in the heavenly hall
turned out to be her wandering boy

The fifth and final cards: the Bitch Queen joins her Asshole King and his cronies on Gold's side, and in a surprise twist, the outlaw Jack joins all those Aces of Mudd's-- the answerers and the answer to the Diamond Queen's prayers all in the same 'heavenly hall.' In this verse not much changes with the human drama between Mr. Gold and Mr. Mudd. If anything, Gold is relieved Mudd didn't get an Ace. The drama in this verse is with the cards-- the mean-ass Bitch Queen standing by her mean-ass bitch man, and the humble and penitent Diamond Queen getting all she ever hoped for. Also the direct juxtaposition of the outlaw and the angels is some classic Townes poetry, two different ways not to be part of this humdrum world of Kings and Queens and their legions.

Now Mudd he checked and Gold bet all
and Mudd he raised and Gold did call

Nice poker move by Mudd. He checks, which pretty much tells Gold he doesn't have that Ace. So of course Gold bets all, figuring he's got it made. That opens the opportunity for Mudd to raise, and Gold I guess is too stupid or too proud to imagine the reality, maybe he thinks Mudd is bluffing, maybe he's too 'pot-comitted,' maybe it's the effects of those greedy vapors, who knows, but he calls, and apparently he calls with a smile on his face, not even considering the possibility that this sorry fucker is playing him...

and the smile just melted off his face
when Mudd turned over that Diamond Ace

...but this sorry fucker is playing him.

Now here's what this story's told
if you feel like Mudd you'll end up Gold
if you feel like lost, you'll end up found
so amigo, lay them raises down.

Here it gets kind of sinister, because now that the humans' and cards' revenge stories are wrapped up, we get to the narrator of the song. On the surface it seems like he's just Greek chorus-style wrapping up an inspirational story about reversing your bad fortunes. But Townes Van Zandt was a ramblin' gamblin' kind of guy, and this story is just the sort of myth he'd want his poker opponents to believe so they'd keep playing him even when he was handing back out their asses to 'em right and left.

Weekend of May 30

---

(today half-assedly in the style of I count the days)

---

I bought a bike.

I ate six gourmet sandwiches with sopressata, provolone, liverwurst, mustard, miracle whip, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, prosciutto, gorgonzola, and fresh basil; fifty-three tortilla chips with salsa and guacamole, one grilled tuna steak, slightly overcooked, one salad with lettuce, spinach, goat cheese, and dressing, one banana stuffed with chocolate and grilled, one vegetarian bratwurst, one orange, one apple sliced and served with gorgonzola cheese and hot sopressata, two and a half tilapia spring rolls, one Vietnamese sandwich, and one half of a mushroom and garlic pizza.

I played tennis.

I drank four thousand forty seven beers, six cups of hot coffee, one cup of iced coffee, seven gallons of water, two shandies, one cup of tea with milk and sugar, one anise-flavored cocktail, four sips of dry sherry, one sip of sweet sherry, three sips of incredibly flat beer, three-fourths a pitcher of moderately flat beer, four glasses of orange juice mixed with club soda and ice, and the blood of six sacrificial calves.

I smoked marijuana once or twice.

I concluded that dry sherry is barely drinkable, while sweet sherry is disgusting.

I rode my new bike ten times or so.

I fell in love ten times with my new bike.

I went swimming twice, under two aliases.

I kissed someone seven times in a large men's shoe closet.

I watched two innings of several baseball games.

I did some stuff that is Private. The number of times I did the stuff is Private.

I called my parents and told them I loved them, and they told me they loved me.

I felt thankful for my loving family.

I held a lit cigarette in my hand once but did not smoke it, even a little bit.

I watched a local Iron-Chef style competition for two hours.

I coveted a friend's roast beef sandwich.

I wore pants but no underpants for three hours.

I mentioned my lack of underpants thirty-one times.

I concluded one movie I didn't like when I saw it was great after reading about it and thinking about it for a week.

I got twelve flies in my nose, seven flies in my mouth, and three flies in my eyes when I rode my new bike through two swarms of flies.

I thought about sex fourteen million three hundred thousand thirty eight times.

I felt awkward nine times.

I felt embarassed thirteen times.

I recorded three short pieces of music.

I checked the number of views on my youtube movies fourteen times.

---

Jesus, keepin' stats is hard.

Which reminds me of a vernacular addendum newly introduced this weekend: 'stats' from here on out refers only to penis size. As in, hey, you know that dude? Ya, I know him. How're his stats?

I'm gonna go buy a tent.

The Taste Will Move You, Young Wizard

I made another video.

love

I am in love with salami sandwiches-- sopressata, miracle whip, Swiss cheese, and lettuce on Italian sesame-seed crust bread.

I am in love with Maria Sharapova. Seriously, Maria, let's stop this charade. Call me. I love you.

I am in love with Morton Feldman's second string quartet. The whole thing.


Figure 12: Awww, don't cry, Maria. Here, let me fix you a salami sandwich, we can share it while we listen to Morton Feldman together.




Love, Matt

Beanizza? Beazza? Fuck it, it's a pizza with beans on it.

1. Get an oven pizza. The cheap kind that doesn't totally suck.
2. Have a friend who makes huge vats of beans and get some beans from him.
3. Put some beans on your pizza.
4. Shred some cheese on there too.
5. Cook it (enough to make the crust hard enough to not fold under the weight of the beans), and then put spices on it, and hot sauce.
6. Eat most of it, but save some for tomorrow.

Tomorrow's recipe:
Something involving cut-up leftover beanizza and probably an avocado.

(Don't even think about telling me this is "Mexican pizza." That is hella insulting to Mexicans.)

man this really didn't turn out as funny as I thought it would

A while back me and my buddy RJ made this boom-boom song, recorded live with naught but a 707, some effects pedals, a mixer, and a mic. I had this idea to turn it into a hilarious video that would become a youtube sensation.

Figure 12: The Roland TR-707, Perpetrator of Mad Beats


I made the video, allright, but it's not hilarious at all. It seems like something a 5th grader would make. But god damn if I'm not proud of it anyhow. So here it is.

always something there to remind me

It seems like everywhere I turn I see your face. I miss you. I miss the times we had. Remember? Nowadays I see you with so many other people, and I just want to grab these other people by the shoulders, and look them in the eye, and tell them to cherish you. I want to tell them, "you have no idea how lucky you are." I want to say, "no, you have no fucking clue. Cherish, for the love of God, cherish every second you spend together."

And you know what's the worst? God help me, but the last time we said goodbye, I said I hated you. I said that, and I have to live with that forever. I know you knew I didn't really feel that way, but I have a lifetime ahead of me to think about how that was the last thing I said to you before the Lord took you away from me. If there was some way I could get in a time machine, or harness the power of lightning to bring you back, just for one moment, I would do anything. Anything. But you're gone. You're gone and soon enough I will think about you less. Eventually I won't even care about you anymore, and that is the saddest of all.

Don't go softly into that dark night, Smoking, don't you dare!

livin' the dream

The Boss once asked "is a dream still a dream if it don't come true?"

I had a dream I bought some chocolate covered pretzels. It's not often you can make a dream come true so easily as this dream. I am gonna buy some chocolate covered pretzels.


Figure 12: This, my friends, is what dreams are made of:


I am living the dream.
I have become the dream.

so sayeth the boss...

You can't start a fire...
You can't start a fire without a spark.
This gun's for hire...
even if we're just dancing in the dark.

R.I.P.

You can't pretend quitting smoking isn't tragic. Smoking was your buddy and your companion for a long time. It's not like it isn't sad to see it go. You gotta mourn it. You gotta admit to yourself that smoking was awesome, and that you will miss smoking. You gotta comisserate and say smoking will always kind of be a part of you. It will always be there up in heaven, looking down on you and kind of watching your back, like your grandma, or like Jesus, or like Yoda, Anakin, and Obi-Wan. It is the great consolation but also the great tragedy that life goes on without smoking. All things must pass.

...else your sandwich ain't a sandwich

I love Miracle Whip. When I was a kid I thought Miracle Whip was a brand of mayonnaise. It wasn't until I was in middle school I learned they were different. The only places I'd have mayonnaise was places like school, or friends' houses. I just thought my schools and my friends' parents had shitty mayonnaise that tasted weird. Then when I was in middle school is when Subway started up. I would go there and get a Cold Cut Combo (I have since changed my Subway jam to the Spicy Italian, largely based on my intense love for salami) and I would always think their mayonnaise must suck too, but nobody agreed with me, and finally I realized that mayonnaise isn't supposed to taste like Miracle Whip. I don't even get why they are compared, they are totally different in everything but color and texture and application and... oh wait, I guess I do get why they are compared. Mayonnaise is far more famous, at least on the internet, but to me Miracle Whip is so much better. In my older age I like mayonnaise too now. But still, gimme Miracle Whip any day. I wish they had Miracle Whip at Subway. Why don't they have Miracle Whip at Subway? God damnit, why not?

I heard there are fancy kinds of salami. I think I might go to the Italian market and get some, and some bread, and make some salami sandwiches with Miracle Whip. Oh god that is what I am gonna do. I will ride my bike. Bye!

New Leaves: I am turning some over

It is sort of cheating, because I am sick, but still, I haven't smoked in 5 days. So I stole that counter up there on your right from my bro's blog and customized it a bit and now it is there to keep me honest.

Also my terrible disintegrating foot is almost back to normal. Besides putting various creams and salves and poultices on it, I have been actually cleaning my bathroom a lot. I guess that again is cheating, because it was also motivated by disease. But still, I am liking it, and getting positive reviews from female friends, so I think I will keep it up.

But not everything is disease-motivated. I have been keeping my kitchen clean too. I mopped it twice in the same month. For real. Believe it. It's because I want to turn over a new cooking leaf, and cooking just seems so much easier if you have a kind of clean kitchen to cook in. This horrible fucking cold makes me never want to eat anything ever, but as soon as it's gone I am gonna hit that kitchen hard and make just the nastiest shit you ever heard of and write about it in here. Just nasty shit, like Peanut Butter and Jelly Omelets (I didn't make that one up, my dad did) and Pickle-n-Bacon Sandwiches with Miracle Whip (this is only theoretical, I hope to have a beta version early next week).

I took a cue from one of my main doggs and started riding my bike around, too, taking it to the train and taking combinations of bike/bus/train to get places free (I get a free bus pass from my school) and get exercise too. I think when I get my six hundo check I'm gonna go buy a bike that isn't a pile of shit. Maybe something like this one, but probably something more like this one. Gotta do some test rides. Apparently I am already reaping the health benefits, because even though I've been getting concerned about my growing beer gut, some little kid in a school bus yelled at me on my bike yesterday "Hey skinny boy, you sure go awful slow!" What do you say to that? That's like half a compliment, half an objective statement of truth. It put a smile on my face that lasted a couple blocks, but then some mean nasty ugly bitch in a huge SUV laid on her horn at me because she was pissed she had to wait til some mean nasty ugly dickhead in another giant SUV passed in the oncoming lane before she could go around my lil' bike. I gave her the meanest glare I could muster, and damned myself for not having the ability to ride handless, since I wanted to give her the double finger instead of the single. Whatchu gonna do.

God damnit I'm getting real fucking sick of being real fucking sick

Figure 12: My meat is waxing loathsome (bottom right)


If Flegme abundance haue due limits past,
These signes are here set downe will plainly shew,
The mouth will seeme to you quite out of taste,
And apt with moisture still to overflow,
Your sides will seeme all sore downe to the waist,
Your meat wax loathsome, your digestion slow,
Your head and stomacke both in so ill taking,
One seeming euer griping tother aking:
With empty veynes, the pulse beat slow and soft,
In sleepe, of seas and ryuers dreaming oft.

the sexual revolution: I don't buy it

Man, fuckin' ex-hippies are so self-congratulatory. They think they invented sex. And the concept of personal freedom. They didn't even invent being too lazy to find out all the people who did the same shit before they did. People have been fucking, feeling free, and being lazy since the dawn of time, I bet. That's what I bet. I'm no historian. But I do sometimes see a few seconds of a history channel documentary, and I usually come away pissed off at ex-hippies taking responsibility for basic facts of human existence. They didn't even invent sex the way George Washington Carver invented the peanut. They didn't even invent sex the way Newton invented gravity. They maybe invented sex like Steak-n-Shake invented the steakburger. Maybe.

I'm sick, and also I have athlete's foot real bad

God damnit. Shit. Fuck, this sucks. I feel like shit. God damnit. My foot is disintegrating, too.
Fuck.
Shit.
Damnit.


Fuck.

I Hate Al & Dan; I Love the Future

I was watching the Cardinals game today and I just reached a point where I couldn't take it anymore. During an exciting game, Al and Dan (the FSN midwest announcers for the Cards) were just blabbering on about their T-shirts and their cats and shit. I hate them! I hate listening to them! It's all blabbering until something vaguely bad happens, then it's Dan bitching like a fifth-grade jilted boyfriend. Then it's Al saying something vaguely almost goofy and Dan acting like it was the weirdest thing ever, and totally sucking Al's cock over it for the next ten minutes. Fuck those guys. I mean, I'm sure they're nice people and I don't hate them as people, they are just fucking awful announcers. At the beginning of each game I pray to the gods that this thing will happen more where the audio feed gets fucked up and you only hear the sounds of the game without any announcers. Gods, please make this happen more than once in a blue moon. It is the most glorious. It is the most high. It is the most exalted. Baal, Crom, Jesus, Mormon, come to my aid. Make this happen.

The future has allowed me, through mlbtv, to understand how truly bad our announcers are. I have watched games from all over the league, and I'd say ours and the Diamondbacks' TV announcers are the very bottom of the barrel.

(Who's the best, you ask? Vin Scully. Joe Morgan and Jon Miller. Joe Buck even, and Tim McCarver. The dudes who do the WGN cubs games, I don't know their names.)

But the future, bless its little heart, has also allowed me to do this: I hooked up a little radio's headphone output into my computer, into Logic (an audio recording program), through about 10 seconds' worth of delay (the most I could get from a delay plug-in), then bussed through about half that delay over again to match FSN's unreasonably long broadcast delay, then through the living room stereo. This way I could mute out the TV and listen to our radio announcers, Mike Shannon (awesome) and John Rooney (fucking sucks hard, but at least better than Al & Dan), whose broadcast is in real time. Thank the gods for the future. Thank the gods for the one good announcer in this city. Thank the gods for computers. Also thank the gods for love, and for cute animals like platypusses and guinea pigs, and also thank the gods for the enduring miracle of the overtone series. That shit blows my mind. I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. The world is full of things to be thankful for. Thank you.

There's more than one good web comic!

I've spent a lot of time trying to find another worthwhile webcomic to compete with Achewood. Sure, you got your Garfield minus Garfield which can be funny or even downright revelatory. Sure, you got comic-related things like that hilarious dude who writes about Marmaduke. And of course these internets are always great for archives of old classic print comics like Krazy Kat. But until last week, nothing else really scratched the web-comic itch for me.

Figure 12: A Funny Comic from Brad Neely's Creased Comics



Well I have found an answer in Creased Comics. It doesn't have the story arcs and character development of an Achewood, but it has the one-off genius of the old Far Side. Also it explores a wider emotional range, from the plain old hilarious, to the tragic-yet-funny, to the confusing-in-a-hilarious-way, to the utterly baffling-but-amusing, to the plain old heart-wrenching-why-would-he-do-this-to-me-I-just- wanted-something-to-laugh-at-in-this-cruel-world.

Plus Brad Neely's other stuff is funny too-- Professor Brothers (here is a good place to start), a couple other cartoons (you can watch a lot of them here), Wizard People Dear Reader (here's the first chapter synched up, and then you'll probably just want to download the mp3s and rent the DVD and have yourself a time). Go ahead, check it out, be not disappointed.

this is a city of crime

(don't step out of line)



It somehow warms my heart that there are little cultural tidbits like this that even now, even today, in the middle of the future, with wireless signals buzzing around our heads like golden flying moths, with text-to-landline technology threatening to make us laugh at even the saddest of phone messages, with flying cars just around the corner, with five hundred reaction videos to a single shock site, that the only internet representation of this horrible, horrible disfiguration of "rap" music by one-and-a-half respected American actors is a shitty VHS rip with catastrophically unsynched sound. Somewhere in my heart, nestled between fond memories of Honey Nut Cheerios at Grandma's house and hidden flames for older professors, between the aorta and the left ventricle, there is a closet Luddite jamming up my arteries. This is a city of crime. Don't step out of line.

The slow movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony

Shitty Food For Shitty People Makes Good

Episode 12: My bros are in town

[start theme music]
[montage of the city skylines of San Francisco and Denver]
[stock footage of airplanes flying/landing]
[montage of St. Louis city scenes]
[clip of the Patterson-Gimlin sasquatch footage]
[extreme close-up on action figures being shot by BBs]
[end theme music]

---

1. Get your bros to come to town.
2. Go grocery shopping with them.
3. Try not to get in the way while they prepare:

-Salsiccia gnocchi & Italian bread
-Sausage gravy & biscuits
-Scrambled eggs & toast
-Various and sundry fine Belgian ales
-Premium bourbon

---

I think all my friends love my brothers more than they love me. Possibly because my brothers are the coolest dudes in the world, ever. I'll be thinking of them later on when I cook up some

Sausage-Gravy-Hot-Dog-ritos
-Have some leftover sausage gravy your bro made
-put it on a tortilla
-put a hot dog on there
-probably grate some cheddar cheese on there
-wrap it up and microwave it

This will taste good to you if you are filled with love. Are you filled with love? I am filled with love.

The Stupidest Thing You Could Possibly Ever Think About Doing At All Awards

Let's hand these out this year.

Caesar salad at Applebee's

-go to applebees
-order grilled chicken caesar salad
-eat it while you talk about your feelings

(this isn't something you probably want to do all that often)

faux leftover pizza

Sometimes you want leftover pizza. Sometimes you want that even more than you want new pizza. At least I do. Try these tricks if you have a fresh pizza but want a leftover pizza:

-Wait
-Put it in the fridge and wait
-Put it in the freezer and don't wait as long
-put it in the microwave and pretend it is re-heated rather than simply heated
-order two pizzas this time, then you can always stay one pizza ahead, one fresh one to age, and one aged one to eat.

Shitty Food for Shitty People

Episode 12: Special Guest Nachos

---

Title music (over a beat based on a sample of Easy Livin')
Uh, Uh, Uh,
Shitty food for shitty peeps
this shit is givin' me the creeps
yo how you gonna cook some pita bread
's staler than last years' Peeps
yo how you gonna cook potato soup
without no goddamn leeks

yo tell me how much dishes
I should wash up out the sink
don't mean a thing's expired
just because it got that stink

put that bacon in a coffee filter
& stir it while it steeps
we cookin' up some bacon broth
Shitty food for Shitty Peeps

Yo fire up that CD player
put on some Uriah Heep
I got some shitty food I need
to make for some shitty peeps

---

Tonight we got special guests in the house. We got a dude who used to work at a restaurant, we got a dude who eats all kinds of healthy shit, and we got me. We just got done playin' some poker. Nachos is the order of business. We got some beans leftover that already made ten bowls of beans and rice, fifteen burritos, and some art. We got colby-jack AND cheddar in spades. We got three kinds of salsa and some pussy hot sauce.

[Tracking shot: walk to gas station for nacho chips. Shit, no nacho chips. Doritos? Fuck it. Fritos? Yes. Five bags please, 'cuz we doin' this.]

---

-Have some leftover beans that are already really good. So good.
-Heat them up while someone goes and buys nacho chips.
-Make sure they go somewhere where they will be out of nacho chips and they will have to buy five bags of fritos instead.
-Heat up the oven too, during that time. 375 or so.
-Put four bags of Fritos in a jellyroll pan.
-Pour heated up beans on there.
-Put a bunch of cheese too. Grated cheese.
-Also salsa, hot sauce, that tomato sauce you can get in little cans that is basically like enchilada sauce I guess but my Spanish isn't that good anymore.
-Put more cheese on there.
-The kicker: crush up the last bag of Fritos and make a crust with it. It is basically a casserole kind of idea you got goin' here.
-bake it. Ten, fifteen minutes, til the top fritos are all browning up nice.
-Wash some spoons and sit around a table and just eat the shit outta that shit.


Don't try and tell me this is "frito pie." Don't try to tell me that.

Matt Morris

Matt Morris got cut by the Pirates. I always liked him as a pitcher, and as a Matt. There were very few famous Matts in sports when I was a kid. Looking back into baseball history, the closest thing might have been Matty Alou, but he retired before I was born. Nowadays you can't throw a plastic beer bottle onto the field without hitting a Matt-- just talking more well-known players, you got your Holliday, your Clement and Cain, your Lawton, Belisle, & Murton, & plenty more. Matt Morris really opened the door for Matt to be an acceptable name for a baseball player. I thank him for his courage.

Figure 12: The Man Himself, back when he was a Cardinal



Figure 12b: Wisdom
"I'm proud of my career. I didn't mean or want for it to end this way. I've always said the other team will let you know when you're done."

you can also make it with salami

The C.U.P. w/ T.H.M.C. on P, that is. Instead of cut-up pizza. But if you use salami, I would recommend no hot sauce, less salt, and mix some miracle whip with the top hummous. Also maybe even put a pickle in there and roll it up instead of cooking it flat. Also don't shred the cheese, just cut it up. Also, it doesn't really actually taste what you would call "good."

Also, it should be pointed out that there exists no conceivable situation in which the title of this entry is not true.

Example usage:
A father might use it as a conciliatory statement to a child who didn't get what they wanted for Christmas.

C.U.P. w/ T.H.M.C. on P

(Cut-Up Pizza with Tabouli, Hummous, & Melted Cheese on Pita)

-When you go get some falafel or something, also get a bag of pita bread and containers of hummous and tabouli, but don't eat it all.
-Order a pizza and eat most of it the day before. Mine had black olives. What will yours have?
-Cut up the last two pieces of the leftover pizza. Just the inner parts, forget the crust, or eat it to tide you over while you're "cooking."
-Oh yeah, preheat the oven to about 350 or 400 or so.
-Spread some hummous on a pita bread. Good hummous. Smooth hummous.
-Put the cut-up pizza on there and spread it out.
-put a bunch of tabouli on top, and also shred some cheese on there.
-maybe some hot sauce too? And spices? Go with it, man Just go with how you feel.
-spread hummous on another pita and put it over top as a lid. Smoosh it down on there good so it compacts everything a little and kind of almost forms a seal.
-rub some olive oil on the top (I heard that helps make stuff crispy) and put salt and pepper on there too. Especially salt.
-Put it in the oven until it gets sort of crispy and the cheese is all melty. If it is too bendy to eat with your bare hands, you didn't cook it long/hot enough.

more on the earthquake

Earthquakes don't happen too much here. When they do they aren't the kind of thing you immediately recognize and call "earthquake." Instead, your mind is lost for a while, it is desperate and it is grasping at straws. The kinds of straws your mind grasps at in these situations can tell you something about your mind, and your mind can tell you something about you. Everybody I talked to had their own play-by-play list as to what the hell they thought was going on. Here's a good one.

What in the hell--a motherfucking earthquake.

There was an earthquake here last night around 4 AM (yes, last night, and fuck you for being one of those people who gets all self-righteous and tries to tell me 4 AM is techically today, that's not how I use those words). It was 5.2 on the Richter scale. That means nothing to me, I'll have to consult some 'Fornians and see if that gets any respect. But I can tell you it was confusing as hell. First I thought a truck was going by. Then I thought the janky upstairs back porch was finally falling off the building. Then I thought my upstairs neighbor was having a kind of sex I didn't know was even possible. Then I thought maybe there was a tornado. Then I thought it might be an earthquake. Then in my grogginess I became convinced it was the shockwave from a huge explosion, perhaps nuclear, perhaps in NY or somewhere, perhaps some terrorists who decided to kill the pope, since I think I saw him on the front page of the paper, which probably means he is coming to America? I couldn't sleep so I turned on the radio and found out it was an earthquake. Then I found out that the most boring thing in the world is to listen to people call and talk about a mild earthquake. There's really just not that much to say.

In my older age I have figured out these things about spring.

I don't remember ever caring about the seasons that much when I was younger. I don't remember feeling all that different in the winter compared to the summer. I knew old people liked to talk about the seasons as though they made that much of a difference, but I always just though that was old-people talk. Well now I have a little age, a little wisdom, and I realize:

-In the spring I really do get extra horny.
-Two of the seasons' names are verbs (Spring, Fall), and two aren't, and there's a way that makes sense.
-It really is pretty when stuff starts having flowers on it. For real.
-In the spring it really does rain a lot. That isn't just something they say. Last week it rained for like 62 hours straight.
-In the spring I have vast reserves of hyper energy, even more than usual.
-Springtime always seems like a good time to produce stuff. I mean to toil at something that leaves a tangible result.
-Some kind of plants that bloom in the spring can elicit an immediate, fixed emotional response. E.g. redbuds=wistful.
-Girls who were already beautiful look even more beautiful in the springtime. This is not just a clothes thing, or a corollary to spring fever, I am convinced this is some sort of chemical factor with the air and the skin.
-There is something different in how light diffuses, or else something different about our eyes, or maybe both. I think if you didn't know if it was fall or spring you could tell by looking at anything.
-Certain types of music sound better a little quieter in spring.
-People's hair looks better in the spring. Also the spring wind blows people's hair differently, and it looks great. People look great in the spring.
-The springtime is the hardest time to collect and focus one's hate. That shit just doesn't seem to matter as much in the spring.
-It feels way better to get really really hungry before you eat in the spring. I think this may be a learned response to poorly planned BBQs that turn out just right.
-My heart will be stolen and my breath taken by a girl walking in the spring. She won't know she has stolen my heart and taken my breath. This will happen up to seven times on a spring day, each time as catastrophic as the last.
-One thinks more with one's hands in the spring. Take that how you want, I give it honestly and lewdly.

My new skills

Can you construct an equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line?
Can you place a straight line equal to a given straight line with one end on a given point?
Can you cut off from the greater of two given straight lines a straight line equal to the lesser?
Can you bisect a given rectilinear angle? How about a given straight line?



I can. I can do all that shit, man. Just gimme a compass and a straightedge. No, not these kinds:

I guess I been meanin' to learn a little geometry.

I'm gonna go buy a compass and protractor and just go to town with Euclid's Elements. I feel like if you are a man, and you like geometry, you have to do that, at least once. You must do it alone. You can't take anything with you. Except your compass and protractor. And I suppose some paper, pencils, maybe some gatorade and beef jerky in case you get hungry. You have to just work through the whole thing in order, just work through it real slow and hand-draw out all the figures and proofs even when they seem obvious.

I don't know, I guess I just got excited reading about Reuleaux triangles and toruses and tetrahelixes and such, plus there is the matter of this beloved Achewood strip.

I will let you know how it goes. I will tell you how smart it makes me feel. I will tell you if it makes me lose weight and develop a healthy glow to the skin on my face and also my back.

The Internets' Preferences

I'm probably late to the party, but have you heard of this site where you can pit two keywords together and see which one wins the Internet?

Here's a result that may shock you:



But on the other hand...

How was your weekend?

Mine was great.

What? No way.

This is incredible.

It reminds me of this:




P.S. I hate birds.

I experienced feelings

My emotional intelligence ranks somewhere between some algae's and a baby naked mole rat's, but I read this poem once that starts off like this:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Picture this:
A dude talking about his feelings.
That happened to me.

more Monopoly advice

Also don't buy Water Works. It is the kiss of death. Seriously, don't. Don't buy it.

what a sucker I was...

.. but you know, that was back before I knew any better, and I didn't cut up salami and fry it up in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, then throw in some garlic I roasted and a can of diced tomatoes and some chunk light tuna and a wedge of laughing cow cheese spread and a bunch of grated swiss cheese, then mix it with those kind of noodles that are different colors than regular noodles, then bake it with some stale Tostitos crumbled over for a crust and some extra cheese on top. Thank god I am older and wiser now. Thank God.


Figure 12: Those noodles that are different colors than regular noodles
(mine were more like fettucini, though)
(also higher resoloution)

Monopoly advice

Don't ever buy Electric Company. Ever.

If I were God (the famous one)...

Dogs in alleys would have no vocal cords, and there would be no fucking god damn pidgeons. Also I would still be sleeping.

Albert Pujols is the new Brian Wilson

...according to this hilarious post comparing baseball teams to rock bands past & present (thanks for the heads-up, Viva El Birdos).




An excerpt:

St. Louis Cardinals are The Beach Boys: The wholesome, family-friendly exterior conceals a deviant, tragic core (substance abuse, performance enhancing and otherwise; tragic deaths of key performers). Led by an authoritarian egomaniac (Tony LaRussa; Murry Wilson). One brilliant member surrounded by a rotating cast of a couple solid supporting players and a bunch of scrubs (Albert Pujols; Brian Wilson). Shocking, inexplicable late-career resurgence (2006 postseason; "Kokomo").

I have hate in my heart

It is at birds.

I offer you this humble song

I knew this guy in high school
everyone called him Steve
but Steve was really his middle name
his real first name was Jesus

Well everybody used to make fun of him
when they found out Jesus was his name
I remember I used to make fun of him too

[instrumental interlude]

Oooohh, Ooooohh
Whoa-oh-ohhhh, etc.

[electric piano solo]

Ooooh, ya, whoa-oh, etc.

Well you know, you grow up, you get more mature
your horizons grow and then sometimes
you hang out with people you used to make fun of
and go over to their house sometimes

Well I met Steve's folks once after we saw a movie
it was Halloween 4, it was ok
I shook Steve's dad's hand and he said "call me Phil,
but my real name is God

but not the famous one,
never knew my dad but I heard he was a heathen
probably just forgot to finish writing Godfrey
on the birth, on the buh-urth, on the biiiirrrth,

[whispered] certificate"

Yaaa, oooh,
[guitar]

Well they went by Steve and Phil
so people wouldn't make fun of them
but really they were Jesus and God
but not,

but nah--ot,

but naaaa-y-aaaaa-y-aaaaaaught, whoa-oh-whoa-hoh,

the famous ones...

[outro]

Now my hair looks good. Real good.

back to good ol' food again

I have three things about food:

First, a recipe:

Six Cheese pizza

-Buy yourself a Red Baron Four Cheese Pizza
-Shred two more kinds of cheese on it (how about cheddar and swiss?)


Next, a culinary tale:

I did all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen so I could just go nuts in there with cooking, all using three different burners and having several "prep" areas. But then I couldn't decide what to cook, so I came up with an idea: Iron Chef Salami.


Figure 12: Three (3) slices of salami



See, I had some salami, real thin-sliced. I cut it up real small and put it in a pan and used it like you might use bacon or (in cooking shows) panchetta, all greasy and sizzling and ready to become the medium in which some chopped up garlic and onions get sauteed. That was the high point of my dish. It was delicious! But what are you gonna do, eat some chopped up salami garlic and onion hash? Not me. I had this stale old piece of pita bread that I toasted up crisp and crushed into crumbs, and I tried to smush up some of the salami-onion-garlic mixture and make a meatball kind of thing. It did not cohere. So instead I decided I would try to make my hash into a sauce. I wanted to "deglaze" it like in cooking shows, but there was no wine around. I used a little flat Dr. Pepper, though, because I knew for sure I needed something sweet in there to compliment the saltiness of the salami. It was delicious! So then I put in some canned tomatoes, and some mushrooms, and made it into a tomato sauce that I poured over some macaroni. That ruined it. It was not very good. So in desperation I tried to turn it into more of a casserole. I used the bread-crumby failed meatball stuff as a crust, and baked it. The texture worked, but it still tasted not so good. I ate it. There is some left over. I might not eat that.

Finally, an idea that I have:

It is called "Shitty Food for Shitty People." It is a cooking program in which some shitty person makes some shitty food, but it is shot, acted, and narrated like a real cooking show. Most of the food will never have a chance not to technically suck, but it will be funny. It will be a funny show.

Maundy; Maudlin

Catholics, man. I asked some what Maundy Thursday was, and they said it was the thursday before Good Friday. That's like if you ask someone how a refrigerator works, and they tell you you open it and put stuff in it and close it.

I was watching this history channel show about Mary Magdalene, though, and how I guess people confuse that Mary with this other Mary who was a prostitute or something. I don't know, I was mostly paying attention to the hot Mary in the reenactment, see, there was one who was hot and one who wasn't.

Then I looked up "maudlin" because I got it confused with "maundy," plus it is one of those words I just never really got around to learning. Turns out "maudlin" comes from Mary Magdalene herself, her last name that is. Because maudlin means kind of oversentimental or tearful, and I guess when they used to paint Mary Magdalene they always caught her crying (also often topless) (rumor is she was a real fox) (historical art unfairly favors breast men, get me a time machine and a petition).


Figure 12: Mary Magdalene (note breasts and mawkish* sentimentality)




"Maundy," on the other hand, comes from the same sort of stuff as "mandate" (like a command, not like taking a dude to dinner and getting him drunk), because on Maundy Thursday Jesus said "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

I'm not a religious man, but I do think that is Jesus' raddest commandment unto us, and the hardest one to keep.

I love you!


* "Mawkish" comes from a word for maggot! How about that?

Update: I no longer look like Bob Saget

I have also been told that I never really looked like him to begin with. But people often disagree with me about who looks like who. For instance:

Do you think Gary Busey looks like the bargain Nick Nolte?

Do you think Tom Selleck looks like Burt Reynolds?

If you live in St. Louis and know my roommate, do you think that orthodontist guy in those commercials for the clear plastic mouthpiece that does what braces do looks like the black version of my roommate?

Do you think the two guys with beards on Top Chef look the same?

Do you think that Brian Wilson looks like Bjorn Borg? Do you?

Do you think that kinda chubby stupid guy on that show where Charlie Sheen was the mayor's assistant looks like the dad on the Wonder Years?

Do you think Fred Willard looks like Alan Thicke?

Do you think Ramses III looks just like Thutmoses?

Do you think Charles deGaul looks just like Robespierre?

Do you think Pete Sampras looks like that kid from My So Called Life, only all grown up and more agile?

If they were all in a lineup, could you distinguish Martin Sheen, Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Charlie Sheen, and Emilio Estevez? Could you?

Do you think Phillip Seymour Hoffman looks just like this kid I knew in 10th grade? Do you?


Do you? Do you think that? Do you think those things?

I think I might look like Bob Saget now

(I got my hair cut)

Ancho is the new Chipotle

Tell your friends.

I fixed my van, but it was never broken

My van broke down on the highway. Getting on the entrance ramp, it kind of lurched like it wasn't getting any fuel or something, then went normal agan, then started doing that again, then shaking a little, then it died, so I popped it in neutral and thankfully rolled far enough to get past this guardrail and pull onto the shoulder.

I got it towed. It was complicated, because I was in the middle of helping my friend move, and we were close to his old place, so that would be a cheaper place to tow it, but then again starting the very next day he would no longer live there, and neither would anyone else I know. But that's where it went anyhow.


Figure 12: My van looks like this dude's van




Over the next couple of weeks I'd go down there with my friend who knows about cars. We changed the plugs. We checked the wires. We looked for loose hoses. Our next frontier was gonna be the distributor, then maybe the fuel pump. But all the while I had this Nagging Feeling.

I put my finger on the Nagging Feeling last week. I went and got the book for my van, and was reading it, and was about to laugh and feel superior when I was going through those troubleshooting checklists that start with the most obvious things, when a few pieces of information finally gelled together, Encyclopedia-Brown-type style, in my mind. It was like this, but imagine it being said aloud in your inner monologue, which sounds like Frank Drebin, and maybe in the background there is some noir-ish jazz music:


Figure 12: Lieutenant Frank Drebin



--Fact: when the tow truck guy asked what happened, I started going into a long-winded explanation, but then realized I was boring him, so I said it basically felt just like it does when you run out of gas.

--Fact: It wouldn't run at all later that night, but the next day it ran for about a minute, and a week or so later it ran for about ten seconds, and then it wouldn't run any more after that.

--Fact: the whole week before the breakdown I'd been marvelling at the suprisingly good gas mileage I got in my old van.

--Fact: one time about a year ago I lent my van to someone who said they'd fill it with gas, then they gave it back and it said it was only a little less than a quarter full. They told me they had put $50 worth in. I drove it a while with the needle stuck there, then it went down and had worked so well since that I forgot all about it. Until now...

--Fact: Red plastic 2-gallon gas tanks are only like $4 at Target.

--Fact: But they're kind of hard to pour into your gas tank because they don't have that little hole on the other side.

--Fact: My god-damn van was just out of gas.

--Fact: I'm an idiot.

--Opinion: It was embarassing.

--Question: Can you imagine if I took it to the mechanic? That would be really embarassing.

--Fact: I'm gonna go drive my van to the barber and get a haircut once I finish this cup of coffee.