This Onion Makes You Cry HAPPY Tears!!!

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2.27.09

9:44pm

So, if you can believe this, every Thursday I have a ritual:

I walk down to 85th and Lexington and pick up a copy of the Onion.

I then read it when I get back to work.

I always have a blank e-mail open, addressed to myself in case something catches my interest.

This week, there is a new feature entitled "Gateways to Geekery" and while some of it didn't float my boat (The French New Wave) and some of it was trying to float a boat that was already floating (British Sitcoms), one entry just ran right up my gangplank.

Hard.

And that runner was Glam Rock.

Personally, I've never given too much of a shit about it, but the entry said that Ziggy Stardust was a good gateway.

I love Ziggy Stardust so it stands to reason that if any of the other stuff was like Ziggy Stardust there's a fair chance that I might enjoy that as well.

Plus, it's always good to get into new (for me anyway) music.

Mostly for myself, but also so I can spare my friends from having to hear me babble on and on about the same six bands (more so than I already do).

After Ziggy they recommended Roxy Music's self titled album, The Slider by T. Rex and Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets (which is a wonderfully sinister title).

Now, I know Eno from his work with Bowie on Low and later 1. Outside and I'd heard of both Roxy Music and T. Rex (mostly from Chris), but I'd never (knowingly) heard any of their own stuff, so off to the Internets I frisked!

Thus far I have only listened to the first half of Roxy Music, but I am digging the hell out of it.

Something about the overwrought sense of drama appeals to me...for some reason...

I listened to one track from T. Rex (Metal Guru) and that also seems good, but I haven't even scratched the membrane of the surface.

Along with these I picked up The Lonely Island's Incredibad, which is the guys who do "Dick In A Box","Jizz In My Pants", "Natalie's Rap" and all the other stuff that is keeping SNL afloat these days.

Some funny goddamn shit on there as well.

I recommend "Normal Guy (Interlude)".

Also, and this makes me feel like a bit of a scumbag (I'm certain Kaitlyn would support this feeling), I grabbed the War Child Present Heroes charity album.

Okay, the worst part, worse than me basically stealing a charity album supporting children displaced by war, is that it isn't very good.

The idea is big, famous bands choose a band they like/respect to do a cover of one of their songs.

So there's Peaches doing "Search & Destroy" by Iggy Pop, Scissor Sisters doing "Do The Strand" by Roxy Music, TV On The Radio doing "Heroes" by Bowie and other stuff along those lines.

And none of them are great!

Some are good, but NONE are great.

I feel bad for these kids.

Well...worse.

Just finished watching the first season of Flight of the Conchords.

I didn't really dig it at first, but the show grew on me.

And some of those Musical Moments are achingly funny.

I'M NOW GOING TO ILLEGALLY DOWNLOAD THE SECOND SEASON FROM OFF THE INTERNET.

Take that, HBO.

Needed to reshape my Netflix.

In the last delivery, I received, along with the second disc of FOTC and the remake of The Fly (really excellent, but something about Geena Davis...WAY too many teeth), The Seven Samurai.

That was in the first 20 or so movies I added to my queue three years ago.

So now:

Weeds

Big Love

Peep Show

and....some other series. 

I'm finding cable less amazing than I would have hoped.

That's probably my fault though.

I'm writing a semi-serious Lovecraft short story at Phil's urgings.

I figured, if he's a good writer, maybe he can make me a good writer by telling me what to write.

Just kidding.

I'm a great writer.

And a devil in the sack.

Not very tall though.

Diminutive.

Miniscule.

Tiny.

Dot.

I'M KIDDING AGAIN!

I'M VERY TALL!!!!

Also,Tumblr.

Or Tumbler.

Or whatever it's called.

It's YET ANOTHER PLACE TO POST A BLOG.

And, even though I hate hate hate when this happens, I may have to join it.

Not that anyone reads these.

Or not for very long anyway.

"What's he...what?! What the fuck is his deal?!"

CLICK

*sigh*

No one can handle my Truth.

Buncha weak vessels is all.

Stoked about the gifts I've made for Danielle for her Birthday.

On a scale of "1" to "10", I'd say they're "fucking amazing".

Just being honest.

"Head's up kittens, everything is bad
It's gettin' dark now, and it's the best dark I ever had"

That was on me today.

Not sure why.

Reading it.

At the moment:

Finished Cloud Atlas.

Really excellent book.

The stories inside twine together wonderfully in a way I've not seen before, either because I only read Bazooka Joe comic strips or because he's good at what he does.

I recommend it for people who like reading books.

Then I picked up Why We Suck (which was lovingly provided by one Danielle N. Stockley for mine Birthday) by Denis Leary.

Quite frankly, I was more impressed with his bile and vitriol and acid tongue when I was in 8th grade.

Not to say I'm not enjoying it, but I have to be in the mood.

Also, a book that warns you how offensive it is and guarantees that you're going to laugh "...a lot", really has to work harder than a book that's just, you know, funny.

It's that kind of posturing that makes my eye roll.

Like pep rallies or high school football.

I'd rather watch Rescue Me.

While I was darting in and out of the irascible miasma that is Why We Suck, I also picked up Snow Crash because I'd heard so much about this Neal Stephenson character, I wanted to see if he was worth it.

Oh my goodness is he.

Phil told me that I would freak out when I realized just how ahead of its time this book was and, misreading the copyright page, I did,totally, thinking that it had been written in the late 70's.

Turns out that was the date the cover image had been painted.

But, for this book to have been written in 1992 is right up there with Neuromancer and whenever that was written.

Overall, a great book, except for the PAINFULLY long library research/background information scenes.

It takes a great author to do crazy research and then pass the information subtly to the reader and that just was not the case in this book.

Whole chapters were cut and paste (or so it seems) from Stephenson's notes with the occasional "Go on", Hiro said, thrown in.

I don't care if it DID take place in some cool virtual library with a snarky hologram, it was goddamn boring and thicker than bad fudge.

But fucking Raven was the DEFINITION of badass.

Glass knives indeed.

Anyway, I just finished that yesterday and thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

I didn't need three more chapters, but maybe one.

Whatever the case, for a first book, it was tight like a duck on a drum.

Just yesterday I embarked upon Joel Lane's The Lost District, yet another literary boon from the Good Doctor Swarth.

I've just read the first three stories thus far, but I can tell this is going to be a cold and desolate ride.

Lane's settings are so bleak and monochrome that you can feel the tired, gray air emanating from these stories (I shouldn't really even call them stories; more like scenes form a worn down, broken world where things happen, sometimes, but never good things) and the rust under your fingertips as you turn the page.

Some of it actually evokes Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian and No Country For Old Men more so than The Road), but instead of the dry, scouring heat of the desert, it's the damp, dull chill of these nameless little towns and villages and districts in Britain.

Very lonely, cold stuff.

After this, one Miss Jessica Wade has provided me with The Tesseract by Alex Garland, which, if I remember correctly, is a final boss in Doom II, and, although she "can't remember anything about the book except that it's excellent and the writer is hot", I am very excited.

When book people give you books, ninety nine times out of a hundred, it's going to be the bee's knees: covered in cloying clumps of pollen.

I may also have two or three other things to be excited about coming up, but who the fuck knows until they're already over and done with?

"Not I" said the guy typing in the dark.

Not I.

Nonagon.

2.25.09

9:25pm

First off, today marks the ninth anniversary of my tenure as Happiest Man in the World.

I could be in for another nine, and then, possibly, another.

Check back in 2018 and then again 2027.

So, here's where other people in relationships aren't as cool as me and Chris: first off, they run out of stuff to do and say.

That sucks.

For them.

Secondly, one or the other or both is/are usually unable or unwilling or just afraid to express one's true feelings about one thing or another, and that leads to all typesa shit getting built up silently until one day just popping like a relationship pimple all over the rigid, tense facade and that leads to yelling and biting and punches in bunches, not hugs and pugs.

This doesn't happen in the Ball Pit of Love (that's what I call our relationship) where I've been thrashing about in ecstasy for almost the past ten years.

Thirdly, my chick is SO GODDAMN COOL!

Check this out: guy tells his girlfriend that this other chick is good looking.

Regular relationship: at best, an icy silence pervades the room; at worst, knife meets eye, blood blood blood, you'll never look at another girl again, cry cry cry.

MY gold encrusted platinum relationship: We talk together about how hot she is and how we can invite her over, drug her and have our way (together, as a couple...of rapists) with her.

Not really, but she actually encourages me not to repress my natural, human emotions!!!!

Take that, world at large!!

She's totally a super self realized woman BUT is still happy to snuggle!!

And she can cook, like, awesome food!

That's healthy!!

HEALTHY!!

And we have SO many nauseatingly cute little foibles and in jokes and whatnot that we make the Teletubbies romping with puppies look like an episode of Oz. 

One with graphic ass rape.

Honestly, this is moot.

There's no way I could explain how lucky I am or how perfect we be or how just fucking cool we are in words.

Just...be really jealous.

Don't try to comprehend the love we share, just...stagger at the sheer FORCE of it.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY NOUF!!!!!

WOOOOO!!!!