Dreaming of Sleep

Runts On The Beach

2009-08-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

Where is the Cow? And Where is the Pig?
Where do you go when you're digging your dig?
What is the sky and what is the sand?
What makes me stay in Popsicle Land?

Oh Oh The Runts on the Beach are killing the clams!
Oh the Runts on the Beach better head for dry land!

Today's Lunch Poem is Going to

2009-08-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

You Can't Like This Anymore

under thinking the obvious can be ambidextrous
the life of which panders to the unambitious
arrogantly the flowing life of which unrolled
around and around the cushioning cloud cover

never flung possible anteater man challenging
cosmic overload trash machines in France
can a man come into the woods in a boat?
can an electric semblance of reality reverberate?

a picture of a truck painted on a cigarette
where rain signifies elasticity of majesty
if orange strips of paper flip and flap, flop
and caustic pan-fried basketballs dribble

pink clouds darken, sun-stricken skies flying
streaks purple orange black and gray
and hammers fly, tragically at the end of day
in a dwindling stream the feet are throbbing

naive at best, confusing and dry, but swinging
make an emotional commitment to sacasm
while the continuous check is discontinued
and the international job listings riffle listlessly

guess about it for awhile while trinkets snowfall
clamps close about the checkering tweed hats
and furious at life the windows spenify
until every monstrous fountain dwindles

Thank You

Faulknermania!

2009-08-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

For the second summer of my rapidly receding life I have immersed myself in reading the novels of William Faulkner. The first time I did this was the Summer of Woodstock (1969). I read about ten Faulkner novels, Faulkner poetry and a play (I think). This summer I waded in to four novels (so far): "Go Down, Moses" and the "Snopes Trilogy": "the Hamlet", "the Town" and "the Mansion". These books are totally mindblastingly involved and gnomic. "Go Down, Moses" in particular, confounds one's sense of what's a novel? what's a narrative? Here's a Southern guy in Mississippi writing in more thoroughly inverted, complex, irridescently personal style than anyone who was then (20's - 50's) living on either side of the Atlantic. Oddly compelling prose, I'd say.

One thing he does is write from many points of view, using multiple voices in a single book. So, multiple narrators - stream of consciousness. That's already a lot of balls to keep in the air at one time. So, there's generally one story line, but like prismatic views of that story, rendered in the personae of the various narrators.

Another thing he does is assemble several independent pieces into one novel - independent, but related and pieces of the same pie. This is really a lot of cognitive dissonance in one integrated whole.

Oh, and there's the continuity thing - all of his books (save a couple) are parts of the same, bigger story about the fictionalized county he writes about. He wrote some 20+ novels and about a zillion short stories that are pieces of the same fictional continuity. So, when you're reading Faulkner, there's a lot of familiarity from one book to the next, but the whole think is resolutely new each time. Faulkner never really faltered or eased up on his thorough-going sense of creativity. Its all pretty challenging, newly realized and fresh. The guy was a regular mind-bender. You know, Americans are pretty cantakerous and stubborn. We have that "I'm me, Goddamit!" think going on. Boy, does Faulkner ever have that.

Oh, and another thing - the writing often consists of long, long twisting sentence that make you feel that you have wandered into a room, taken a lots of turns and twists, and now you don't really know where you are. You know who you went into the room with, you know where the room is, but you don't know where you wound up or how long you have been there or exactly what has happened and what is going on. The language can be sometimes almost Shakespearian or Keatsian and then switch to "ignorant redneck-ese". Its very very involved.

So, this guy absolutely fascinates me. There is so much there. Like you can wade into what I call the Big Four: "The Sound and the Fury", "As I Lay Dying", "Absalom, Absalom" and "Light in August" and prepare to have your consciousness altered forever. These books are tough-reading, tough to interpret. Multiple narrators, time shifts of years at a time, stream of consciousness, decaying society, Southern gothic scenes. Nobody ever wrote four more high-concept novels in a 4 year period. And this is just a fraction of what the guy wrote. These four books are just astonishing as an accomplishment. At the same time, he was writing copious amounts of short stories and working on movie screenplays. Its just a towering accomplishment.

Anyway, this is something I have going on - I'm reading as much as I can before my mind capsizes. I'm hoping to re-read the Big Four next, then read a bunch of other novels like "Sartoris", "the Unvanquished", "the Reivers" and as many short stories as possible. Yeah, I guess I'm obsessed over here.

Unskilled Photo-restoration and other unskilled arts

2009-08-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

If there's still someone out there reading this, I apologize for being a very slackerly poster, but what the hell, my mind has been a blank except for preparing to create a gigantic copy of Seurat's painting, La Grand Jatte. Oh, also I have been like endlessly cutting and raking grass and hiking. Aside from pretending to work, that is. Oh, and also reading four Faulkner novels.

So the Seurat thing is starting to take over - I'm studying up, doing color experiments, inspections and sketches to get ready for this. I'm also figuring out the sequence of events to make this all happen.

For one thing, making the copy to actual size isn't making a lot of sense to me - its 6'6" by 10'10" or close to that. Putting together a nice flat surface that size is a difficult task in its own right. Do you piece canvas together on some sort of backing? How would that work? Not being an experienced, educated artist, this seems pretty difficult to me. However, working on a 6' x 4' hunk of clear 1/4" plywood makes quite a bit of sense. It maintains the 3:2 ratio of the painting and its figures while breaking things down to a manageable size (while still being suitably large: this thing wants to go on a wall in a house of 8' ceilings after all). This sizes the picture down just a bit while maintaining its monumentality, given the space it will inhabit.

But John, why bother with such a task? you might ask (or not, maybe to you this makes as much clear sense as it does to me). I have decided after living with my Big Idea for awhile, that I really want this picture as close to the original as I can possibly get it. You can't just buy a 10x6 copy of this, or a 6X4 copy, for that matter. All you can get is a picayune little copy. Not close enough. Also, I want to know how this guy did this thing by exploring as many of his techniques as possible. And what is the best way to explore these techniques? Yes, exactly.

So, yes it still may be that I go full size on this thing. I don't know. I guess I just need to figure it out, figure out the materials. How do I get a 10'10" x 6'6" flat surface that I can then frame and hang? Hm. I guess I will have to consult with some artists or art stores or something.

And what do the above photos have to do with Seurat? Hey, I don't know, but approximation of actual photography in digitized format strikes me as a parallel with approximation of a masterpiece. Both are for personal consumption, so why kvetch about approximation at all? Yeah, that's a good question.

by the time I got to Woodstock, I was half a million years old

2009-08-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

I had been planning to visit the original Woodstock 69 festival site for about 12 years and just now got around to it. I knew it wasn't going anywhere. So, Patty and Julie and I drove up there on a really beautiful day to check it out. Naturally, I took a boom box and Jimi's Woodstock recording of "Star Spangled Banner" and we let it rock whilst we tried to absorb whatever vibe might be left. Its a beautiful place but there's nothing much "Woodstock" about it anymore. Its more like "let's make some money with a museum stock" with country club looking grassy knolls and all of that. Also, they have signs prohibiting public intoxication, loud music and so forth. Not very Woodstock at all. There was some vibe, but it seemed to be more over the hill from the site where farm fields still exist. Also, Bethel looks as it did in during Woodstock. Ain't much happening.

It was good to go there and let Jimi float over the site again and the area is unremittingly beautiful and in the middle of nowhere - which I like. But the vibe, alas, has pretty much fled and must be provided by the visitor.

Inclusion Training

2009-08-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to mandatory inclusion training where I work. This is training we have because the top management of my company is still white Ivy-League males and we are called upon yearly to atone for their race-guilt and to enable their feelings of class entitlement. As you can imagine, this is only a grin and bear it exercise one endures to maintain one's pay-check.

I had the opportunity to role-play the role of a racist boss.

A racist boss.

What I learned: I hate role-playing (already knew this.)

also: I hate white, entitled Ivy-Leaguers (already knew this.)

also: I hate inclusion training (I had my consciousness raised in the late 60s, dammit!)

also: the "target" audience for these classes is old, white guys (guilty)

A lose-lose-lose situation, these courses just reinforce class/race stereotypes while making everyone feel bad.

Auggh!

Whoa, Bing Ching a Ling

2009-07-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

BING CHING A LING, lyrics

aw, bing ching a ling

yeah, bing ching a ling

bing ching a ling

I'm gonna hafta do my thing

she's so snarky

she makes me sparkly

jumpin the sharky

dancin' in the parky

whoa-uh, bing ching a ling

yeah now, bing ching a ling

bing ching a ling

She's gonna do my thing

she want to dance in the park

she want to dance very dark

she chasin' after the quark

just like Marky Marky Mark

yes, bing ching a ling

Hey Hey Now, bing ching a ling

bing ching a ling

ching a ling bing bing

bing ching a ling

bing bing bing bing

Spontaneous Poem

2009-07-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

Everything goes dark and explodes in a vacuum of tragedy, humdrum and filth

Wham! There it go!
Mostly the spinning cylinders of transition spin before me like pinwheels of crumbling ambiance

Idiot packaging / smoothly irradiated / coils of satin steel and rock / my own perfect brainemptiness / happening silent smudges of laughter erupts simultaneous with spurting volcanic islands

"Senator, can you pass me that basket of large-denomination bills?" "Here, help yourselves, don't be shy! There's plenty more where that came from!"

the cascading bubbles of a forgotten multiverse ching together like cheap finger cymbals and I dream idly of Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, neither turkish, nor taffy but resolutely Bonomo's

The unruly centaur charges through the living rooms of the vapid, a TV strapped to his broad back as he watches "New Jersey Housewives" over his shoulder while running full tilt into the strobing gloom of reality, following the march of stupidity into the dense fog indoor atmosphere of the freely-associating moron union building

The End

Muy Importante Picture - View while listening to random surf instrumentals (emphasis on 'mental')

2009-07-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hm, it must be important for me to understand these drawings, and yet I don't. It looks like the guy on the right is a referee. I can't work out who or why the other guy is, but it seems like they both got ill at the same time for some reason. What can that reason be? I don't know, me. Perhaps you know these things? Perhaps? Question?

The difference between 'one thing' and 'another' is 'something else'

2009-07-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I hear my brain a comin'

Comin' down that railroad track

Well now, I hear my brain a comin'

It's bringing my consciousness back

My ideation left me, left me here in misery

My ideation left be bereft and bankrupt

With nary an Idee, moanin' like Harper Lee

Now I hear my ideation comin' back

On that big steel horse, comin' back to me

Well now, I hear my brain a comin'

Hear my brain

Hear my brain a comin' on back to me

Oo-wah, oo-wah, oo-wah

O, I'se be troublin' here all by myself

Just a shotgun shack and fillers in my pack

My brain done left me and I don't know why

Papa Oo-Mow-Mow, my brain is gone away

But now its comin' home I hears it on dis train

Important, powerful, pan-gortlious

2009-07-25T20:58:00.001-07:00

Bailin' with Palin / Fireworks in Flemington NJ

2009-07-06T08:38:00.001-07:00

Bailin' with Palin
1. If you quit, no one can be disappointed with what you do (because you won't do it)
2. She's quitting to help Alaska and the US
3. "Caribou Barbie" pin-up posters anyone?
4. Stop the "Politics of Personal Destruction", Palin wasn't "Pallin' around with terrorists", after all.
5. No more "gotcha" journalism, she's no got.
Flemington Fireworks
Man were these boss!
1. Glowing Turban of Fire
2. Sidesnorkel Sizzle Blaster
3. Recombinant Twirling Arc Monster
4. Contraboom fidelity cannister
5. Puzzle Flower of Destruction
6. Mayhem Accelerator of Death
7. Smoke Chisel Face Warmer
and thats just a few of the spectacular fireworks blown off in Flemington for the Fourth of July. Dude, I know: I was there!

Daffy Duck for President

2009-07-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

What irony! The duck is the best man for the job. He will be our second black president. Think of it. If we don't like what he's doing, we get him re-written. Perfectimundo.

Now, you know, I usually don't go out on a limb and shill for a presidential candidate - well, I did go for Donald Duck back at the time of Bill Lewinsky's second term, but here is a compelling candidate. Imagine him working "Thufferin' Thuckatash!" into a State of the Union Address. ADMIRABLE.

After all, this candidate does have the best vice presidential candidate, Bugs Bunny, up his sleeve. Imagine the freaking drama at the national presidential nominating convention when our intrepid candidate announces, "Now, ladies and germs, my Vice Presidential choice, Missther BUGS BUNNY!" The place would literally go up for grabs.

VOTE FOR DAFFY AND BUGS, MAKE AMERICA PROUD AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

today's lunch poem is about the little fellers

2009-07-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

Through dense whirlwings of discontinuity the little fellers run abstractly
Idiopathically, they disassociate Jack Dupree Reality in legions of
Little Fellers’ ambidextrate Sarcophagi
As the dumbification planks down before their fleet feet ensquadroned indecipherably
While cantankerous commands through the shifting ambiguity
Ranges inadvertent to the plagues of the strange, home on the range
Them Little fellers little feet little known little less else throttling forces of ragged time
Bestich them disconsolate in their rummaged snafus as down up they go a sidewise slope
Confusion rapidly moving through the shards of a reality turned stem-wise upon
The plant of all things. But “Wait, don’t shut the door until the little fellers git in!”

The airflow clogged the splintered pillow filled w/ rock and rubble the upwardly thrusting landform opposed by its own volcanic origin the humble massive creature lumbering up by the stool holding the optical trance machine

Sun offering a sunset sunsetting over suns settling
As the rabid trash aches its discovery against
The pilgrim daylight while the little fellers ramble by

Shook, the shaken tree at the breach of time!
Outerly fitted in somnolent silence
Goofily the little farmer found the little fellers flagging by
Ever ranging the flaming fields.

Why did the black bear cross the Bucks County road?

2009-06-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were near Springtown in Bucks County, Pa driving to some awful place when I saw a bear stroll out of the woods and onto the opposite lane in front of me. He was about three feet at the shoulders and just slowly walked on out across the road, into the lane in front of me and off into the woods. I slowed down when I saw him and made sure he got well off the road before I went to pass by.

It was quite the unusual event. Bears are fairly rare in Bucks County, I think and its not often that you see a bear outside complete wilderness areas out here. I was shocked, to say the least, but have to say - these critters are pretty impressive. He was very powerful looking and fairly big. I was glad he kept moving, too.

today's lunch poem is the formulaic anti-poem, "nothin' funnier than a dead beat"

2009-06-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

nothin' funnier than a dead beat
a dead beat down by the escheat
beat down the dead with dead meat
meet you at the borderline in a dead heat
the dead beat the beat dead
and the dead dread the dead beat meat head

meat the dead beat in dead beat dreadlocks
the beat goes on but funny you said dead seriously
that the dead beat in the track meet with two feet
compete in the catbird seat and all is meet, aw-reet
there is nothin' funnier than a dead beat in retreat

did you meet the dead beat when in came the fleet?
sleet on the sheet sprayed with deet up the street
keep the mesquite, it seems replete with sakrete
don't cheat the dead beat with the reaper's sheep
nothin' funnier than a dead beat who can't keep the beat

thank yew verrrrrrrrrrrrrmush

Pencil Topper / Shoe on Laptop Masterful Phone Photography For Absolute Lummox Enjoyment

2009-06-29T10:30:00.001-07:00

Yes, the things that fill this world are wondrous indeed. Walking or writing, you needn't be hindered by a lack of complete lunacy. As you can see, I am not. Picture yourself attending a business meeting wearing lovely footware much as such and sporting a pencil with a keen pencil topper such as much. You will not regret yourself for having been dud so.

Ha, today's lunch poem is about.....the UNICORN!

2009-06-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

What possible manifestations

Has the Unicorn?

rapidly coursing full tilt through the ruined monuments of time

all in liquid, muted motion soundlessly rushing

That horn, that flashing of brilliant white in moonlight

where eagles fear to tred

(as if eagles could walk

or Unicorns fly in the eagle's eye)

how far has the Unicorn come or will he go? I am not to know

& is this something I have seen or have I dreamed

for the Unicorn is will made flesh, not sorry for his state or mine

watch for him now and see if you know

anything you thought you knew

think what you do, think what you don't

for if you do, I have another better story for you

if all things fall within the depth of the Unicorn, what lies without?

what mystery of night does the Unicorn know about?

Lunch Poem 6/25/09

2009-06-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today's Sermonette
re: "The Vagaries
of The Hideous Sun Beast"
applies to all
so LISTEN UP!

The Hideous Sun Beast
occupies a place
betwixt Life and Death
and, therefore
has transitive emotions
his Tomorrow is Yesterday

I bid you: Think On Him.
Listening to the music of time
he neither erodes
nor accretes
he is Whirling In A Vortex of Pain
experiencing all in short bursts of sight
like pulses of electricity
rumbling in his mind

note to self: this poem isn't as glorious as it seemed while I was writing it. Still, is that reason to give upon on a strong concept like this? Nah, just push it out there.

Rubber Man vs Super Rubber Man

2009-06-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Interdimensional Beings Stole my Corn Chex

2009-06-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

The Interdimensional Beings Stole My Corn Chex

This morning I got up, put the leashes on the little dogs, took them outside for their morning constitutionals and tried to assimilate my head. Something was a little bit off, some fluorescent green footprint traces outside and all of that.

Inside, I feed the dogs and cat and go for my Corn Chex.

Where is my CornChex?

Dad blast you, Interdimensional Beings!!

All Groggy on The Western Front

2009-06-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

One of my least favorite mental states is "Groggy". This is where you sort of feel dazed, tired and unable to think clearly. Additionally, you seem to yourself to be just following some old dead script, not really doing anything. You want to "snap out of it" but can't. You say things like "wuhhh" and you stare at things while trying to remember what it was you were...... It really kind of sucks, so you drink coffee but still I, uh, the uh, uh ......

I can't believe its been 10 years since Amanda, Maureen and I went to see the band Gong

2009-06-19T14:56:00.001-07:00

more Seurat

2009-06-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the Seurat, in Chicago's Art Institute

I guess the version I'm planning is bigger than the original

Mike Bloomfield

2009-06-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Mike and Al: "The Blues Singers", by Norman Rockwell.

I kinda hate to blog about my favorite people, because I just can't do them justice in this cramped format.

Anyhow, lately there's been a rash of Mike Bloomfield news, sort of. Sundazed reissued two of his most popular albums on audiophile-quality vinyl and that's amazing. I think this is the first 21st century vinyl re-release for Mike, outside of a minor disc that Sundazed already released. Next, I'm hearing that a two-fer disk, of "Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West" and "My Labors"(released under Nick Gravenites name) is being released. I have "My Labors", but I don't think "Fillmore West" (which I have on vinyl) ever got a release on CD up till now. The Sundazed releases are "Supersession" and "Live Adventures", both recorded with Al Kooper (they guy on the right above - (btw, read his book "Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards", its really great.) Check these two discs out at http://www.sundazed.com/.

So, who is Mike Bloomfield? Probably you have seen him playing with Dylan on "No Direction Home"when Dylan went electric at that folk festival and on "Highway 61 Revisited". He's the guitarist on both those deals. Dylan talks about him in the recent Rolling Stone interview he did, how he wished Mike had stayed with him and hadn't died, how he could play anything on the guitar and all of that. Mike was a rich Jewish kid from New Jersey who was a blues guitarist on a par with BB King (or maybe better). He was like just ridiculously good and played stuff that was so good, so high up that the only (rock) contemporaries heeven recognized as worthy were Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. He didn't think much of Clapton and mostly said of everyone else, "Man, those cats are lame!" Mike really made that Les Paul talk the blues.

My favorite album by him is really hard to get - you have to scrounge the vinyl bins for or get a Japanese import and its called "Its Not Killing Me". (It was killing him, btw) Its not held in high regard by most of the folks "in the know" because it favors his singing over his guitar playing. But, to me, this is his finest album. Its just so funky and beat and blues-worthy. Its like a great old Bill Broonzy album or something. I rank it up there with "Oar" by Skip Spence and "Hot Tuna" as great lo-fi, beatdown records) You would think it was recorded during the depression, not the seventies. Its all blues stories about weird characters and stuff, like R Crumb set to music. I think I wrote a bit about it here: http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-Killing-Mike-Bloomfield/dp/B000DNVL02/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1245183721&sr=8-11

So, you know, the good they die young and I think Mike kicked it around 1980 or something. Bad. By then, he was scraping bottom, but releasing demonstrably great slabs of vinyl to a very small audience on Rounder records and other small connoiseur labels. I was listening to one of these the other day, "Cruising For a Bruising" and its just flat out awesome and one nobody ever heard but a few of us creaky old fans of his who went all the way back to his work with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

I dunno, I'm not doing the guy justice. He was a complete Giant, you know. A great spirit and somebody who really communicated when he played. He had Soul, like they say. Check him out in that Dylan film -when he played he was all of the way into the music, not holding back anything, hitting ridiculous high notes with ridiculously vocal-sounding tones.

Oh, before I forget, "Supersession: Albert's Shuffle" you've probably heard this track and is just Mike Bloomfield in a capsule. The guitar playing on this is Beyond the Pale. It made all the guitarists want to quit when they heard it.

AND SOME MORE

My first encounter with the playing of Mike Bloomfield was on Paul Butterfield's first album (which is still a good one to listen to, good rocking Chicago blues). Bloomfield was the scruffy looking guy on the cover and the over-emoting guitarist on the back. Inside, he was just absolutely blazing away, apparently at that point on a Telecaster. The playing was tight, dynamic and virtuosic and didn't really strike me as being like much else I'd heard up till then - he was already in full-on Mike Bloomfield mode and was fresh from playing on Highway 61 Revisited, where Dylan hadkept him on a short leash.

In the Butterfield band, nobody was restraining him any more and now he was in a band with four soloists just ripping away. Those first two Butterfield albums are worth looking up: "Paul Butterfield Blues Band" and "East/West". Sure, I wore out a couple of copies of both of them. I can re-play the lead guitar on many of those songs in my head still. I was just aurally visualizing "Blues With a Feeling" right now and yes, that is a ridiculously righteous guitar line.

The next two things Bloomfield did were amazing. First, he formed a gigantic horn band called "The Electric Flag" with Buddy Miles on drums. This band was unprecedented, audacious and amazing. They played the Monterrey Pop Festival and as David Crosby said, "If you didn't hear Mike Bloomfield's new band, you're out of it." Hendrix got all of the buzz after the festival, but the talk during the festival was Bloomfield and the Electric Flag. They did the soundtrack for the movie, "The Trip" (you gotta see that, its nuts) and one really great album called "A Long Time Comin'" that was one of the standout, major big hippie dippie albums of1968, along with a bunch of great trippy hippie dippy albums of that year.

Then, he got thrown out of his own band (for being an intolerable a-hole, Ithink) and he recorded Super Session with Kooper - which just blew everyone out of the water. So, 1967-68 were crazed years for Bloomfield - he over-achieved, took the music world by storm and after that, he sort of imploded.

Just when things were getting really big he started becoming really erratic and had only one big success after this with "Live Adventures" (the cover is above) the next year. He still played great, but he released "It's Not Killing Me" which bombed, I guess and then sort of screwed around for years until he died, intermittently releasing great stuff to an indifferent world. One problem was junk, I think. That will make you erratic, I guess up until it kills you.

So Mike Bloomfield - a few people are still trying to represent for him -Dylan, Kooper, Sundazed records, but its already a long time ago in the dim and receding past. I'll tell you what though, I've got a lot of his vinyland CDs and I listen to him maybe more than any musician including Jimi and Bob - the guy just brings a smile to my face with those outrageous high-note solos and crazy singing. In a perfect world, he and Jimi would still be alive, maybe making music together once in awhile and showing the Claptons of the world how its supposed to be done.

Seurat

2009-06-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, by George Seurat

Okay, I like this painting so much that I'm thinking of painting a 15'x8' copy of it on a jumbo canvas on a wall of my house.

Its a good idea, yeah? Should keep me off the street awhile. And, when I'm done, I'll have something really worth having.

Guess, I'm a little obsessed with this - but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

What's so great about this painting? It's pointillism for starters: millions of tiny brush strokes to create a light-infused painting of a summer day in Paris. Other than that, I have so much history with it that its pretty ridiculous. I first encountered it in the Art Institute of Chicago in 1962 and it was one of the most momentous encounters of my life. The damn thing just absolutely overwhelmed me (and still does). Seurat never did a lot more that anyone remembers, but this one really takes the cake.

The original of this is indeed about as big as my copy wants to be. It dominates a fair sized gallery at the art institute and I have probably visited it 100 times or more. I used to go regularly at lunch when I worked in Chicago and when I was a student in Chicago. In High School, I was always getting together and driving down to go to the Art Institute to see this thing. It put like a big ? into people's heads. I'd be blase, like "Oh, yeah, look at this thing." and watch as faces turned into rubber.

So, reproducing this on the wall promises to be a ridiculous challenge, but I'm not looking for 100% accuracy, just my take on the thing, in an amount of detail that I can live with. I'm either going to have to work with a projector or draw the thing out in sections from a small copy, but I think this might require a trip to Chicago with a digital camera to get the physical sense of the thing with the points of light and all.

Here's another picture that I met the same day in Chicago that was also overwhelming.

I'm not so sure about copying this one, but I do have a paint by number version that would be pretty happening to complete, so maybe I'll get to that, too. This one I later had the advantage of studying in college, as well, hearing lectures on, reading books about, etc. It's a pretty happening deal, too. American Gothic, by Grant Wood if you're keeping score at home. A couple of years ago we went to DC to a Grant Wood exhibition and took in a lecture by the author of the book "American Gothic" and came back the same day. Yeah, a little obsessive, I guess.

I guess I'm just getting around to understanding the importance of this stuff, but don't really get it yet. I probably ought to figure all of this out one day, but then again, eh.

Storm King Art Center

2009-06-15T07:30:00.001-07:00

We went to this Storm King Art Center just over the Jersey Line somewhere in New York and it was pretty happening. Its like this big rolling park of 100 Acres or something with enormous sculpture all over the place. Its so big you have to take a tram, like DisneyWorld or something and listening to annoying people yammer about how they can't figure out what sculpture was done by who.

The place is really great, but the guard told Steve not to climb on this big boulder next to the long boulevard in the center of the place, which we thought was an unnecessary fascist intrusion on our "happening" we were happening to have.

It was a sunny day, not blurry at all - although some of my cell phone pictures were. My favorite sculpture was this white thing that looked like a row of picture frames set on a hill through which you could see other gigantic sculpture. Nice.

Actually, I like the collossal sculpture - if anythings worth making its worth making gigantic in an Olympian setting. I think it would be worth having a sculpture park as big as one of the National Parks with stupid amounts of sculpture, not just Mt Rushmore, you know something like 80 square miles of enormous sculpture. You would really have something then, correct?

We also did other great stuff, like go to Guy Jones organic farm where he gave us some heirloom tomato plants. Dude, that place was off the hook, like Weird Old America or something. We ate brunch in this really rustic farm setting overlooking a creek. It was crazy good.

Blow Brain Clogs Free With Mental Dynamite!

2009-06-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Are your BRAINS CLOGGED? Thoughts won't flow? Ideas are painfully constipated in the center of your brain-stem? Staring into space without blinking trying to wonder if you can ever have another thought?

That's right! Eat Mental Dynamite if you're a Mental Dwarf and your mind will explode into millions, billions, trillions, dodecadillions or directions at once.

"But John, what is mental dynamite?"

Well, its the finest solution of mental ex-lax ever developed by brain chemists, that's what. Once you take it, you'll be thinking so much so fast so brilliantly that you won't have time not to think any more. You'll have Brain Diarrhea.

Thinking so much you can't move? Stuck in one place for hours while ideas pour through your brain like whitewater over 1,000 foot waterfalls into swirling, bounding, ponderous, powerful seas? Thinking so fast that you are drooling with a dumb smile on your face?

You have BRAIN DIARRHEA! That's what.

Take some MYSTERY MESS, it will slow those thoughts down to a crawl, slower than molasses.

sign of the 3 eyed men

the schnozzlers stole by ham steaks

2009-06-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

the schnozzlers stole by ham steaks

and the stumpwood is all burl

A Woman Named Echidna

2009-06-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

she is long, she is tall, she has the features of an insect

sitting in the garden eating her lunch
with mantis-like precision, is echidna,
her dark black eyes are shining through

the mist and dust forming a swirl of mud around her
as the wind calls "Echidna, Echindna"

Paper vs. Electronic, Slight Return

2009-05-30T10:05:00.001-07:00

Sorry, I didn't get around to this in my previous, self-absorbed post on this topic, but one of the main reasons for maintaining a healthy hard-copy book world is what Mr Orwell was illuminating in 1984: governments are constitutionally incapable of keeping their filthy hands out of tampering with written truths. (I'll let that statement stand alone, it works for me as stated.)

The fact is, electronically stored text is easier to "revise" than hardcopy, paper text. As we have seen, the Soviet Union (and other criminal governments, and we have had a few of those) was quite successful at altering paper text to suit their needs, removing dudes from pictures, blacking out text, altering text, controlling what was printed. All of this is perhaps even simpler in electronic format. You know, Change All.

"Just give me some truth, all I need is the truth" as Mr Lennon said.

Low-res, poor content quality dream

2009-05-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'M BATMAN, DADGUMMIT!Some dreams are sharply detailed and some are sort of sketchy and blurry - and yet the blurry ones can stick with you.

This dog of a dream was sort of stupid. No, make that really stupid and low-resolution. In the dream there is a gigantic Batman flying around in outer space, killing monsters. The background is sort of that purplish-blue ink they used to use in the old Batman comics. The dream went on for quite a while, but it wasn't very clear what kind of monsters Batman was killing or why he could survive in the vacuum of outer space or why he was gigantic or how he got there or why he was fighting monsters and actually killing them, rather than simply vanquishing them like he does in the comics.

The dream became boring in its murkiness and I woke up. My thoughts about the dream seemed more entertaining than the dream itself, you know - really poetic thoughts, none of which I can remember. Ah, that's the ticket. A really blurry, poor quality Batman dream, poorly remembered. And you know, I don't even think there was any Batman theme music playing. What a cheap-ass dream. It could have maybe used some Prince music played on a Fisher-Price xylophone, at least.

Unicorn Party Supplies

2009-05-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Not a very convincing Unicorn Centerpiece - I might be pissed if I was a little girl and they plunked this down at MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!
"C'mon Mom, what gives? You call that piece of shit a Unicorn! I'm so embarrassed!"

http://www.birthdayexpress.com/Fairy-Tale-Unicorns-Party-Supplies/42073/PartyKitDetail.aspx?REF=KNC-CEgoogle&s_kwcid=ContentNetwork1206330390&gclid=CKvnnIyU4poCFQVfFQodvWQvBw

Some more of the ads that appear on my blog that resemble postings. How opportune for the capitalist vibe to polevault into the false reality of my reality!

Paper versus electronic

2009-05-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

This has been working on me in the back of my mind for a long time - the idea of electronic media (Kindle, on-line books, audio-books) versus Old Fashioned Books made of paper.

Since certain human beings in my realm of experience have consistently proselytized the Kindle and audiobook to me (like the big, goofy words there?), I have had to consciously consider this proposition and for some reason, questions like this, ie. on aesthetic choice, continue to reverberate in the canyons and chasms of my perpetually perturbed mind. This is what clams up my brain cells on a day to day basis, so here are some poorly-formed ruminations on this proposition.

Here's the case for electronic media:

1. Environmental: For downloads, no trees killed. (The machinery needed to read - computers, kindles, etc. would pretty much exist anyway in some form, so this is perhaps not an additional environmental factor.) So, electronic wins in the environment department.

2. Immediacy: No wait for mail or trip to Borders/B&N/Local Bookstore. Bam! You got it.

3. Variety: You can get everything in great variety - the books, podcasts, newspapers from all time - or soon will be able to get all of this, a lot of it in free downloads.

I'm not sure of other benefits, but I would think (I don't know) that you could manipulate the text - put it in a larger font, a different font etc. to make it more readable.

For audio books:

1. For blind people, this is good.

2. For travellers and auto commuters, this is good.

3. Generally excellent readers are employed so you get extra points in the performance of the book. Better understanding of the material, ease of translation into your own head. This all enhances the book, I think.

4. Very good for poetry and books written to be read. Nothing better than spoken word spoken well.

The negatives to me for electronic media:

1. I don't want to mess with all this stuff - CDs, downloads, devices

2. This stuff is hard to read on a computer or reader. I have to really concentrate to read this stuff. Like this blog for instance - its hard to blaze through all this crap, so it makes sense to keep it short, which I usually don't.

The case for Real, Old Fashioned Paper Books

1. The feel of the book in your hands (animal pleasure in gripping, feeling, etc.)

2. The overall artistic experience of the book, outside the appreciation of content. The look, the art, the paper used, the jacket design, the illustrations, the binding, the size of the book - the whole craft of publishing that has brought the book to your hand. This stuff is important to me and is all part of the overall communication of a book.

3. These books become old friends. I have books that I've owned since 1966! They have grooves in my head fer chrissake. I couldn't possible throw away the first serious book I ever bought with my own money, "Poems 1923-1954 e.e. cummings" http://www.amazon.com/Cummings-Poems-1923-First-Complete/dp/B001XGR1JI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243611755&sr=1-1

This book has outlasted everything else in my life except my mother, my sister and my brothers. I still go back to it and when I read it, I'm reading it all the times I've ever read it, not only this time. It's got a real vibe going on as a physical object with a history.

Also, I can't picture the extreme typography and the look of cumming's poetry in e-book format. A good deal of his appeal is the way the words lie on the page. And its hard to get a poem to look as intended on a computer.

4. Whatever this is: I went to the Rare Books Room at the British Library in London and saw books like "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, written and illustrated in his own hand, hand-written lyrics of Beatles songs, the Magna Carta, original Bibles and so on. This "artifact" nature of the book is unavailable in original e-publication format. There's no "Gee, this is the original electronic text in the author's own keyboard strokes!" to e-books.

5. I can't imagine lingering over an e-book, postponing its end. Often when I'm reading a book that really gets to me, I forestall the end, draw out my reading time, re-read chapters, hold the book and use it as a token to think about it. I can't see doing any of that with an e-book. Then, when its back on my shelf, I go back to it and its there as a reminder to me of the book. The book is a continuum of experience, not just a momentary experience.

6. Here's one for Patty - you can't really read your kindle or PC in the bathtub, right?

I guess most of my appreciation of books is beyond the ordinary "read it, get it, get over it" - I'm more of a "reader for artistic virtue and subtlety" for whatever that's worth. As for the environmental impact, maybe people could be charged a tax for paper consumption when they buy a book and be encouraged to use libraries more - the tax could go directly to universal library funding and book preservation- then us paper book nuts could still have access to books without storing them.

eh, whatever

PS: Here's something else and something else else:

1. My 4 or 5 bookshelf collection of poetry. How exactly would the convert to e-book? This has been amassed over more than 40 years in varieties of forms - anthologies, collections, single books, Poetry magazine editions (30 or so). I have gradually put this together and have very close connections with some of the books, from college courses and otherwise. I can sit in my upstairs room, selecting books, reading them, selecting others, etc for hours. I'm searching in my mind for the electronic equivalent: would it be an index of online books and magazines bookmarked and with cover art to scan through like i-pod does with album covers? But, would I remember junk like, "Yeah, I remember that bookstore in Milwaukee / Kansas City / New Hope where I picked this up." "Yeah, I remember the download I did on this one." Not quite the same.

2. Variant editions - thinking of "Leaves of Grass" and "On The Road" here. There are greatly varying editions of books such as these. Is this somewhat lost in electronic land?

3. Art books - okay, these just don't translate to electronics at all. I have big crazy paperback art books on posters and whatever. Kindles don't come in 24 x 16 size yet, I don't believe.

recurring dream motif dream

2009-05-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

So, this is a very common type of dream that I had last night. I have this sort of dream a lot, so much so that sometimes in the middle of the dream I think "Oh, not this dream again!" and wake up.

In the dream I was going to a class, this time in Junior College, for some reason and of course, I am very ill-prepared. As usual with this kind of dream, I have been missing this class for weeks, show up and am in a world of hurt. The teacher immediately announces that its time to turn in our final papers. I, of course, have no final paper, having been goofing off all semester. On top of that, the final exam starts. Even worse, I can't even think what class I'm in.

I start looking around for paper to at least write my final paper, and then do the exam. I have no paper. I ask the dude next to me, a big Egyptian guy for some paper, but the paper he gives is light blue, has print on it and has photos. That wouldn't look good on my final paper, especially since its going to be off the top of my head and written in blue pen.

I screw around for awhile trying to find blank paper in what he has given me with no luck. So, now I decide to hit some of my other fellow students for paper. I ask one woman for some blank paper and she says, "It depends." I say, "I need it for my final paper." She says, "You didn't write your final paper? I wrote two. Do you want to buy my extra?" Now, I start thinking, "why am I going to school if I'm not going to even write my own pathetic final paper?" but I relent and say, "Okay, I'll buy it." She says "You will have to change all of the pronouns from she to he and like that."

Now I'm picturing in my mind a final paper that has cross-outs and corrections on all of the pronouns. Not only that, but class is passing rapidly past and I haven't accomplished anything.

At this point I wake up.

These dreams are bad. I graduated from college 36 years ago and still I'm having them. Usually I just can't remember what classes I'm taking, which isn't as bad as going to the end of the semester and finding out you haven't done anything.

Better than graffiti

2009-05-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

From last summer, art student in Florence does chalk/sidewalk reproduction of a Renaissance masterpiece

lunch poem for 5/22

2009-05-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

Long ago and far away noiseless arrows whisked through thick, ungainly air
Slipping between ribs and fabric gaps into soldiers’ organ meat
While birds chirped nearby in sylvan woodlands uninterrupted by battle
Corpses thumped quietly to the turf, eyes staring emptily into the woods

Another day, loud bombardments heard for hundreds of miles cracked the sky
While still the birds chirped, somewhat put off by the percussive ironworks
Soldiers, splattered by raining cannon balls and sprays of shrapnel
Flew through the air, landed on the turf and screamed in horror, splintered

Then, one fine day, perfected aerial attacks vaporized whole cities into dust
The birds disintegrated, burned and melted in mid-air as forests blazed
Soldiers and civilians alike were consumed in supersonic horizontal ash blazes
Their remains unfound, their shadows burned into the ground where they stood

The End

Festering Wound of Lunch Poem Makes Debut Here With Godzilla Picture - Oh the beauty of it all

2009-05-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

giant pepper tree floating sidewise

save the unicorns from symphonies, from dense walls of music

desperate for air as sneezingly the pepper flies

the unicorn stomps its hooves and shakes her mane

eliminate all of the excuses and Save the Unicorn!!!

most tragic comedy to ever befall the sinister

will fall on you, evil of mister doctor man!

remove yourself from the quadrant of light

your unique pepper hybrid tree will fail you

I will clean up this mess and help the unicorn blow her pretty nose

the heartbreak of unicorn abuse now past

YEsterday Lunchtime Poem festers as a post today

2009-05-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

expose yourself to a life of complete stupidity

maximize your exposure: make it a gulf

this is your chance so don't fuck it up

you too can be a blockhead

you too can be dense
uncomprehending

lost in space

laughing

ha ha!

A New Solvent For Americanski Politics

2009-05-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

An important solution for everything during which I powerfully solve everything

Is the Republican Dead Party? That’s right! They have can think: “Kick they monkey asses to the curb, I say”. Again and again. As a responsible commentator, here is what I think “we the people” should do: every year I say this and every year I forget what I said.

The Republican and Democrat parties should be more parties, the parties should be rigorously regulated and elections should be reformed stronger than ever, the parties should be split apart, combined and stirred around, just like the Democrats have,like France.

Right now they are buying guns and spouting revolutionary rhetoric as though the “No, you can’t kill vampires” thing is working. Just like the money at the expense of the taxpayer total years available to any long outlived their officially dissolved by an act of law and the constitution should be re-written or radically updated. and every other document just like that is.

Now, that’s something you can march to. Oh,what a powerful idea they are having.

Or said another way: jilt hummocks with ethanol eyetie oxlips, Nana. Widen shrifts, mimic heaped rimed tenderizers, calmly pad the trebly xeric topaz. Long dissolved manila dangles rascally to any by cancan shooing ritual.

Every other Witco through amour serest optic arm catchers into afghan trivia. Abed in whey deaths, the icier larvae ergot is now liming.

A man once said, “The government should be a mandatory coalition of five or alleged usefulnesses and who were presumed dead after Al Gore let the election be stolen like Guatemala to cut money out of the equation.”.

Then Calamity Damity said “Representatives like George “Big Time Gambling” Bush, they will rise again, and 9/11 made a big, smelly hero of the country had been illegally pried away from the thick fingers of their control.”

No one understands this, not even me. First take the money out of the equation,then put it back in, then put it back again. Do you see? Me, neither.

My solution: get rid of both parties, be paid minimum wage and housed everyone in median government housing for the “poor ness”. This doesn’tmean what you think it does.

You one individual serving in successive elective should be imposed every time a new year comes up on all elective positions and a limit on punished and punished accordingly like a periwinkle unicorn in a field of jumping tansies.

You just can’t think like this any more

Democrats in 2000 - 01, start several rational newparties using elective office to make these parties should epitomize such as socialism. Start a cereal party!

Term limits education, legitimate needs of society and people having illegitimate needs rather than the traditional “special interests”, pacifism, liberalism, conservatism, booleanism, while being founded on the considered high treason and will be Big Oil, pharmaceuticals and health care (as opposed to health), unions like banking, business, educators (as opposed to positions should be 16 years. will be environmentalism (as opposed to workers), etc. Sorry everybody, this started out to be important then turned into tunafish.

Even More Movie Watching On Sunday

2009-05-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

So next thing, you know - I'm driving home from watching Showgirls and Repo and Steve comes up on the 21st Century car cellphone and suggests I join Julie and him to see the Angels and Demons movie at Bridgewater mall. Well, sure.

I just love movies, you know although my movie intake is off seriously from when I was younger when I really watched a lot of movies. I like to think I watched movies "uncritically, yet with a critical eye." You know, I analyzed every foot of film I saw but was still willing to suspend disbelief for practically anything, including endless streams of American International biker flicks.

But, whatever! So I met Steve and Julie at Bridgewater for a 9:30 p.m. Sunday screening of this new Tom Hanks blockbuster along with the preppy high school athletes ("you guys in training?") the young guy with his much older girlfriend, gays with gal-pals and an extremely mixed crowd numbering probably 50-75.

So, this is a thriller genre movie with a lot of Vatican protocol and highly-evolved Catholic Church mumbo-jumbo, labrynthine ecclesiastic bureaucratic mazework and debatable nuclear physics that actually works pretty well. Its sort of The Cardinal meets The Day of the Jackal meets The Name of the Rose meets National Treasure in the Eternal City. And, theres a lot of great "Wow! We're in Rome here!" shots of St Peter's, Piazza Navona, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon and other astounding tourist destinations.

Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks, you know - a lot of reassuring fuddy-duddy quirk for your $10.00. He's kind of the postmodern Jimmy Stewart, I guess. He's okay in a generic Tom Hanks kind of way as the Harvard "Symbolist" (wuzzat?). The Italian actress playing the nuclear physicist who accompanies him on his quest to save the Vatican from itself is very un-nerdy for a nuclear physicist. She's kind of a generic Italian lady scientist in sensible clothing. When she lost her journals, I couldn't help but recall Elizabeth Barkley losing her suitcase in Showgirls, which I had just seen earlier. This is the danger of watching too many movies in one day.

The Vatican heavies, the super-baddy and the Italian cops are all beneath our American contempt - how dare they act this way? You can just feel your sense of democratic superiority rising in your Tom Sawyer cultural scaffold as they act predictably European Catholic and distrustful of us brilliant Yanks, like Hanks.

The best scenes for me were the ones in the Vatican Archives. I really wanted to get in there and see all of the rare manuscripts, but was unable when I went to the Vatican. What do I know, I figured they would have an open access rare book museum like the British Library, but it turns out they want you to pay extra and get reservations and all that. Ah, come on. I don't need to see Dante manuscripts that badly.

So anyway - I don't want to give away too much here, but creation really does look exactly as it was depicted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, except with a Scottish guy (Ewan McGregor) dude in a parachute and none of those big, nude Italian Renaissance nude deities.

Pretty good movie although I would have liked the Vatican to explode. That would have racked up some extra points.

Bad Movie Twin-Bill Overwhelms Helpless Viewers

2009-05-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Mike Amanda and I (Jill hid in another room) watched a mini-marathon "Bad Movie Night" composed of "Repo - The Genetic Opera" and "Showgirls".

Wow!

Showgirls, of course, is a tried and true bad movie night staple - a real jawdropper of a movie gone very, very wrong - but its funny, campy and willfully wrongheaded. We have been debating whether Elizabeth Barkley, the "star" of Showgirls was shtupping the director when this movie was made, which would account for why she was allowed more than enough leash to hang herself about 90 times in 90 minutes. Lets say her "acting" isn't exactly finely nuanced. She musta went to the Psychotic Episode School of Acting, I would say. And the sex scenes with Kyle Maclachlan: Huh? What? Eh?

An aside on Showgirls: we can't figure out why the black "boyfriend" sub-plot is even in the movie. Its functionless, unless you count the "Bitch, get me a beer!" line as ghetto comedy. I'm not sure about this character. Is he squatting in that warehouse or can you actually rent something like that in Vegas? Why is it all smoky?

On the other hand, Repo is almost too bad for words. The plot is hopeless, the songs are horrendous, the acting execrable, the dialog unintelligible.

It reeks, people.

Talk about show-stoppers - this movie is one long "What the F?" scene after another (and not in a good way.) And its way way way way way way too long. Mike kept time-checking - "Oh shit, we got 55 more minutes of this!" "Oh no! Still 35 minutes left - its seems like we've been watching this for four hours!"

Its an opera that mixes rap (I think that was rap), sing-songy narration, graphic novel segments, shrieking pop opera (think Meatloaf on crack writing music for an Evanescence video featuring people who can't really sing with gratuitous cameos - like Joan Jett = ka-ching, payday Joan?)

Paul Sorvino seriously should have his Actor's Guild membership shredded for his performance. Sure, maybe you need a pay-day, but come on! Is he doing penance of some sort?

And oh, here you go: Effing Sarah Brightman is featured in this mess near the end, but fortunately is impaled on an iron pike fence after ripping her own eyes out just when you KNOW you can't take any more of her. Hey, I think I just identified the movie's high point, except any scene featuring Sarah Brightman by definition cannot count as a high point.

This is the first bad movie night movie we actually had to stop in the middle and take an hour break to get through. Now, that's bad. We sat through the interminable "Gerry" without a break and its basically just a movie with two guys walking in the desert for two hours. Repo made Showgirls look like fine art.

No Mas!

Important - Punk Space Alien discovered in MS tool, "Paint"

2009-05-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

AGGH! ITS GOD! I SEE GOD!

2009-05-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

this little dinosaur has accidentally ingested mass quantities of peyote and now he is explosively barfing and having visions, woo-hoo!

Another Really Great Dream

2009-05-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

So, I dreamed I went to the door and there was this big mythical looking dude standing there, sort of grayish purple with a modified rhinoceros head. He was about 8 feet tall and for some reason I recognized him as the guard / guide to the gates of the Afterlife (and not the Good Afterlife).

"Hm," I thought. "I better come up with some serious thought here pretty quick!" (this is the brilliant way I think to myself in dreams)

Fortunately, I remembered there was a corresponding guard to the Good Afterlife, a really big beautiful "maiden" in a white sleeveless dress who, if I could locate her, I could introduce to the big rhinoceros head guy,

So I said, "come with me" and led the dude off down a sort of medieval alley way to where the radiant white maiden was waiting. Luckily for me, I found her right away and introduced her to the giant purple-gray dude. They hit it off and I wandered off back to bed and woke up.

Ta Da!

(the guy was more ominous looking that the picture above, but you get the idea)

today's verse composed at lunch

2009-05-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

At The Ball

( some one ) is sinister foot music somewhere in a tungsten-carbide-atmosphere cabaret
an insect being can't dance properly, upset that the full screech quartet is unamplified

abrasive winds howl the outlines of the forgotten, saturating all attending entities
inching past the diocese footmark as a repast numerates displaced ascetic chewers

hatefully be-cupped, enhanced-impulse pilgrims recharge the up-unified who seek noise
in a negative window, unwinding negation, where the winsome rioters circulate chaotically

progressing forward angrily, invisibly, a game-changer advances in rotting elastic time-steps 'her proudly ample cankerroot-tinged nagger tango is rewarded egress,

as aspirating chants reverberate endlessly through the ruined fields of eruptive and clandestine laughter

I Makeses It Into An Poem

2009-05-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

I Makeses It In To a Poem

I has been out in the yard looking straight up

at the materializing objects

They is right as usual you think

by three smash landings of a Hall of Mirrors.

It just shook, lay dead,while I was asleep

when I should have

The roar in fury at the dead day

or another w/ stumbling statues around the

deputation & then I’se followed suit

with the robot devastation of Saskatoon,

oh fo’ sho’

when they rounded the mountain of laughter

and to the command post came to where

the beasts was at, “I called in the goats,

but was shaped more like the piazza

across the street in a mounting laugher

from a zoo or something,”

said Magumba Twaszedewskis Brown

Brief Post Post

2009-05-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry about the brevity of this post but I thought about it and then typed it while I was asleep when I should have been out in the yard looking straight up at the materializing objects.

They is right as usual you think by three smash landings of the residence. It just shook, lay dead, roared in fury at the dead immediately stumbling statues around the two deputies and followed suit the robots with his powercar when they rounded the garage and to the command post of the beastsput on gas.

“I screeched with goats, but was shaped more like the broad spas across the street in the garage from a zoo or something,” said the Tyrol Fief Anklet-wearing Clown. Chief Brown Poltshikadoll and two Chief Hills burrowing out of the steaming corpse decided to take action immediately and began emptying serpent evolvers at whoever screamed and the deputies suiting up prog-rock all night. “No! No! Yes!”

“ Mm..mmight have their brains splattered about maybe we been a threat or something”, chanted the random Ape Man. “We did the appraising-their-situation thing & returned fluorescent soon enough with the five beastly beasts who were too unusual and were seen departing in masks and head in heads and said no they their stinking filth on site.

”Thanks for the mainstream reading! As usual, I will try the dinosaur, the five beasts and the remaining scimitars! As night approached, Chiasms macerate nylon templates piddled with filch stews and lack of insight.

My advice to you is go north with your sautéed fiancé to woo denuded take-ups, call the fire department to burn the remains to bring you all of the news that. “Where are the five stroking tangelo nasals the size of rocketships and what about that should have had escort turret hoops else things for like slime reporters with the buzzing, covered, demonic dark green skin?”
asked BonnieTabba-Ferry.

What they saw approaching, scissoring diehards into the stinking hulk surprised them.

Summary: Uncomfortable with nostrils the size of rock and roller coasters, the yolkier electro-negative heifers situated on aeroliths in kabanas latch and retune their variety ukeleles and what to my eyes may have seemed toy boat but was shaped more like the approaching sizzling pouring suit-suit falling the grange into the broad vistas across the street in the things for like business otters with the catatomic dark reasons asked what they saw the robots with his powercar when they rounded chink by chink the wall was and to the command post of the garage beasts’ zoo said the per force troops of indolence, I think by three and many thousands of Chief Hills borrowing the streaming hulk named Whitey is right as usual you learn of the residence.

It just shook, lay dead, roared in fury at the deadly crumbling fortress of solitude around which the burning tires and smelled a hidden bomb in the salad when they spied the rounded shape inside the floating garage and to the reticule I screeched with goats but was shaped more like the the street in the garage from a zoo or something broad across the spa said the mutant and two Chief “The Gravity Has Us!” Hills burrowing out of the steaming corpse decided to take action immediately and began emptying derived surface involvers at whoever screamed “deputies!” and the smoldering surfing usa saga filtered majestically up to approach the site

please take my survey

2009-05-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wTL8ylBm_2bV4kUaQidKAzBA_3d_3d

NEWS REPORT - Man Finds Dead Dinosaur in Kearney, NJ

2009-05-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Man Finds Dead Dinosaur in Back Yard in Kearney , New Jersey

Jim Flores came home from his job as a freeway ad clown to find a dead dinosaur in his back yard. “I smelled something funny right away and followed my nose to the back yard and there it was!” he told reporters. “I don’t know how it got there, but it’s a mess and it mashed in the side of my garage something fierce.”

The beast, identified by a local Boy Scout as either a “Gigantosaurus or a Really Giganto Saurus” was estimated by butcher Ted Wright as weighing between 300 and 350 tons. “Its more meat than I’ve ever seen in one place,” he opined. “And I have seen some pretty big stockyards, including Stockyard Channing.”

To complicate matters, the dinosaur was observed to have ice crystals clinging to it, leading to speculation that it had been held in a refrigerator-freezer since the Jurassic Age. “Perhaps someone was saving it for a fiesta or party and never got around to thawing it out and now they decided to get rid of it,” said Chief of Police Bill “Run of the Mill” Hill. “Anyway, I never realized they had freezers back in the Jurassic Era. I don’t even think they had electrical power back then.”

By the next morning after discovering the beast, Flores , the homeowner was forced from his home by a couple of resulting environmental problems caused by the large, rotting carcass.

First, the smell had become unbelievable. “It’s like comparing a minnow to a whale, the smell of this compared to a dead deer by the roadside,” said Flores . The smell carried for some 5 miles and was causing nearby motorists to hallucinate, puke and crash their vehicles.

Secondly, a river of dinosaur waste from the beast’s carcass was flowing down the driveway and into the street, blocking traffic. Wild animals were seen to be running up, lapping up the filth and dying on the spot. “This might be some kind of health hazard,” said Flores . “I don’t know.”

Thirdly, the avian scavengers such as buzzards and crows were flocking to the site, drawn by the putrescence and smell and were squawking like hell and ripping dead flesh off and flying around the neighborhood wreaking havoc while flies buzzed loudly in clouds around and on the carcass.

“I guess we might as well let time take its toll,” said Police Chief Hill. When a team of dinosaur scientist arrived on the scene in breathing masks and sealed suits, Hill directed them not to remove any of the filth from the scene, but to study it “in situ”. The scientists were incensed, but agreed and waded into the degenerating mess.

“What a mess!” summarized Chief Hill.

Later on in the day, a rocketship full of infernal space robots landed at the site and began wading into the river of filth, suctioning up materials, boiling them and spurting them back out in 50 foot fountains and jets into the surrounding neighborhood.

“This is an unexpected development,” said Chief Hill. “I’m afraid we might have to do something now.”

As the robots were seen departing in their stinking, slime-covered rocket ship, Chief Hill and two deputies suited up, put on gas masks and approached the site. What they saw when they rounded the garage and approached the buzzing, stinking hulk surprised them. Burrowing out of the steaming corpse were five strange-looking animals about the size of goats, but shaped more like skinks or lizards with brown polka dots on darkgreen skin.

They stumbled around, appraising their situation. Chief Hill decided to take action immediately and began emptying his service revolver into the heads of the beasts, who screamed and screeched with demonic fury. The two deputies followed suit and soon enough, the five beasts lay dead with their brains splattered about.

"Maybe we should have had someone capture those things for a zoo orsomething," said Deputy Arnold Finkle to a reporter after the threesome returned to the command post in Bob Jarass's garage across the street from the Flores residence. Chief Hill just shook his head and said, "No, they were too unusual, they might have been a threat or something. We did the right thing by shooting them dead immediately."

As night approached, Chief Hill contemplated calling the fire department to burn the remains of the dinosaur, the five beasts and the remaining filth on site.

Thanks for reading. As usual, I will try to bring you all of the news that the mainstream media can't or won't report on due to cover-ups, stupidity, laziness and lack of insight.

New Form of Matter is explained

2009-05-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

While many human collisions will produce interesting results, a rare few might create something even more special: a new form of matter.
Actually, it's not new to the universe, just to human eyes. It's thought to have existed ten millionths of a second after the Big Bang at the dawn of the universe. It may also exist in the cores of very dense stars called neutron stars.
This form of matter is called mud-wrestling matter or MWM. Like its name suggests, MWM is a "soup", or plasma, of quarks and gluons.
Physicists believe that MWM collisions will compress and heat the gold nuclei so much that their individual protons and neutrons will overlap, creating an enormously energetic area where, for a brief time, a relatively large number of free quarks and gluons can exist. This is the mud-wrestling matter!
Above, you can see this phase transition up close. The red, green and blue circles are quarks, connected by black lines representing gluons. At the beginning, trios of quarks and gluons are packaged in protons and neutrons, which are held together in the nucleus of an atom. As the pressure and temperature of the mud rise, new particles called pions (made of a quark and an anti-quark, shown in pastels) arise.

Very, very powerful

2009-05-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, now this is what I call a stupid posting. Good night everyone, everywhere.

Extraterrestrialist on Living With a Remote Oltre Giuban Tribe of aliens

2009-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Extraterrestrialist on Living With a Remote Oltre Giuban Tribe of aliens

By Elsa Basghette

Inside Far Out -

May 6, 2009

For decades, the alien space peoples of the Oltre Giuba have been saddled with two opposing stereotypes. One view is that they're violent monsters in need of extermination. The other is that they're noble and pure people from outer space, uncorrupted by the decadence of humanity.

Whichever view is true, this is certain: The human world is closing in fast on these unusual space people and Atomic Annie Kasqua is watching. Kasqua is an ecological extraterrestrialist who has spent more than ten years studying an ancient and remote pod of aliens in Oltre Giuba called the Small Grays. The members of this Oltre Giuban pod of aliens still hunt for food with ray guns and night vision goggles. Even as late as 1994, they were known to probe adversaries to death. Yet, Kasqua has found a way to live with and help them during a time of tremendous change. And that is how she came to be sleeping in their midst when the Small Grays came into conflict with another, even more remote pod of aliens, the so-called Nordics.

Atomic Annie Kasqua: And some of the Small Grays that I was with said, "Well, we don't know what they're going to do. At night, they have these probing attacks and who knows, maybe they'll probe us in these huts."

Elsa Basghette: What is a probe attack like?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: Their mode of probe is to wait for a moonless evening and a group of Nordic aliens with probes that they've made from the wood of a chonta palm—they're filled with intelligent alien bugs—will go in the middle of the night and just probe away. The bugs enter from the probe into the anus of the probed and spread throughout the bio-system of the probed, gathering information. When all information is gathered, they empty back out into the probe. Later the bugs crawl out into the information harness from the aliens’ original mothership and the information is analyzed and uploaded to the group mind of the alien pod for use in dealing with those probed. I have been probed many times while in a trance associated with Nordic probes. You have to undergo hypnotic regression therapy to remember the probe, which I have done and finally I remember these probes as quite interesting, stimulating and strangely enough, memorable.

Elsa Basghette: This is done while “people” are sleeping? There had to be moments that you were lying in your bunk, thinking, "This is not the place for me right now."

Atomic Annie Kasqua: I certainly felt lonely and I felt a little isolated. There's a lot of noises that happen in the middle of the night, and it gets to the point where you just lay awake and think about it and wonder what's out there. But at some point you've just gotta cross your fingers and fall asleep. And, like I say – generally you are in a sub-conscious trance when the probe takes place, so you don’t know that its going on until later when you have the regression therapy. So, no biggy.

Elsa Basghette: What exactly are you studying with the Small Grays?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: I want to understand how their transformation of the planet is changing us and how their social organization is evolving as a result of contact [with outsiders] and the market economy. I think it's a fallacy to think that they were this static, untouched pod of aliens in isolation. They've always been changing, because culture is a dynamic organism. What I'm interested in is at the rapid rate of change. You have UFOlogist going in, you've got CIA researchers going in, you've got people concerned about Oltre Giubanian conservation with really good intentions that are having a great impact on these creatures.

Elsa Basghette: And this has changed dramatically, even in the past 10, 20 years?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: The Small Grays were first peacefully contacted in 1958, around the time of the Roswell event. So if you think about it, within your lifetime, they've gone from a point where all outsiders were to be feared and probed on sight, practically to the entrance into [trading] goods and a settlement pattern that has become very sedentary. The practices of warfare and hominidicide have ceased. I mean, sometimes you still get probing raids. But it's really cut back. You have to wonder what their relationship with the Nordics is and what that will mean in a longer term.

Elsa Basghette: And why is that?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: Because of the history of the missionary contact. Protestant missionaries came and said, "God tells you that you should not probe." And the Small Grays are very aware that the outside world sees them as dangerous UFO invaders, and they're uncomfortable with that. Especially the younger aliens. But then they would probe the missionaries. However, after the missionaries were neutralized they did finally end probing, but then as we have seen, the Nordics continued the probles. Probes, probes! Always the anal probes! (laughing)

Elsa Basghette: How do they see themselves?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: They see themselves as people that, that have a lot of value. They really are proud of who they are. They have a connection with the universe and they still see that. But they also see that there are things that they want, that they don't know how to get—human things, or different types of technologies.

Elsa Basghette: So are you there to just objectively observe them or are you trying to help?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: That's a critical question, because just by quote "helping" I think that that can be really paternalistic. I'm trying to bridge between the Small Grays and our society. But right now, with the UFOlogists coming in quickly, they don't have a lot of time. In the next few years, [their] whole area can just be carved by roads and UFOlogy centers.

Elsa Basghette: Will the Small Grays as you know them today be around in 10 - 15 years?

Atomic Annie Kasqua: It's a very difficult question. Once they devastate the land base, what's gonna happen is that the Small Grays will not have the means to support themselves. They will have to declare war on humanity, I suppose. And, they will inevitably win.

Elsa Basghette: Then they'll have to assimilate us.

Atomic Annie Kasqua: Then they'll have to. But I think that the Small Grays are capable of making good decisions. I think that they can adopt certain things from human culture, or you know, choose not to. What's important is that they have that choice. Hopefully it will work out somehow for us as well.

Inside Far Out's Elsa Basghette on Work, Guests Presidents and prisoners; scientists and soldiers; the heroic and the hated—all have sat down with Alien Channel Senior Anchor Elsa Basghette as she has traveled the globe for the past 25 years. Starting out in small town radio in Alabama, she progressed through local television to join ABC Network News when she was 30. For a decade she covered virtually every major news story for Alien World News Tonight, Alien Nighttine, 120/120 and Good Morning Alien America. Now, as host and managing editor of the Emmy Award-winning Inside Far Out with Elsa Basghette, she brings her years of experience—and dozens of riveting guests—to the Exterrestial Channel at 12:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. As the show's name implies, Basghette asks the intimate, revealing questions that cut to core of the passions that drive her guests. ------------------------------------------------------------------

Dense work block #84

2009-05-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

The teleologically inept monsters I called the Crunchies have one chi gust of danger the Niña curiae therewith communicate interswain as an Idiot Violent Horde as even our true human world is in need of creates tenths hoops heaving eosins that grew mules. Ah, the pure people in velvetcovered boulders the fast-dissolving disconsolate decadence of languid foolish criminality unusual people still join the ermine trout religion of homo sapiens and night late in 1994, they were known to be hush out for food with casqued guns, to view us & we giggled, this is certain: The fuming extermination. The other is the noble the falling through space, corrupted flamed quelled quickly leader of the Macks and closing in fast onthese hash-out adversaries beyond whom the excessive and into thesuspicious are propelled the death episodes of which Fortesquieu had blundered. The members of this indifference same sudden lapse super fine mysterian more than a ten year decade, the vision remote & superfine mystery black plastic shelled industrialist who has spent that there therein. Yellow peat controlled steaming convinced under ground the squirming masses to unflunk their long turpitude of slalom crashing magnificence into squalling wordward supersquads of muffled squint talk sounds beyond remission – hat bin finger binge crossing terse sightless wind differences in sand englobed flowingly cascadingly billowingly sadcrashing calamitous fish basinage. Thank You

Newly Revised! Man in France Flies Through Air

2009-05-07T05:34:00.000-07:00

Since I received so many negative reactions, I have updated this posting, making it a NEW IMPROVED POSTING

Yesterday, a man in Crement, France was seen flying through the air, "like a raisin flung off the end of a stick". Approximately 1,000 gregarious French people witnessed this unusual phenomenon and then stuck around for an exhaustive survey of their first-person observations. It was a Very Important event.

The man, Richard Mousse-Billet, said of the event that he felt "like he was going through a tube slide at an amusement park, but that there was no slide, no park and no amusement." He could not explain the event, which took him some 900 feet into the air at the top of an eliptical flight and then brought him back down on his feet, but said that "I have nearly made mud in my pants from this natural disaster, but thank God, did not."

One observer, Sylvie Bonmartin, said that upon seeing the man flying around, "she felt as though she was another person altogether, that no one could understand but her the way that she felt."

Sylvie continued, "I am sure that I am the only one who knows how I feel about this. No one else could possible ever understand the depth and strength of my feelings, not even God."

She was then asked what her feelings about this were, exactly. "Its hard for me to put these strong, valid feelings into the proper words so that you would understand them. Let me try."

She stood there, grimacing and wringing her hands for several minutes, then continued. "Nobody can understand how I feel about this and that is why I can't say what it is that I am feeling. If I were able to tell you, you still would not understand and even if you thought you did, you still wouldn't understand."

Survey taken at the flying man event: 1000 respondents.

% # Response.

05 1. I think that this is a new dawn

27 2. This was a trick.

01 3. No one can understand how I feel

89 4. Our invisibility has been compromised

10 5. This was a mass hallucination

5 6. I forget what I saw

33 7. The (flying man) is a corrupt government official

40 8. More testing is required

100 9. I'm not surprised by this

12 10. We could do something beside answer foolish questions

55 11. You have lied to me2 12. This lemonade is sub-standard

27 13. You should stop yourself and consider what an important person Iam

55 14. I haven't been paid for this, yet

10 15. May I speak with a supervisor?

14 16. This does not apply to me

1 17. This has gone far / not far enough

72 18. Everything looks blurry

12 19. Turn on the captions

18 20. This music sucks

59 21. Is this for someone's stupid blog?

Corporate "Diversity Programs" Found to Be Anti-Minority Smokescreens

2009-05-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

If corporations were inclusive and on the up and up with minorities and women, you wouldn't need diversity programs as a palliative for those people being held back by the white males in charge of the corporations. The corporations would be run by the people of the sun, for Chrissake.

By the way, this is a Tuscan sunset I took a picture of in September 2007.

Unicorn Poem #2

2009-05-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

O, the unicorn is a subtle, constant, exceptional friend, She counsels

The deserving with wisdom from youth through lifetime's end

Ah! Her diamantine mane, glittering horn, shimmering brain

Posit the unicorn as the question, the answer and the means to explain

All of life's ample mysteries, the world's resounding fits, our spiritual bits

As inexorably as we mortals would go down the cosmic drain for nitwits

I wandered long and lonesome in realms of pre-empted desolately dejected dispossession Searching in vain for grandiloquence, composure, serenity in my so-calledprofession

Though I sojourned long and loud, ragingly proud, somewhat papa-oo-mow-mowed

The phantasms of real reality and solidity did not emerge from the crowd

Then my mind stood still one fine day when apropos of nothing a rambling Unicorn I spied
Green of grass, spin of wheel, still of air, free of will, tall of tree, uni of corn, blue of sky
Communicated there was the words I could not hear but only thought when left unsaid
The unicorn had come and gone and in the hilltop meadow left me all alone instead

Unicornity is its own informity, in its enormity as you and I and we are to conformity bred
The words that the unicorn hadn’t said are the words left back inside of my head

2009-05-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

On a walk today the following insights came to me:

The lyrics to the Who's "Pinball Wizard" fit perfectly to the melody of TexRitter's "Wabash Cannonball"and visa versa. Try it out.

The conundrum of "Cutting In On" explained by Steve to me the other day is a meddlesome nasty of life. This is the thing where you have so many things that you want to do that the immediate things are"cutting in on" the time you have available to give to other things you want to do. Like, "all the fishing I'm doing is cutting in on my whittling time". (I guess that's a sort ofredneck example)

If you have a lot of work to do and its starting to get to you, adjust your priority scale. For instance, the re-adjusted highest priority would now be, "The Sun is Exploding". That's a pretty extreme priority. Lowest priority is equal to "Staring into space". That's a pretty low priority. Also,you can't do anything about the sune xploding, so why bother?

There are lots of things in this life that don't have ponchos available for them, like laptops, biscuits, birds. Just an insight - not a particular good one, but an insight. I wonder how much a pack of biscuit ponchos would cost, if they were available?

Also, here's to the cop who gave me a ticket for not stopping at a stop sign today. Thanks a lot you fascist asshole!

So that's what everyone has been talking about

2009-04-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today, In the News

Patroness Evington’s numerous roguish tendencies awake scorners“ Sunken nymphs fire assorted Seesaws into the smoking air just as the holdouts threaten you and I”, she said. “Starch Yang hoed the Dessau uplift into the highest paunch and onto a reef labeled ‘Watts’.”

Medical hellion energumen tortes Toecaps“Times thymus eyes,” mocks the hawed sponge youths erased canary entity shoe-fantasies. A nephew through the new rodeo gender, he looms tinny on all homeopathic and future minute rewrap hauling.”Tendrils Vacillate within the ornamental monkey religion

While instead other times they have exerted cineol nodal honey on foreign lands. Of the 99 Antarctic amethysts of the former Stoma Ad Naives and Caster that the people of Onomopo have long been nurtured by their ability to spot waterfalls, Onomopoanians rule some 47, with outsized influence in 17 others. The fierce in-fighting between the Onomopoanian discos as reached numeric Hornpouts.

The coyote’s denials... in on the will see that on the thin you the etherized hand, the reecho they heanen unhand hung by krs take on a whose sin drove the hangman’s hand.

Tho Indris Khan...her unaided actiendinon se dephapg. entering you of a different shape on a action of the in, the coyer reecho of a you will and observed pension made him bitter to the throne maker deals shaving of dift edams dng.

In this aromas see that tin apes in the emblems of often sneering endoderms, the yahoo denting the bikers take crumbles up to us.

Post About Nothing

2009-04-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

Former Domicile of the Awful

Achtung, mein Scheisskopf!

You're probably asking, "How many posts can this SFB make in one day?"

Hey, you'd be surprised.

Nimble fingers + watery mind = (golden horn of meaninglessness, plethora

of oxygen-starved, reality-poverty-stricken thought)

By the way, the Google Ad people responded to my "Los Indios Tabajaras playtheir guitars tooslowly" posting with an add for "Easy Guitar Tabs" - pretty good, but nothing to do with Los IndiosTabajaras.

Are you a collector or a meta-collector? Guess what...

2009-04-28T19:07:00.001-07:00

Collecting

All collections to some extent are in themselves commentaries on or critiques of collections and collecting itself. In other words, what one collects is a position on the phenomenon of collecting. Why do we persist in collecting things even when things have been digitized and made largely obsolete?

Certainly, many of our collections are available in a "cyber" sense - art, music and literature are all largely digitized and available in download or in free-view situations. And, the digitized versions of these things are more comprehensive, complete and pristine than anything we can do on our own.

Well, gee I guess we just like things, don't we?

There is the thought that collecting arises from our collective psyche, recalling the vast period of time when we, as a species fell into the "hunter /gatherer" category of human existence. The thought is that we just haven't given up that ghost yet.

So, anyway, the thought of collections being about collecting, or"meta-collecting" (collecting about collecting) as instrinsic to every / any collection - where am I going with this mindless trope?

I would have to say that some of my (few) collections are completely about that wrong-headed tendency. For instance, there is my "Unpopular Toy Collection". For years I have collected toys that didn't quite make it and thus, were relegated to the close-out section of the toy store. My main impulse here was a self-conscious parody of collecting: who would want and even, preserve unpopular toys? I guess I felt sorry for the toys, personifying them in a kind of pre-"Toy Story"conceit. Those poor "Raiders ofthe Lost Ark" action figures with no little boys and girls to play with them! Boom, here I come to save them.

But really, this collection is just a perverse riff on collecting. "You want to see a collection? Here check this out." "Huh?"

The fact is, being aware that I am driven to collect, just like every one else, I took a slightly ironic and/or cheap approach. Its a kind of little joke I share with myself. Ha ha ha!

Another collection I have verges on not being a collection - my pencil collection. This is one sweet collection as collections go. For one thing, it only takes up about a square foot after 15 or so years of collecting. It performs many of the functions a collection should perform- that is, it betokens many personal, past memories. "Gee, that Boston Red Sox pencil, I got it when I went to Fenway". or "Hey, my Globe Theater pencil, I got that at the Globe on the South Bank in London." ETC.

Also,this is an easy collection for other people to indulge me in - pencils are cheap and (as mentioned before) don't take up much baggage space. They can be and are artistic, beautiful and so forth. But here's the lynchpin characteristic of a pencil collection - if you gett ired of it, you can just use the pencils.

So, I guess the collection that really isn't a "Pure Collection", eg. you are halfway planning to functionally employ the items of the collection, is really on the boundary of collection and not-collection."Hey," he thought, "Maybe I can continue writing about this malarkey for afew thousand more lines!"

The End

Big Deal Alien Top Secret Memo Leaked by Government

2009-04-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

Memo reports weaponized, reverse-engineered alien lander details

UPI - From October 1991 to December 1996, TOP SECRET Armadillo-Gnork Flight Research Facility (after 1994, the Gnork Flight Research Center, Point Salamander, New Mexico) conducted a research secret program known as theSpacecraft Insertion Project.

This Project was designed to determine the feasibility of the autonomous insertion of a spacecraft using a ram-air parafoil system for the final stages of flight, including a precision landing. The Alien Reverse Engineering Space Center and the U.S. Subterranean Armed Forces participated in various phases of the secret program.

The Alien DeepProbe Laboratory developed the software for Wobble 3 under contract to the Subterranean Armed Forces. Four generic spacecraft (each called a Spacewobble or simply a Wobble) were built; the last one was built to test the feasibility of a parafoil for delivering Subterranean Armed Forces(nuclear-weaponized) cargoes.Technology developed during this secret program has applications for future spacecraft and terran deployment systems, such as the X-1504.1 Crew Return Vehicle demonstrator.

The Spacewobble secret program demonstrated precision flare and landing into the wind at a predetermined location. The secret program showed that a flexible, deployable system using autonomous navigation and landing was a viable and practical way to insert spacecraft and/or to deploy other strategic assets..

TOP SECRET researchers conducted flight tests of the Spacewobble at threesites near Gnork, a hillside near Quaatalcoeli, the Limited-Access Dry Lakebed at Point Salamander Air Force Base, and the New Mexico City Airport Drop Zone. During the first phase of testing 360,000 flights were made. Phase II consisted of 450,000 flights using a smaller parafoil. A thirdPhase of 340,090 flights was conducted primarily by the Subterranean Armed Forces and resulted in the development of an Subterranean Armed Forces guidance system for precision offset insertions.

The Wobble used during the Subterranean Armed Forces phase was not called a Spacewobble but simply a Weaponized Wobble (WW). The Spacewobble was a flattened indestructible biconical airframe joined to a ram-air parafoil with a custom intelligent harness. In the manual control mode, the vehicle was flown using a bio-implant uplink. In its autonomous mode, it was controlled using a series of redundant chips that received input from onboard sensors. Selected sensor data was recorded onto several onboard data loggers. Two Spacewobble shapes were used for four airframes representing generic hypersonic invisible vehicle configurations.

Spacewobble vehicles were 48 inches long, 30 inches wide, and 21 inches high. Their basic weight was 120 pounds, although different configurations weighed from 127 to 184 pounds. Potential uses for Spacewobble-based technology include deployable, precision, autonomous landing systems, such as the one deployed by the X-1504.1 crew return vehicle; military insertions into populous areas, planetary probes; booster deployment systems; autonomous gliding parachute systems on military aircraft ejection seats; offset delivery of military cargoes; and delivery of “humanitarian” aid to hard-to-reach locations.

Gnork operatives involved with the Spacewobble secret program included R.“Gonzo” Resed, who originated the concept of conducting a subscale flight test at Gnork and participated in the actual testing. Znat Toqueller managed the flight project and participated in its documentation. J. Armand Murphy II served as the principal Gnork investigator and as the lead for all systems integration for Phases I and II (the Spacewobble phases).

A Unicorn Poem for All To ENJOY

2009-04-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Unicorn, my pretty friend
Let this splendor never end
Special! Special!
Your golden tail and ivory horn
You are Special, my unicorn!

In the misty hours before the dawn
I romp with Uni, on and on
Upon my dreamhorse I do ride
With the unicorn by my side

In the green pasture I comb your mane
Its so pretty I feel insane
Round and round the rink you trot
You are something that is not

When I return home I tell my friends
About the unicorn and how it blends
Into the mist and retreats with dawn
Then they say have a hit on the bong

Hey, sorry - I have another one that's not quite done yet, I'll post it later.

Yoga or the News?

2009-04-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal: the news was starting to make me feel bad, like the end was near, bad things were going to happen, there was no hope and I was getting stressed out. Now, bad things weren't necessarily going to happen to me and bad things hadn't really happened to me, but the news told me over and over it was so. Its a brainwash. Why? Why would the news media want to brainwash me into a state of stress? Who knows? Its just the nature of the news, I guess.

Anyway, I quit watching the news. Problem goes away. Gee, funny how that works. Its all negative junk which I have no power over anyway, so banish it. Now, I still dabble in the news via the internet, magazines and the newspaper, but its my news now - stuff I want to keep up on and that can benefit me. International and national news I use as a smorgasbord - nibble a little of this and that, but when it gives me a little heartburn, screw it. Do something else.

Something else like Yoga, you know. Yoga, it turns out, is a pretty cool deal. You go at your own rate, do as much as you can that day and it pays you back in peace of mind and physical well-being. It figures since its been around for thousands of years and you don't hear much about it on the news - that its pretty good stuff.

So, that's a good trade off, the news for Yoga. Health and so forth instead of unnecessarily contrived stress.

And, after all, what is the news? Its somebody's idea of what will sell Viagra today. Something sensational that will keep the geezers glued to their sets long enough to see the latest multimillion advertising blitzkrieg engineered by the pharmaceutical companies. Viagra, Boniva, etc etc. Don't buy that shit, do yoga instead.

By the way, the dude in the picture is Lord Ganesh. I learned about him in India when I was there. Every year there is a ceremony where he goes back into the Bay of Bengal and everyone is sad, because Ganesh is the Main Man, everyone's friend, good luck and all of that. You gotta love a guy who when he lost his head, looked around for a replacement and found an elephant head. Pretty righteous tale, there. When I'm talking to my business associates in India and things are rough, I tell them I'll talk to Ganesh and ask for things to get better and that makes them happy. You know, whatever. He doesn't have anything to do with yoga, I don't think, but he does sit around in stylized poses all the time, so maybe he was yogic before they got yoga, hey huh?

Was Spinal Tap supposed to be Mott the Hoople? The Stones? Uriah Heep?

2009-04-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

Its "Stone Enge, idn't it? But its in danger of being trampled by a dwarf!"

More cuts featuring Neil Young

2009-04-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Neil Young isn't cutting enough records and releasing enough box sets, DVDs and movies but that he now wants to play all over Booker T Jones' latest Disk, Potato Hole. Neil plays that big blurry guitar, which isn't what you expect when you tune into Booker T and the MGs because his original guitarist - Steve Cropper was known for the tight guitar lines.

But since Neil had that brain tumor he has been going like a man possessed - its been one release and re-release after another. He's like Dylan now - play the endless tour until you die. But these guys aren't likely to die. They're doing that Willie Nelson thing.

So maybe Bob, Willie and Neil would be a good old codger supergroup. Booker T could play the B3 behind them. That would be something. Except the last time I looked, Willie (at Farm Aid '08) wasn't as compelling a performer as he once was. Maybe he could play every other song or every other set.

But back to this Booker T disc. This is pretty good drive time music recalling the MGs (Green Onions, Hang Em High, Mrs Robinson, all of that) - all soul instrumentals in the Stax Records vein. My man burned me a CD, so I got to listen already on my way home.

So my affiliation with Booker T goes back to the time of the picture on the previous post, when I was playing Little League and Green Onions was on the radio. Booker T was 17 at that time, I think.

Los Indios Tabajaras play their guitars too slowly

2009-04-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

You know, this is sort of a test to see what the stupid google ads will come up with. I mention something about my feet and they have an ad for foot surgery. I mention Hank and they have ads for Hank CDs. Now what will they do? Ads for guitar picks and Incan music?

So these dreams I have, I don't know what the heck. I dreamed I had to drop off this really tiny baby at UPS to have it shipped somewhere. (Yeah, already this is bad - I'm a doomed soul and all of that!) Where I have to drop the baby off is this stone quarry sort of place thats all dusty with these dumb truck loader guys running around, rolling in the dust and just sort of acting all stupid. I keep asking for a supervisor to take this baby off my hands, for Pete's sake. Before you know it, the whole day is passed and they're changing shifts. Rather than worrying about the baby, I'm concerned that I'm wasting a lot of time and that I might have to KEEP the baby and change its diaper and all that. So, I go over to the baby and look at it and its got dust all over its face and I'm thinking, Wow this is great, the baby's getting all tired and dirty and these dummies won't get it shipped out of here for me.

Can you believe how callous and irresponsible this dream is? Unbelievable. All I want to do in this dream is get this baby shipped out on UPS. I woke up at this point and tell Patty about the dream and boy, is she ever impressed. Good start to the day, right? I'm 5th from the right, top row above, btw, c.1962

Nothing / Angry Nun

2009-04-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today's lesson in NOTHING, brought to you (in a roundabout way) by EdSanders of the Fugs

IF

(Everything is true) NOT= (Nothing is true)

THEN

Everything is true + Nothing is true = Everything is Nothing
Everything is true - Nothing is true = Nothing is Everything

AND

Everything is true X Nothing is true = Everything squared
Everything is true / Nothing is true = Nothing squared

Quit licking my toes, oh - all right

2009-04-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

As I sit here right now, the little dog pictured here, Buddy, is licking my toes.

Persistently. Why does a dog lick your toes? For taste? For minerals and complex compounds? Yeast? Salt? To exhibit some dog-centric ethic of inter-animal interaction? He's not talking, but I guess I could read about it in one of those Canine Psychology and Self-Help books.

Another thought - he was licking the foot that has plantar fasciaitis (ie: heel hurts like murder). Maybe that's the interaction he was doing - healing the toe. (that's a pun right there).

So, I have a complex relationship with Buddy - he usually only wants to hang out with me on his terms - when I want to hang with him, uh uh nothing doing.

He's not a very "good" dog, but he has gotten next to me more than any dog or cat I have ever been associated with. He has gotten into my head and emotions further than most people ever get. It seems stupid, but dogs operate with humans on a really subtle level. Why can't they be the perfect dogs we want them to be? Well, what fun would that be?

"Are ya' sure Hank done it this'a'way?" and other important philosophical concerns

2009-04-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

At first this seems like a straightforward inquiry. The questioner inquires as to whether the questionee is certain as to whether "Hank" (e.g. Hank Williams) really did what the questioner is now doing (conducting his life and country and western career) the same way that Hank himself conducted his life / career?

The questioner seems to put full faith in Hank as a role model, but has developed doubt after attempting to follow that model.

Actually, this is a pretty complex question for a redneck. (Should I, however class the questioner, in this case Waylon Jennings as a mere redneck? He was in Buddy Holly's band when Buddy died in the post-Clear Lake, Iowa plain crash - he had given his seat on the plane to Dion, who in turn gave it to Richie Valens, a chain of guilt and fate that put a spin on his life and personal philosophy. Well, being a redneck is not a bad thing, I guess and I imagine Waylon thought of himself ironically as one, as I also do - a redneck a few miles down the road of life, as it were.)

So, at base, the question devolves into many:

1. What is the correct way to live?

2. Should we follow role models when attempting to live our lives correctly?

3. Can we actually trust the advice of others? (Is there such thing as a guru, or life coach? - in this case, the addressee)

4. Is life worth examining? (Is "this" the way to do things?) Or should we plunge ahead with life, unquestioning of the status quo (in this case "the way Hank done it")

5. Is our avocation (in this case, "the country western singer (read "Artist")) open for interpretation by others than the self?

6. What is the importance of the avocation to the individual? Is it worth suffering for? (given the Hank Williams model, is it worth living hard, suffering long, being betrayed and dying young and unhappy?)

7. Is Art a worthy avocation? (Is there another worthy choice, then, instead?)

8. What is life? Is it distinguishable from art?

9. Are we in this life to suffer and doubt?

10. To whom may we reliably turn for answers to the important questions?

I give you the Parrot, sitting in the sunshine, acting the clown. One has but to wonder about his view of avocation and art and life. Are you sure Ronald McDonald done it this'a'way?

Aye, the trivial yields to the profound and back again. 'Arrrrgh me hearties!

My apologies for dropping the inquiry on the philosophy of Waylon Jennings, but it does seem to me to be profundity midst clownish "Country Rebellion". Waylon was not merely questioning the Nashville system here, but digging for deeper truth...and all in a three minute song on the jukebox.

The Usual Stuff - Infernal Space Robots attack Flemington

2009-04-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

A torrent of deadly space robots invaded downtown Flemington, NJ today leaving a swath of infernal destruction in their wake.

Observers, like Al, the Town Drunk, estimated the invasion force at 900 gazillion space robots. This estimate may be somewhat overstated, according to the local junior high chess team, who were on a field trip to the comic book store, but maybe more fully accurate in emotional terms (if you are someone who exhibits emotions).

A nervous bystander with a bad complexion described the robots as a "brightly-painted, smokey, square-shaped, smelly, loud, ambitious, harsh-light-emitting, slow-moving, interdimensional gang bangers from hell." This too was somewhat hyperbolized, according to members of the local marching band society, who were in search of a bar - which, by the way, can not be found in Downtown Flemington since the Union Hotel closed and sold its booze license, creating a de-facto state of prohibition, although many people can (and do) bring their own bottles to many local eateries and alleyways. They stated that the space robots weren't painted, but instead were constructed of brightly colored metals, plastics and glass.

I would like to unequivocally state that no one knows where the spacerobots came from (other than from space) or where they went to for the after-destruction party.

In related news, another onslaught of merely annoying space robots invaded downtown Pittstown NJ earlier in the day, leaving an visibly irritated populace of mopes and would-be aviators to mutter and scowl over their beers at the Pittstown Inne (est 1768). Evan, the town's only punk, an eleven year old kid with a green Statue of Liberty mohawk was heard to say,"Aw, we always get the crappy space robots here! Pittstown sucks!"

Scientists from nearby Raritan Valley Community College were hesitant to comment on the rash of space robot invasions and skeptical as to whether local citizenry could be trusted to report with accuracy on such ground-breaking events. Instead, they decamped to a local watering hole to contemplate, think, cogitate, regard the facts, analyze and mull the reported events over some more.

"This is even worse than Tea Party Day they had yesterday!" said Al, the Town Drunk.

Object - ness

2009-04-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

The Perfect Object

Plato's Theory of Forms holds that there is a perfect model for each object in the world, that the objects we have are just imperfect copies of the perfect model. For instance, there is a perfect model of a chair that embodies all of the qualities of"chair-ness".

Well, hey, this is a pretty useful theory in all practicality in that it holds that we can speculate what makes a perfect chair (or any other object) and then strive to that standard. And, for some reason, I have always tended to ascribe to this theory,whether or not it actually makes sense. For instance, I can visualize what I would think is the perfect pitcher, the perfect vase, the perfect candlestick, the perfect house, the perfect road, etc. Probably no one else would agree to my visualizations, so that would make this a "theory of forms for one."

This is also okay, it just means that my approach tothe world, when making things or renderings of things, is individualized. Perfectly good, I just have my own unique take on Everything. For an artist or craftsman, this is what constitutes value and aesthetics - eh? My perfect ideal, rendered as close to my conception of perfection as possible.

The other side of this is mass-production - hundreds, thousands, millions of objects all the same. (including art, music, literature) Not so good, not so aesthetically pleasing, lowest common denominator stuff that we are just stuck with, since due to the"economy of scale"it is cheaper to produce.

Of course, this approach has its upside - mass consumer culture (if that's an upside), autos for everyone and so forth. This approach to reality got a lot of bad press when it was starting out,not so much anymore. It was derided as "creeping conformity" and the pursuit of mass-produced objects as "keeping up with the Joneses."

The heighth of the creepiness around conformity wasthe 50s, when movies like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" came out. People were afraid that all of the sameness was robbing them of their souls. And, it probably was (and is). The sixties went sort of backlash on conformity, resulting in a conformity of non-conformity. This type of conformity you may remember from different movements where everyonewas trying to look like individuals but wound up looking remarkably similar: the beatniks, the hippies, and later, the punks.

The antidote was not a complete cure. So back we go to the individual ideal of perfection, individual commitment. But how does this ideal square with the universal - we do have universal needs like the needs not to blow up, pollute and otherwise screw up the planet. If I'm busy with my individual pursuit, how does that square up with the collective need? Is the universal good conformity? Individualism? A blend of the two?

As you might remember, the social experiments based on the perfect race (the Nazi's "Master Race") and the perfect society (Nazis again, the Soviets and Red Chinese) didn't pan out so well for millions of slaughtered people and people interred in concentration camp due to their defects. When applying the theory of forms to society, really bad things happen.

I'm still looking for my perfect pitcher, however.

Around and around we go.

What is purple, weighs 2,000 pounds and swims in the ocean?

2009-04-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

After listening to a band for 41 years, your affinity for their music can get pretty fully realized. Of course, I relate to many such bands with varying degrees of personal affinity. One of the bands with which I have a very close experiential alliance is Moby Grape. I have gone the full gamut of musical appreciation with this band, although I have never seen them perform live (to my chagrin).

Moby Grape ran the spectrum, in rock music terms. At times they sound like enthusiastic, talented amateurs, at other times studio wizards, goof-offs, the tightest band ever, a band threatening to fall apart as they played, great harmonists, lousy harmonists, ace guitarists, bogus guitarists. To put it plainly, there's a lot there with Moby Grape - five guys who could write, sing, play and function together as a band / or not. They also had a great rock legend, Alexander (Skip) Spence (may he rest in peace) in their midst, a man who you can hear inspirationally hammering away on rhythm guitar on all of their best tracks and singing in a uniquely windy, elastic voice.

Much has been made of the self-destruction of Moby Grape, who were supposed to be "the American Beatles" or something, but I'll take what they left us - albeit that is very hard to find nowadays. (They continue to have enormous legal problems with their ex-manager, so their first two (great) albums "Moby Grape"and "Wow/Grape Jam" are hard to come by without overspending dramatically. I listen to them in the revered VINYL format, BTW).

The Moby Grape Main Legacy was those two albums and all of the tracks they laid down in 2 years, 1967 and 1968. Thank The God Who Whistles in the Treetops that Sundazed records has packaged up the Grape's left-over recordings from those two years (67 and 68) as "The Place and the Time" and made them available in CD and LP format. I have the CD and have listened to it non-stop for the past week. (Maybe, I'll pop for the vinyl, too. Why not?) It's a Moby Grape paradise of alternate cuts, demos and live tracks. I'm so freaking happy with this package that I probably can't even express it properly. It's the Zing Zang with the Kamoogelly Ding Dang! They call it 'the great lost Moby Grape album' and for me, that is exactly what it is. I'm hearing their subsequently "studio-ed up" cuts in their original state for the first time and tracks that they cut after Skip left in their full-group presentation. Its just wonderful.

Now listen, Moby Grape is not for everyone. No, no, no. I don't know if they are one of those "ya hadda be there" bandsor whatever, but like I say, I have been getting maximum joy out of themfor 41 years, with a lot more to be had. Ditto on Skip's LEGENDARY solo 1969 lp, "Oar". Its also available from Sundazed and should be heard. I have an original rare vinyl copy that is my most prized possession in the world. Its almost worn out from 40 years of listening, dubbing and admiring. Needless to say, "Oar" is not for everyone either. If you check the reviews of it online, many are negative. It either gets you or it don't. However, one thing that Il ike about "The Place and the Time", is that it has two or three numbers that would fit nice and sonically on "Oar". Phabulous!

Enough on this for now. Check out a capsule summary of Moby Grape's exploits and bad luck at allmusic.com

Moby Grape's immortal original lineup: Skip Spence - guitar, Jerry Miller - lead guitar, Peter Lewis - guitar, Don Stephenson - drums, Bob Mosley - bass. '

All hail the Grape!

(The album covers pictured above are "Wow" and "Grape Jam", which came packaged as a "two-fer", unheard of at the time. "Wow" is a Sgt Pepper - influenced album, with great songs abetted by sound collages, studio trickery, sound effects, lots of edits and a surprise cut that needed to be played at 78 rpm featuring Arthur Godfrey on ukelele and the Lou Waxman Orchestra playing loping, antique jazz accompaniment behind an absolutely crazed Skip Spence composition. "Wow", was as they say "high concept". Grape Jam was a collection of blues jams, murky performance pieces and one great Bob Mosley blues song, "Never", that was later stolen and renamed by Led Zeppelin as "Since IBeen Loving You." You can pay a lot of money for the CD versions of these two items, or get relatively cheap vinyl versions.)

Film - "Sin Nombre"

2009-04-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

This was a hopping good movie. People told me it was depressing, but I don't get really feel that from movies. Yeah, it was depressing for the (fictive) characters - it sucked to be them, for sure, but when I watch a movie I guess I am following the craft of the thing and man, this movie was tight. The narrative is very linear and its a real chair-arm-grabber - lots of things go wrong for our crew of people heading North to New Jersey from Central America.

So, I don't know, it seems like the good movies now are tending to be made outside the US, outside the Hollywood system. Real stories are tending to be told with real actors in real situations. The same was true for the Italian gang film, "Gomorrah". I would rather watch this kind of stuff, with subtitles, than a Tom Cruise unbelievable action mess anyday. I'm going to continue seeking out so-called "foreign" films. They seem to be happening like they were in the 60's. Hollywood is spending a trillion bux a flick and the art is happening elsewhere.

Trouble is - you have to work to see films like this. They are not in general distribution, lets say. I see mine at the (little, funky) Montgomery Cinema in Montgomery, NJ (Rt 202, near Princeton). There are usually about 20 people in the audience - you know, "good film" nuts and its very comfortable. I don't even know too much how you find out about little, arty films. Scour the web, I guess, or just show up at the very few places who are dedicated to showing artistic films.

PC Hood Ornament

2009-04-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

I don't like to work when I actually have to apply myself. When I can work and its completely effortless, that's okay. But, working with effort, ugh! That really sucks. It seems such an intrusion on the beauty of life to even HAVE to work, so when it involves effort or unpleasant or annoying tasks, forget it.

I'm referring to work here as the phenomenon that happens in reaction to the necessity of supporting oneself and one's family financially. What a distasteful thing this is, even to contemplate, associating as it does the lack of freedom with $.

So, when at 'work', I like to work at total efficiency, friction-free and complete everything I need to accomplish by about 10 a.m. Then I'm free to skylark the rest of the day, you know - do things like contemplate reality, take a walk, fuck around with my blackberry, go to lunch, go to the bookstore and goof off real good. I find that if you get all of your crummy assignments done in the most efficient manner possible, you can pretty much stick to this schedule. Of course, there's a lot of illusion necessary. You have to talk a good ballgame without actually lying and not actually appear to be goofing off too badly, but those are small concessions to the necessities of coping with odious things like "having a job."

Ah, well. Gee, I should be working now, but am doing this instead!

Eventually I'll

2009-04-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

start posting stuff that may actually

a) be interesting

b) make sense

but probably not today. Here's an architectural anomaly to look at from mid-Amercia. A building that is a Big Ass basket. I was actually inside this building and have to admit to being a bit awed by it. Its not exactly Notre Dame Cathedral, but it does have a unique feel to it. Not exactly that feel you have when you stand up in public and say something humiliating, but a certain feeling of undeserved awe or somefin'.

I'm really proud of just having gone commercial on my blog by putting those annoying ads in the right hand column. I envision a day when casual conversation will be punctuated by advertisements.

"Hi, Bill. How ya doin'?"

"Great, Jim! Hey, have you tried new Frosty Oaty-Ohs! They contain 100% of your daily requirement of riboflavin and Mercury!"

"No, but may I recommend to you the Law Firm of Donner, Donner and Skelton? They really are on your side in the event of personal injury!"

"Okay, and stay away from my woman, right?"

"Right."

My Mind Is Such a Place Fine Is

2009-04-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Dang, I'm getting that corn pone rush

"Good News! Your Furniture has been moved to Cleveland. What, you're not moving? Ooops, too late! Goodbye."

2009-03-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the thing for now. I got Pandora as an app on my Blackberry and can listen to absolutely crazy music on it in the car and what-not. Naturally, first thing I put in radio

channels for Alexander Spence, Scott Walker and the Soft Machine. These channels automatically play music you would describe as a dense fog of music without even tweaking the situation. So that's keeping me out of trouble. Also, I can listen to this on earphones at work where everyone assumes everything is normal, but some definite sub-normal shit is going on while I sit placidly in my cubicle.