loved despite great faults

i just watched the entirety of arrested development's second season over the course of about eight hours. great show. just keeps getting better, really.

had a rather intense evening last night, one of those times when the finer detail of my interior fucked-upness gets brought to light in a pretty undeniable fashion. i have someone to thank for that, and i do thank him, and the fact that there is even a person such as he makes me want even more to not be so fucked the hell up. but wanting is one thing, i suppose. the rest is quite a large undertaking. i feel sometimes like i am trapped in a situation with only two possible outcomes: that i become the person who i have spent my life trying to avoid, or that i continue to act as a result of that person and it is beyond my control. i admit, i don't know that those are the only two options, and actually, i have a habit of hanging on pretty tightly to the belief that there are many other outcomes, none of which have anything to do with those. but it gets kind of daunting from time to time. and it makes me want to do what i realized so spectacularly last night that i do, which is cut everything off and act like an asshole for no real reason other than it makes me feel twistedly better to act shitty sometimes.

luckily for me, this doesn't seem to ever elicit the desired result, which(at the time) is to drive people away from me...so really all it is, is a waste of time and energy. one of the many reasons why it's all ridiculous.

i know. all this is terribly depressing. and dumb. here are some recent upsides: killa gets groomed tomorrow, so she will no longer stink. that's something to be pleased about. trey is moving in for the next week or two until his new place is ready, which is wonderful because trey is one of my favorite people and because it is really nice having people around the house, especially when it is cold out. don't know where that comes from. it will be rather lovely to have him.

i'm off to think some more, and to try and sleep in the spaces my brain will allow. i had great dreams last night, of nothing in particular, but every time i woke up, my first conscious feeling was one of well-being. i suppose that is an upside as well.

life is short, life is shit, and it will soon be over.

i feel the need to update, just because the extra-long holiday weekend made it seem like an extra-long time since i've done so. and even though i haven't done much other than drink way more than is probably advisable, not get enough sleep, work, and possibly acquire pneumonia in the past three days, i figure there has got to be something to say. it will be a good exercise for the hamster, who is marinating in the leftover booze just now starting to dry up in my brain.

i'm gonna put this out there right now. kanye west has finally infiltrated my life to the point where it is no longer possible for me to ignore his existence. not that i was trying, but i hadn't gotten around to picking up the album and certain people named charles who were in charge of burning it for me made off with my blank cd's and, shockingly, didn't return with anything resembling a kanye west album. and i'm not ever one of those people who run out to the store and buy the album and force it into my life at that exact moment that everyone else is. first of all, i never have any money, so that pretty much takes care of that. but also, i find it kind of interesting how music appears at certain moments, and maybe something that you've been hearing about for a long time but have never actually heard finally makes its way into your head and takes the fuck over. a la mr. west. i cannot deny him, at this point. and why would i want to? i need him.

yin-yang mossimo hackey-sack is a blog written by someone who has a lot of spot on things to say about a lot of the inanity swirling around at any given time. i like it.

i honestly do feel like death right now. i need to be hooked up to some sort of vitamin and mineral dispensing machine or something...although preferably one that doesn't over-dispense niacin, as my sister just recently accidentally poisoned herself with too much of whatever the hell niacin is. i didn't know it was possible to poison oneself with vitamins and minerals, but apparently it is. take note.

alison, if you are reading this, email your loving sister with your location on the web. i should like to visit you there.

all right, that was it. pretty weak. i apologize. the hamster should be finished drying out by tomorrow or so, and then we will reassess and decide if what he really needs is another drink or a healthier lifestyle. i'm telling you right now, it's probably going to be the former.

an unqualified success, part II

strong work, as they say in alaska.

my sister sticks her tongue out a little when she's really focused on something. just one of the many reasons she kicks all sorts of ass.

this is what you'd refer to as a food coma.

gratuitous sister shot. neither one of us likes to be photographed.

an unqualified success, part I

let me start by saying that we are never not frying the turkey ever again. it takes 45 minutes, is delicious, and as a bonus, nobody got burned or died or anything. with lord turkeyfryer at the helm, you really can't go wrong. it starts like this:

kels and i stayed outside the ring of fire, just to be safe. one less obstacle to jump should the thing blow up.

here's where the scalding could have occured, but didn't. that's fucking precision right there.

and...just making sure it doesn't explode or anything.

inaugural quote of fried turkey day '05

"we're starting a new tradition." -my mother.

"can we get that in writing?" -boom.

the HIGHLANDER was a DOCUMENTARY, and the events happened in *real time*

for the past two years, i have been the voice on the answering machine at my mother's house. incidentally, i have not inhabited said house in two years. anyhoo. two years ago, i made the outgoing message myself because i was done listening to the electronic man saying in his stilted, irritating tone "please leave your message". and because i knew that if i didn't do it, nobody would. i would have thought that a power outage or furniture move or something would have erased that recording a long time ago, but alas, it remained.

some things about my house shall never change, and no, i don't mean the answering machine message, because i finally changed that today. what i mean is, in my house, the phone goes to the answering machine every single time. WITHOUT FAIL. no one answers the phone here. it's the answering machine or nothing, folks. and who's on the answering machine? me. so, to summarize, i am the disembodied ambassador to any schmuck who still attempts to reach a human being here at 64 alinda via telephone , even though my corporeal form resides some 400 miles away. oh, and the new message is pretty stellar.

call, if you don't believe me. and don't worry, they're not gonna pick it up.

what *doesn't* fuel aggression, anxiety?

this is why i love the yahoo! news headlines.

next up, scientists discover "sun".

oh, and there's a jet belonging to nike that may or may not crash within the next hour or so, but neither c.e.o. phil knight, nor any "sports celebrities" are on board, so it's all good.

i've always loved you to the max.

quote of the week, via brain:

"thanks, i enjoy being pigeonholed into post-reagan-era stereotypes."

ny update #2: drug problems and babies, and sometimes a combination of the two.

yes, outside the walls of our little core grouping of relative sanity, it seems most of the folks we attended high school with are either cultivating a rather massive drug/alcohol issue, or having a kid. or, as the title points out, both.

good for them! hurrah. quote of the evening, via bert rotundo(who is unfortunately going, going back, back to cali, cali as i write this):

"stay away from women with offspring." -to billy robbie.

now, i did say "relative" sanity. but i think we're doing all right, for the most part. brodie, who we all now know turned thirty last week, at first seemed dispondent. "what, has this thirty thing got him all upset?" i inquired of brucia, who assured me that brodie's demeanor was likely the result of him having not slept in something like three days. understandable, and somewhat expected.

brod spent the evening balancing his heineken on the rather formidable belly he has acquired and staring blearily around the room, every so often fixing his gaze on me, cracking a bemused smile and asking me some loosely constructed question about where i've been. i do love the belly, though. both he and bert have put on weight, but i like it. it makes them look sturdy, which i like to think that they are.

seeing all of the boys made me extremely happy. and not a drug problem or baby in sight. strong work, my darlings.

here's what shocked me: phil, who is a bartender at the argyle, is no longer angry! it must be going around, but honestly, phil was one of the angriest people i've ever known, who was still kicking around in mainstream society. i was always fairly certain that not only did he not hate me, but actually rather liked me; however, in general, his hate for his fellow man was no secret. in fact, i have to take a look back and see if i can dig up some of his quotes, 'cause he had some good ones.

i asked him about the shift. he kinda cocked his head, grinned so that the corners of his eyes scrunched up in a very endearing way, shrugged and said, "i guess i'm mellowing out in my old age."

indeed.

kels, i heard death cab and arcade fire in mary's last night. eek. and the fat hippie is right. middle class white girls ain't got a damn thing to worry about...except drug problems and babies, of course.

remind me to tell you how antonio sabato junior and the producers of some vh1 reality show are responsible for poor robert palmer spinning in his (freshly dug) grave. bastards.

that's all for now; i am off to work toward the acquisition of a tuna and avocado salad from kotobuki.

lb, out.

god must be carving the clouds into animal shapes...

you just can't get around this silver jews album. i mean, it's impossible for me to do much of anything without having it on somewhere in the background. or foreground.

my ex-wife's livin' in the suburbs with her guru, and her mom...

right now, right here, in the cold, in long island, in this second, there is no other soundtrack.

i've been workin' at the airport bar, it's like christmas in a submarine...

that line sounds like a specific place, in a specific time, in a specific strip mall in the middle of deer park, long island. that was four years ago. four years.

like a brown bird nesting in a texaco sign, i got a point of view

john, you were supposed to be remembering quotes. it's no mean trick, trying to get it all to stay in your head verbatim. but if you have any, you best send them along. it has been far too long since i updated the quotes page. pointed out by you, appropriately, with a quote on that very subject... "i've said funny things since july!"

if it gets really really bad...if it ever gets really really bad...let's not kid ourselves, if it's really really bad.


brodie turned thirty on wednesday. or thursday? no wednesday. i suck. anyhow, thirty. brodie. i know. we're going out tonight in the heart of guido territory, rolling in a pack, ten or so deep. maybe more, i have no idea how deep my pack rolls these days. but believe me, there will be a new york update number 2 at some point tomorrow. ...wait for it.

i am off to sing some silver jews in the shower.

you can call it a spin-off, say it's a knock-off, title it part two, but i'm getting back into getting back into getting back into you...

ny update #1: cold, smoke-free and overrun with guidos

jordan and riann:

hello friends. here is your first update from the field. it's cold here in new york. very, very cold. not just "like, five degrees", jordan. although i realize that i just don't own much warmer clothing than i brought. so it wouldn't have mattered.

hey, remember that plan that we had on wednesday, about me showing up for my 3:35 am train in an advanced state of inebriation so as to sleep better and make the entire experience more pleasant? remember how we strove for that, how we dedicated ourselves to the task? do you remember all those shots that we did?

here's the thing: sometimes, trains get delayed. and then you have to go do a paper route and later, take a 6am commuter train while still under the influence of the stupor you intended for the three thirty a.m. dark, sleepy train. just for future reference. it all worked out in the end; i still slept soundly, albeit surrounded by commuters and their laptops and pda's and two cell phones and wall street journal and whatnot. really big headphones and a total lack of interest in ones surroundings make blocking all that out a lot easier.

anyhoo, you'll be happy to know that i am coming back to rva with the recipe for that pb and j shot we kept trying to perfect. there's a bartender at my old job here in l.i. who is desperate to prove that he is the man for the role, should they ever make a cocktail 2, strong island.

he spent most of last evening setting curiously colored beverages in front of us, flipping bottles around and throwing fruit wedges. it would have been mildly annoying in any other setting. there, it was just par for the course.

irv bricked on the chippendales dance off, probably because his new girlfriend was there and he didn't want to seem like a loser, which he obviously would have been, once i smoked him to the crazy rhythms of 'workin' for the weekend'. i fucking hate it when people go legit. yeah, i'm talking to you, irv.

aight. i must say goodbye now, more new york activities await. oh, just to update: brain is coming to thanksgiving. the universe has smiled down upon us.

oh, and just in case any of the southerners were wondering, it still sucks terribly to have to smoke cigarettes outside.

hope all is well in the southland...i think i might capture a guido, box him up and send him along to rva so that you might all get to see what one looks like. i mean, they're fucking everywhere...the only thing more prevelant around here are molecules of air. for instance, last night, the entire cast of 'boiler room' kept trying to steal our seats. any of those dudes would have been a prime candidate for specimen-ship. ok, now i have a mission.

xoxoxo
lauren marie veronique ball, roving correspondent in the field.

i rule you.

where the only thing lurking around with

crazy eye

is the pumpkin pie.

ok, so this is the back of the shirt. i know, i'm borderline obsessed with this, but i'm pretty much that way anyhow. and 14 hours a day for 17 cents an hour with no bathroom breaks will do that to you.

so shut it. and be sad if you ain't gonna be at this party, people. 'cause we got shirts. and if all else fails, liquor.

oh, and i am the biggest loser in the loser queue...i fell asleep before vinyl cartel, woke up in the middle of that asinine show "numbers"(i refuse to use the 3 as an "e". on principle.) just in time to re-confirm how extremely hard it sucks. and you know, i used to like that guy when he was joel on northern exposure. but all that is over now. just like the vinyl cartel. and i'm posting to my blog at 12:47am on friday night. don't look at me.

telling you stuff you already know

so i'm behind on just about everything, as usual...i've never claimed to be anything else, so i don't care. sue me. everybody's doing it.

here's the sports guy on kobe's new nickname:

An actual excerpt from Ric Bucher's ESPN The Mag cover story about Kobe and Phil (and no, I'm not making this up):

"Granted, there's still a dark side that Bryant embraces. He's known in his inner circle as Mamba, which, he is happy to explain, is a kind of snake that can grow to 13 feet and is one of the world's quickest, and one of the most venomous, serpents. He referred to this summer as the 'blackout,' in which the snake grew a new skin through a seven-days-a-week conditioning program."

Wait, there's more! Here's Kobe explaining his new nickname:

"The mamba can strike with 99 percent accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession. That's the kind of basketball precision I want to have. Not being able to train the last two summers, I was in a gunfight with a rusty butter knife. I did my share of killing, but I was just fighting to survive."


All right ...

First of all, I love when any celebrity gives himself a new nickname to change his identity. It's funny when wrestlers change gimmicks and end up with a new nickname, it's funny when Diddy changes nicknames, and it's downright hysterical when an NBA star once accused of sexual assault decides it would be a fantastic idea to embrace the identity of a 13-foot serpent. Second, when they explain the choice of the nickname with a beauty like, "The mamba can strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession," and refuse to credit "Kill Bill," it reminds me why I still love writing this column. And third, I don't think this nickname is catching on, since I have been delightedly telling everyone I know about the Mamba story, and nobody has heard of it, so I'm calling Kobe "Mamba" in this space from this point forward. Long live Mamba.

also, in other news, i've finally put two and two together and discovered that no, they don't make five, but that alex blagg of blaggblogg is the same alex blagg who writes for phat phree(like i read the fucking bylines on phat phree. come on.) so basically what i'm trying to tell you is that blaggblogg is just an endless collection of pieces just like "when in doubt peel out", which we all know is pure geniosity. and strategery. and stuff. i just wanted to write "strategery".

ok, one last thing, which will take the form of a 'letter to brain':

dear brain:

i've noticed in all of our 'ships passing in the night' correspondence of late that you have said absolutely nothing about thanksgiving and whether or not you will be bringing your carpetbagging ass down south for some fried turkey. now, as i mentioned previously, i don't even know what fried turkey entails, but i've heard it is delicious and dangerous, which is a combination that appeals to me. more importantly, however, you best be here, and i am taking your silence on the matter as a BAD SIGN. i don't like bad signs. it reminds me of when i was in the shit, back in 72. i'm going to go take my medications now, but listen to me: the next time you show up on a.i.m. at 4:45 in the morning and are talking to my away message, you best be telling it that you are coming for thanksgiving. that is all.

yours from the biscuits and the gravy,
lmvb, cob, ttbc, rcitfrd

clip art comes up big, again.

ok, so i spent some time with clip art this evening, in pursuit of some t-shirt worthy images. and i think these qualify. need to hear feedback, people. these are your shirts. these shirts are for you.
here we have crazy eye, which doesn't show up with any results when you search for it on the microsoft clip art download site, but which this gentleman is certainly rockin'. downside: he's just not all that threatening. not quite the accurate representation. but still a possibility.

this one is obvious. and freakish. which works for me.

i'm thinking that over the left breast should be a tiny logo, with the pertinent info, and all the rest of the stuff should be on the back. this cockeyed pumpkin pie seems perfect for that, no?

i don't know, this guy had to be included, for a variety of reasons, all of which are pretty readily apparent. at the very least, we're making a commemorative poster out of this.

yeah. if you grew up in my house, this one's gonna have special meaning for you. watch out for the coffee table, dad!

dude rolls with the pumpkin pie. we're using both, no doubt.

and finally, can't really go wrong with this one. it's sort of the dollar-bill pyramid from the spring break shirts...obvious and perfect, but not as wack as that weird dude who seems to have escaped from jail.

well, it's up to the invitees now, or actually, just up to my sister. she's running this thing. i'm just working in the kathie lee gifford sweat shop.

suck it, republicans!

yes, it doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme, other than that we don't have to deal with a country-bumpkin, gay-bashing bush clone as our governor here in the commonwealth. tim kaine ain't the proverbial bed of roses(is that how it goes?) but he also isn't jerry kilgore, now is he.

election night moment of zen: watching michelle mitchell kirk the fuck out after losing the sheriff's race, after holding that office for a gazillion(12) years. she was chewing gum, and when they had her on television last night, she was freaking out so badly that the gum was flying all over her mouth while she was, well...freaking out. it was quite a sight. i kept waiting for her to take a swing at one of the visibly disoriented campaign supporters still stupid enough to be lingering around. um, concession speech? i'm pretty sure that was her concession speech.

most disturbing thing i've witnessed in the past four hours: in someone elses car this a.m. i heard some morning show douchebag taking calls from french people who are here in the u.s., regarding the riots... it was unbelievably inane. he kept calling them frenchy and speaking to them like they were kindergartners. "do they still hate us over there?" he asked, in his patronizing, american blowhard nitwit tone. i fucking hope so.

thanksgiving update

ok, so we're gonna have shirts. t-shirts. we need a symbol or something, and so far i'm thinking that a ball and chain would be cool, inside the universal sign for "no". or maybe a crazy eye inside the universal sign for "no". or we could go in an entirely different direction. either way, we're gonna have shirts. tell me you don't want to come to this.

wait. there's more. my sister suggested that we put on a historically accurate thanksgiving pageant, where the white dudes show up, give the indians measles and take their land. and then lock the indians in the back bedroom with a bunch of liquor and some cards. if we do that one, i already have dibs on being a measle.

the alternative is to do a historically accurate re-enactment of one of our childhood thanksgivings, but that actually has the potential to make people pretty uncomfortable. so we may stick with the indians/measles plan.

oh, and as if you needed one more reason...we're frying the turkey. or, should i say, my sister is frying the turkey. which promises to be an event unto itself, believe me.

i ain't about to go straight, it's too late...

been quite solitary lately, in the midst of people. and it's been rather nice, actually. i recently got kind of used to being paired up all the time, and i didn't necessarily dislike it, but i do like the solitary. a lot.

been quite fall-esque lately, and i can't say a bad thing about that. wearing brown and dark green and orange and red and strolling through the fan in all this seasonally perfect weather we've been having. if i could design a fall day, it would have been today, and i think i enjoyed it as throughly as i possibly could have. right down to my bike ride back to the station tonight, the weather was exactly as i wanted it to be. nice to get what one wants.

i'm going to read this weekend. i'm going to start a book and have it be the common thread to the whole span...i haven't done that in way too long. i'm sure i'll drink pretty heavily as well. that's just the way that tends to go. heard the new pornographers tonight singing about the slow descent into alcoholism and thought 'exactly...' i don't mind my tendancy toward the drink. i think i manage it pretty well, most of the time. and i rather enjoy it. so there.

i must quickly mention that it is our fundraiser/pledge drive week at the ol' WRIR, so anyone with 35 or so dollars to spare can call in(or go online) and support indie radio in richmond, support my ass in my valiant news endeavours and get a pretty bad-ass t-shirt. of course, you can certainly give more than 35 if you've got the funds, but 35 will at least get you the shirt. the phone number is 804-622-WRIR and online we're at www.wrir.org.

eats pudding.

i've long harbored a suspicion that m.b. is one of the baddest motherfunkers in town, but now i know for sure. i mean, who else has the entire funk, soul and r&b canon memorized, dance moves for all of it and is disguised as a white boy from tennessee? has little use for other people. partial to sarcasm. there you go.

it's all too much. especially since he smells really good too.

killa ate it.

i have to ask the universe at large to send me some sort of magical solution to getting my dog, killa cali, the destructor, to stop eating everything. i mean, everything. it's unreal. everything that isn't something designed specifically for her to eat. i'm at the end of my rope here, universe. help me. please.

i know, i know, it's called training. but to quote garden state, who has time to train them? i mean, honestly?

at this point, i've basically given up on the sanctity of my material posessions. it's all i can do to keep constant track of my cell phone and walkman, the two things i would not be able to function properly without and/or don't have the money to replace. but everything else is just too numerous, and well...there, for me to keep constant track of. i'm almost out of shoes, for christsake. and our coffee table now has four, jaggedly rounded corners. we can no longer watch dvd's, as killa saw fit to consume the remote control. for the second time.

charles and i were in the process of penning a song, entitled 'killa ate it' but i realize that it would require a song of a length that would make r. kelly proud to list all the things that killa has, in fact, eaten. so now i think that we'd just be better off sticking with the things she's managed to avoid. it's a short list.