Choose To Diffuse

8.22.11

8:41 pm

 I had a random thought earlier today.

What's up with the "gangsta lean"?

Are you pretending to be sleepy?

Or maybe that one of your legs is shorter than the other?

How is that "gangsta"?

"Hey, wow, your left leg is shorter than your right! That's gangsta!"

"I bet you have to buy custom-made shoes and pants! That's also gangsta!"

"You're walking like you're on a boat! That's pirate gangsta*!!!"

*sigh*

God I'm jealous.

Anyway, my Saturday was awesome. Unparalleled.

Chris and I went to Playland in Rye, New York and the only thing that made it less perfect was my own destructive body mathematics (Icee + Gravitron + backward-upside down flippy ride = gastrointestinal fucktown).
It was like Fermat's Last Theorem, but all the variables were replaced with me being a fucking idiot.

However, this place is awesome.

I used to go there with my summer camp when I was a wee tyke and haven't been since then until Saturday.

While they had changed and updated a few things (sorely missed were the Red Baron- which made you feel as if you could easily end your like and the life of others with but a flick of your wrist... the Spider- haven't found anything like it ever, the original, spooky Olde Mill- where a kid lost his hand. For real. It's in the newspaper, the acres of video games and whatever that thing was that spun you around in the strobe light-laden dark and blared Guns 'N' Roses music), the important ones were there, namely the Zombie Castle, the Flying Witch, the Derby Racers (where I actually almost died) and the motherfucking Dragon Coaster.

Also, Chris and I got Carousel Married!

And, probably the most amazing aspect of the day...the whole thing, including all the rides AND transportation to Rye via a train from Grand Central Station: $36.50 each.

Boom.

Duckman.

We plan to weave Playland into some aspect of our marriage celebration.

And most of you will be invited.

Saturday evening we watched Cedar Rapids which was less funny than I was lead to believe, but still a lot of fun and then I learned never to try and record ANYTHING with my wonderful and super professional home studio shit.

Ever.

EVER.

NO NO NO.

I'll spare you the knuckle-busting details, but, yeah, anus hell.

Sunday, the two of us drifted around the apartment like constipated ghosts.

Eventually, Christina decided to finally string our Warlock, only to find out it's awful and harder than it should be to do so.

We rocked out like kids for a few then decided to count the day as a wash.

Once that happened, we had a great time playing Wipeout HD (superfuturistic racing game with my excellent custom soundtrack of Aphex Twin, Nine Inch Nails club remixes and others of that ilk).

We then ate some bad ass burgers and watched the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie.

I'm actually pretty angry at the people that made this movie because they don't do the weeks-long scenes of quiet and mostly fruitless research justice.

Then again, why the fuck would I want to watch that?

Reading it was like eating chalk.

But...I don't know...I guess I want those that took the easy way out (oh, I'll just wait for the movie) to feel some of the pain that I did.

I'll hopefully watch the next two movies with Chris this weekend.

Sadly, the actress that played the lead character, Lisbeth Salander, looked a bit like Marilyn Manson.

Which was awful.

After watching that and tucking Chris in, some stupid part of me demanded that I watch Revenge Of The Nerds.

I acquiesced with almost no resistance.

Some realizations/questions based on/raised by this movie:

• Why didn't these "nerds" go to some Ivy League school?


• "Gay" and "nerd" are, apparently, synonymous.


• As are "Japanese" and "pothead"**.


• Alan looks like Booger.


• That one nerd, Louis, ostensibly raped the snooty cheerleader, Betty, but, because he was good at sex, she was totally fine with it.


• John Goodman was always fat.


• 80's boobs are great.


• Blunts were (at least in Hollywood-made college movies) called "wonderjoints".


• The super-myopic redhead violinist (Poindexter, of course) who screamed when he got an erection was fucking hilarious.


• Calling a vagina a "hair pie" is really gross.

And those are all the life lessons I can recall at the moment.

Meanwhile, twenty seven of forty one chapters of Philip W.F. Tucker's The Grind Show have been recorded.

Seventeen have been edited and I have just received notes on the first thirteen.

Edits should mostly be quick and painless.

As long as audible.com doesn't fuck us, this thing is going to get a Q4 2011 release date.

Perhaps Holiday?

Still going strong except for the recent nightmare.

Planning on jumping into chapter twenty eight this evening.

Looks like Moses made it out okay after all...or did he????

No, he didn't.

One problem, I guess, is that they just let him in.
I mean, I understand that demons are all swooping around outside, but, haven't these guys ever seen a horror movie?

Hellllllo!

Skinwalker!

It's just like when Alan and I were watching Neverwhere and this chick who is TOTALLY A VAMPIRE comes up and starts acting all stereotypically vampirey around this guy and we're both saying that this kid has obviously never seen a vampire movie, read a vampire book or ever heard of a vampire ever.

It's ridiculous.

It's just like the old standard of "Okay guys, here we are at the entrance to the labyrinthine, subterranean lair of the Horrid Void Beast. My cell has no reception and these flashlights are already flickering. You got matches? Me nether, let's fucking do this."

Crunch.

Stab.

Die.

Credits.

Not nearly as bad as all that though.

In fact, one of the reasons I enjoy Phil's writing so much is that he's aware of these tropes and, what's more, understands that his readers are aware of these tropes and therefore makes his characters aware of these tropes as well.

So you don't have some guy blindly stumbling into the aforementioned lair of the Horrid Void Beast with nothing but lint and stony resolve as weapons.

Which is good.

Some sad news now...

Not only is my commute home extended twenty to thirty minutes for another ten fucking days (fuck you in your fucking eye, MTA), but the most cankerous of natterbags, who was absent allll last week from work, is back like herpes.

Just like herpes.

Herpes that caws and giggles and crows and never shuts the fuck up ever.

Remember those stupid ass key chains things you got as a kid?

They had like four or five colored buttons on them and each one made a different noise, like a person talking or a sound effect?

This person is like a bigger, louder version of one of those.

Here's what she says, at least fifty times an hour:

O...M...G... (in the most serious and scandalized of tones, so that everyone in the room knows that something, something shocking has happened to make her say this)

Yukading (appears to be an elision of "you are kidding", spoken rapidly in the same tone and in clusters of no less than five)

OOOOOOOOOH-KAAAAAAAAY (meant to express both disbelief and disinterest, the first syllable is typically higher than the second, with the end of the second rapidly declining in pitch, but not always)

mm-hm (an expression of understanding, uttered in groups of three or five, no more or less, in a period of less than a second)

yuhloyng/stoployng (another elision, "you are lying" and "stop lying", delivered in a tone that seems to suggest that she doesn't actually want whoever is "loyng" to stop)

That, people, sums up, not just what this woman sounds like...but who she is.

This woman can be summed up by a talking keychain.

And she has offspring.

Kind of makes me want to get sterilized.

Or drown the earth in screaming blood.

Whichever.

Finished the Hodgman book this evening.

It remained hit or miss right through the end and I don't think I'll be actively pursuing the latter two books he's written.

Unless I can trade my They-Might-Be-Giants-video-contest-prize pizza for an inscribed copy of his new one.

You know, for funsies.

Also, "funsies" or "funzies"?

Hm.

This day has been interminable long.

I'm thinking that's equal parts because of this wretched soul boil sitting mere feet from me and increasing the noise pollution by decimals and the fact that I feel a bit sick.

I hope I can nip this sick in the bud as I'm fourteen recording sessions from being done with Grind Show.

I've somehow managed to not get sick since this recording started in May.

Fucking May.

That is not only sickening and ridiculous, it's unprofessional.

And, if you know me, if you know me at all...you will know that I am a consummate professional.

With racist tendencies.

Good night.

* Which is exponentially more
"gangsta" that regular "gangsta". Ex. Po. Nen. Tial. Ly.

** Synonymous with "nerd", not
each other.