I’m never where I want to be

The Goanna Lizard is Go-anna GET you, sucka! Listen to that rawr! He is a fearsome little dude! Look out!
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php

***

I was listening to NPR’s All Things Considered a few weeks ago, and they played a really good strings-based instrumental of Solsbury Hill, by Peter Gabriel. Only they didn’t list it in the musical interludes section of the show summary online, and no-one at NPR has bothered to respond to my very URGENT inquiry. I went on a questie-poo to find the cover, and I found the keen site below. No dice on the song, but some groovy covers of the Pete-Action.
www.glidemagazine.com/hiddent...edition/

***

I also found the funny thingy below while searching for said cover. I have no idea how that works, I just found it amusing.

Ordering Pizza in the Year 2010
Operator: "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your..."
Customer: "Hi, I'd like to order."
Operator: "May I have your NIDN first, sir?"
Customer: "My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610."
Operator: "Thank you, Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number's 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302 and your cell number's 266-2566. Which number are you calling from, sir?"
Customer: "Huh? I'm at home. Where d'ya get all this information?"
Operator: "We're wired into the system, sir."
Customer: (Sighs) "Oh, well, I'd like to order a couple of your All-Meat Special pizzas..."
Operator: "I don't think that's a good idea, sir."
Customer: "Whaddya mean?"
Operator: "Sir, your medical records indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice."
Customer: "What do you recommend, then?"
Operator: "You might try our low-fat Soybean Yogurt Pizza. I'm sure you'll like it"
Customer: "What makes you think I'd like something like that?"
Operator: "Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion."
Customer: "All right, all right. Give me two family-sized ones, then. What's the damage?"
Operator: "That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids, sir. The 'damage,' as you put it, heh, heh, comes to $49.99."
Customer: "Lemme give you my credit card number."
Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash. Your credit card balance is over its limit."
Customer: "I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your driver gets here."
Operator: "That won't work either, sir. Your checking account's overdrawn."
Customer: "Never mind. Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready. How long will it take?"
Operator: "We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45 minutes, sir. If you're in a hurry you might want to pick 'em up while you're out getting the cash, but carrying pizzas on a
motorcycle can be a little awkward."
Customer: "How do you know I'm riding a bike?"
Operator: "It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid up, so I just assumed that you'd be using it."
Customer: "@#%/$@&?#!"
Operator: "I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a July 2006 conviction for cussing out a cop."
Customer: (Speechless)
Operator: "Will there be anything else, sir?"
Customer: "No, nothing. oh, yeah, don't forget the two free liters of Coke your ad says I get with the pizzas."
Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but our ad's exclusionary clause prevents us from offering free soda to diabetics."

***

The same site had an ad for this week’s favorite band, Laura Reed and Deep Pocket.
www.laurareedanddeeppocket.com/mu...tml
www.myspace.com/laurareedmusic
Just, happy wonderful southern soul-funk. Listenlistenlisten.

***

I love V8 Juice. When I was a kid, my mom and I would wait together every morning at the shuttle stop in Orangevale- she was going to work, and I was going to school- and every morning, she’d buy me a bottle of V8 juice. At age 8, I could chug a V8 in 13 seconds. My tastes have expanded as I’ve gotten older, but V8 is still my drink of choice. The vending machine here at the museum has cans for just a dollar. This is a beautiful thing! Don’t judge me!

***

Put your Feets into these Carbon Prints:
www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/t...nt_lookup.jsp
I am suddenly feeling quite guilty that I live in a house!

***

Okay, if you made it this far, you are in for a fancy John Lennon Treat. The link below is to a short film made by a man who snuck into John’s hotel room in 1969, and did an impromptu interview with him. Awesome-Sauce.

www.youtube.com/watch

“Bess”, by William Stafford

Ours were the streets where Bess first met her
cancer. She went to work every day at the
secure houses. At her job in the library
she arranged better and better flowers, and when
students asked for books her hand went out
to help. In the last year of her life
she had to keep her friends from knowing
how happy they were. She listened while they
complained about food or work or the weather.
And the great national events danced
their grotesque, fake importance. Always

Pain moved where she moved. She walked
ahead; it came. She hid; it found her.
No one ever served another so truly;
no enemy ever meant so strong a hate.
It was almost as if there was no room
left for her on earth. But she remembered
where joy used to live. She straightened its flowers;
she did not weep when she passed its houses;
and when finally she pulled into a tiny corner
and slipped from pain, her hand opened
again, and the streets opened, and she wished all well.


***
Picture is from my phone; taken in the Getty Center's Garden at night.

My favorite staying cool tips, as A/C causes horrible electric bills and rolling blackouts

Eat nothing but massive quantities of cucumber. I rather enjoy the cuke in thick slices, with little bits of onion, soaked in vinegar. Like a pickle, only without the salty squishy thing.

Kool-Aid

Wear as little as possible without offending your roomies. One of my live-in ladies is rather fond of the sarong, the other goes for skirts and tanks, and I am shameless and walk around in boy shorts and tanks. They’re really my underwear, but they cover enough of my bum that I can get away with it. Of course, I run like the dickens if anyone knocks on the door.

If it is hotter outside than in, go outside for a few minutes. When you come in and stand in front of your box fan, you will be so very pleased.

Keep the lights off, the blinds closed, and refuse to move from the couch.

Spray your top sheet with a lavendery minty linen spray, and put it into the freezer. When you put it on your bed you will say “Oh SHIT, son!”.

Get a box fan. Place a big fuck-off bowl of ice water in front of it. Lie as close as possible to the bowl, and refuse to move over when your roomie wants some of the icy action.

Use CFL bulbs, they produce less heat. SRSLY.

Shave your dog. Just thinking about a poor hairy doggie makes me feel stifled.

Lie on the bathroom floor. It works when you’re tanked, why wouldn’t it work now?

Buy one of those stupid octopus sprinklers. Turn off your automatic sprinklers, and water your lawn by running round and hogging the octopus and not sharing with the neighbor kids.

Chew minty gum.

Skip the caffeine.

Watch The Day After Tomorrow, Never Cry Wolf, White Fang, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Ice Road Truckers, or any other ice-centric entertainment.

Drink massive quantities of Peppermint Sun Tea.

Invade the homes of your friends with pools. If you bring food and drinks, they will let you stay. Even if you show up unannounced.

If you must eat something that is not a cuke, get delivery. That way you only have to stand up for a second while paying him, and you don’t have to use the stove. Or get your roomie to cook. Or only “eat” smoothies.

Skip the proteins.

Work overtime.

(peekture is of my awesome sauce cactumus which bloomed like crazy, because I am the succulent MASTAH!)

Nick Lake, he is talking to YOU! Directly to YOU! YOU listen up!

www.youtube.com/watch

"Twats twat and that's that"

Twisty brain candy: www.spamula.net/blog/2004/...chobox.html
***
Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft. He’s going to cure malaria.
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php
"Once you improve health in a country, it really changes everything. Parents don't need to have this many children to be sure that someone will support them in their old age. And so population growth goes down. You can feed, you can educate, you can provide jobs."
***
My boyfriend didn’t like The Simpson’s Movie because Homer doesn’t learn anything. Homer Simpson is an eternal idiot, and the only changes he ever makes are fleeting, gone by the premiere of the next 25 minute adventure. I don’t really expect much in the way of change from Homer- and I’m afraid that my attitude is symptomatic of my life experiences. Most people aren’t capable of changing, not really.
***
Speaking of changing, I’ve watched two episodes of 30 days, and both of them were about people who had a problem with homosexuality. I’ve never cared what a person’s sexuality was; my godmother is a lesbian, and her partner is a wonderfully kind woman who takes care of her(she suffers from a degenerative disease that causes her a lot of physical pain).
I suppose my lack of thought as regards people’s sexuality comes from a lot of places. I’m not a religious person, so there goes the Jesus angle. As a big fan of personal freedoms, that whole government control thing is right out as well. Then there’s the pesky personal preference thing. I do generally prefer men to women, but I have had romantic feelings for a few woman, and sexual feelings towards quite a bit more than one. I’m not gay, I wouldn’t even say that I’m truly bisexual…but I’m not straight, either.
In any event, check out the coming out stories here: www.spinner.com/category/c...ut-stories/ I really enjoyed some of them, and the different POVs from different generations and backgrounds.
***
Two interesting articles below.
“But my problem with Carvey’s stagnant stand-up routine and the latest easy paychecks from Myers and Sandler isn’t that they’re shooting for broad acceptance by being dumbed-down and lazy (even though they are). It’s that they’re so defiant in their refusal to do anything new that they border on insulting—and the question I'm left with after watching Squatting Monkeys is whether it’s our fault. Do they do it because they think we demand it? Or is it simply because we keep rewarding them for it, giving them no impetus to try harder?”
www.avclub.com/content/node/81678

“That move toward digital over analog—the ephemeral over the tactile—is, to me, as distressing as the CGI “revolution” that’s turning all of our movies into hollow shells, green-screened to the point of barely existing at all.”
www.avclub.com/content/node/80850
***
Movies I’ve watched recently:
Wind Chill www.imdb.com/title/tt0486051/
Get Smart www.imdb.com/title/tt0425061/
Dante’s Inferno www.imdb.com/find
Tokyo Godfathers www.imdb.com/title/tt0388473/
Road Trip www.imdb.com/find
Breach www.imdb.com/title/tt0401997/
Ocean’s Thirteen www.imdb.com/title/tt0496806/
Shrek the Third www.imdb.com/title/tt0413267/
Grindhouse: Planet Terror & Death Proof www.imdb.com/title/tt0462322/

The only one I absolutely wouldn’t advise watching is Road Trip. Ugh, what an awful waste of film. Shrek and Thirteen weren’t great. I didn’t finish watching Dante’s Inferno. Wind Chill was reasonably creepy, with a few solid scares. Planet Terror was neither the best nor the worst zombie movie I’ve seen. Death Proof is fantastic, but I’ll pretty much watch anything with Kurt Russell in it. Ryan Phillipe isn’t good enough to carry a movie like Breach on his own, but Chris Cooper’s performance was beautifully complex. My favorites of the bunch were Tokyo Godfathers and Get Smart- both had me laughing out loud.

***
"The States"
George Tsongas

it's an
amazing
place, where
no one enjoys

life

but they
all want
to live

forever


***
photo from here: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...00px.jpg

I see clear at last, I love I loathe, on this end of the telescope

Music!

Jakob Dylan has a solo album. music.yahoo.com/promo-31904706
The sound is gravely and bluesy, and occasionally weird and very Bob. Don’t tell him that, though. It was produced by Rick Rubin. Sigh...If you don’t know why that is awesome, go to the wiki. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin Done? Okay, see how awesome this is?

***

Music-ISH!

Also, Grandmaster Flash tells you all how awesome he is in his new memoir My Life, My Beats. You should buy it. Especially those of you who call Rap “Crap”; your aversion to hip-hop I will NEVER understand. Even Mr. Rogers liked it. www.youtube.com/watch HA! Take that!

Also, a reminder of how wonderful Fred is: www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/5943

***

Weird Stuff! I need THERAPY! OR DRUGS! OR A PONY!

We were talking about spiders, and my friend Alexis told me that killing them was a sign you’d been molested as a child. I laughed, and I said well, I don’t remember anything like that happening to me, and I’m okay with that. If I was molested, I wouldn’t want to remember.

I fell asleep watching tv the other day, with my head in Shawna’s lap. She woke me up because she could hear me grinding my teeth. That’s not good, mang. In fact, I’d venture to say that it is bad. I mean, I only get one set of these grown up teeths, I’m not a shark or anything. So then, if I grind them in my sleep, then what happens long term? I’m going to have NUBS, people! Little NUB TEETH! Ah, fuck it, I live in Southern California, I can just get veneers. (Veneers with BLING, holmes!)

***

Politics!

I voted. Did you? What do you do when you see the municipal and county seats? Do you know who they are? Do you do your research, or do you skip them? I admit it, sometimes I just guess. What? BlahBlahBLAH ignorant voting blahblah. Okay, I read my little votey book, I just didn’t do any additional research. It just sounds more dramatic to say I picked random people. I can’t claim to vote without prejudice though. When picking judges, I always vote for the person that WASN’T a Deputy DA.

They are going to kick all of the immigrants out and then they are going to throw a party, only there will be no one to cook the food or serve the food or pack the meat or wash the dishes or take out the trash or babysit their children. Then I will laugh. HAHAHAHAHA!

***

This week? TWO POEMS! FANCY!

"Untitled"
Jalaluddin Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.



"Ed è subito sera"
Salvatore Quasimodo

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.

translated from the Italian by Mike Towler

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world
pierced by a ray of sunlight:
and suddenly it is evening.


***

Check out more of the weirdomatic www.asofterwold.com for more weirdo comicy things.

Fourth of July

If you didn't get an evite from me for the fourth of july, it isn't for lack of love. PM me with your email address and I will forward the invitation.

she pulls the petals overhead each day

This handy little website-aroony will calculate the pounds of CO2 you *aren’t* putting into the atmosphere when you ride your bike rather than drive. Dig it. wheelandsprocket.com/page.cfm

Fun facts about CFL and LED lights. The website is a lot of fun to navigate, with neat little fact pop-ups.
unscrewamerica.org/

Do you figure you could do a better job with our national budget? Give your coupon clipping skills a try here:
marketplace.publicradio.org/feat...hero/

Prop 98 ends rent control. Just saying. Vote how you want, but consider old ladies with fixed incomes, and the fact that they had to tack that shit onto a bill all sneakily when you do.

***

Artsy Shit:

This blog is amazing, and his pictures are amazing, and you should start at the beginning and read everything, all of it, every word. www.mexicanpictures.com/headin...er.html

My aunt is an artist. She isn’t famous or anything, but she always had amazing things on the walls of her house. I tend to randomly search for my friends, family, acquaintances, etc. online. This is probably related to the fact that I have made every endeavor to NOT be findable in searches. I don’t use my name for a reason, mang, and that reason is that someone already has my social security number, passed off fraudulent checks, and generally screwed me before I even turned 25. anyway, Sherry isn’t really findable either, but a round of yahoo turned up this site, with her name. Good times. www.stevenleiberbasement.com/search.php

“The Rules of Evidence”
Lee Robinson

What you want to say most
is inadmissible.
Say it anyway.
Say it again.
What they tell you is irrelevant
can’t be denied and will
eventually be heard.
Every question
is a leading question.
Ask it anyway, then expect
what you won’t get.
There is no such thing
as the original
so you’ll have to make do
with a reasonable facsimile.
The history of the world
is hearsay. Hear it.
The whole truth
is unspeakable
and nothing but the truth
is a lie.
I swear this.
My oath is a kiss.
I swear
by everything
incredible.

***
Movies!

The number 23 www.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/
Ugh. Okay, this was a good idea, in theory. I actually enjoyed the stylistic –in novel- scenes. Jim Carrey is scary looking, but this movie just WAY missed the mark.

Screaming Mimi www.imdb.com/title/tt0052168/
Anita Ekberg stars as Virginia, a young woman traumatized by an attempted stabbing. Oh, and she’s a “stripper”. Gypsy Rose Lee proves that she shouldn’t try to make the transition to film. Ekberg has a great rack.

The Golden Compass www.imdb.com/title/tt0385752/
BOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Boooooooooo! BOO! Bo-ooo-oo! BOO!

***
Books!

The Secret Country Trilogy, Pamela Dean
I read the first novel in this trilogy a few summers ago, and I really enjoyed it. I had a bit of trouble thereafter finding the other two books in stores, and gave up trying. I re-read the first novel recently, and found used copies on amazon.com (yay for leftover gift certificates!). I’m sorry to say that the best part of the sequels was the excitement of a package arriving at my door. Dean is a solid fantasy writer, but these books suffer from what comes off as lack of foresight. She spends all of the second book, and most of the first, complicating the plot so badly that she resorts to a bit of bow-tying that would rival an episode of Scooby Doo. If nothing else, the novels are fun, and though not quite on the level of Narnia, The Secret Country is a place that I may venture again someday.

***
Music!

Check out Ana Laan. I don’t feel like writing a review. Just trust me that she’s groovy.

www.rollingstone.com/artists/analaan
www.theworld.org/

All the downtown ladies call him Treetop Lover*

Today’s awesome itunes random selections:

Yoav: Beautiful Lie
Chris Robley: Culture Jammer
Vanessa Carleton: Sway
Buddy Holly: Dearest
Nick Drake: Northern Sky
Kate Maki: First Impression
The Shins: New Slang
Aimee Mann: The Moth
Tim Minchin: If You Mind Too Much Your Brain Will fall Out (Take My Wife)

I’d say the Tim Minchin puts a nice bow on that playlist.

Okay, I admit it, the very first song was actually John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. I deceived you all. Beautiful Lie was second. Whatever! He sings pretty!

Bunny Headphones is a work by my favorite artist. Well, artistS, as they work as a pair.
www.kozyndan.com/bunnyheadphones.html


*When I first sang along with this song, my mother was angry with me. My childish explanation that it was the LYRICS that were cussing, not me, really didn't help. I was allowed, as I recall, to sing Baddest man in the whole DARN town. My poor mother. I have the worst potty mouth.

pathos has got me once again...

I have decided that the new trend in bikini waxing is to be called the Sancho Panza. This look shall be fashioned after Mr. Panza’s iconic facial hair configuration, as seen above. The lady shall wax the nether regions and thighs sloppily, leaving a stubble, and in the uppermost area, she shall have a moustache, combed thick and straight across. For variety, she may wax the corners of her moustachio. The best part of my idea, is that most of you reading this are now trying valiantly to picture what such a bikini wax would look like. PANZA!

Turistas- boobies and blood in Brazil. Minor scares, mostly gruesome action. Filmed in Brazil, The scenery is beautiful, and makes me want to visit. And not be so stupid as to get tanked in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sexy strangers. Wait, no. No, that is exactly what I would do if I was in Brazil. Pancreas, be gone!

This is a groovy blog that I found on superherojournal recently. www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/

The best Mexican food in Anaheim (because I said so) may be obtained here: local.yahoo.com/details This location is conveniently close to my house and the food is really really good. You can tell the food is good, because 95% of the signs are not in English, and the cashier only speaks like 50% English, and I don’t ever see any other white people in there. And no, I’ve never gotten sick, the place is very clean. Try the shrimp burrito. It is 100% better than any other shrimp burrito I’ve ever had.

One of my coworkers is from the Dominican Republic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic He did some extra work a few weeks ago for the new Fast and the Furious movie, which is set in Dominican- they were doing some fill shots with crowds. So he went down there, with his brother, to get costumed for the scenes…and they put him in a Rastafarian wig, and really bright clothing. Hello completely wrong cultural stereotype, how are you today?