we have quit our day jobs; please send food

jesse andrews dot com

2008-08-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

this blog is moving. specifically to jesseandrews.com. specifically to the blog part of jesseandrews.com. and there it shall stay. i'm not sure i want to keep importing it to my notes in facebook. we will see. in the meantime, jesseandrews.com may be worth some or all of your time.

love,
jesse

old men on craigslist

2008-08-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

a new short story, by me, on puppy rabbit, my short fiction and cod pornography blog. yes, cod pornography. pornography featuring cod.

the story is very moving. if it doesn't make you tear up a little, you are a robot.

destination wedding

2008-08-04T13:09:00.001-07:00

was just in colorado for my first-ever destination wedding. someone's family has a massive thing of land in the mountains. we stumbled out of some vans, sat in chairs in front of the altar, itself in front of an obscenely beautiful mountain backdrop. waited. some rain began lightly falling. attendance exceeded 160. on each seat was a poncho from wal-mart. everyone put theirs on. the rain stopped. i decided that ponchos were demeaning to the human spirit and took mine off. here is what happened next.

audience of wedding: [falls into that sudden anticipatory quiet where dozens of independent conversations reach a sort of terminus, and all that is left are the sounds of breathing bodies, trees, the wind]
me, with brio: I'M going COMMANDO.
audience of wedding:
me, hastily: i mean with the, you know, the whole poncho, um, scenario
a friend: jesse everyone heard that.
me: poncho! poncho. NOT underw
man clutching seven-year-old daughter, several rows behind us, glaring: EVERYONE.

sadly, for me, on the list of Loudly Saying Idiotic Things At Joel's Wedding, this episode does not quite crack the top ten. none of the other episodes are going to be reprinted here.

weddings are awesome.

ben mezrich

2008-07-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

4:37 PM me: here's the thing
4:38 PM ben mezrich is a confabulist
so why can't the story about him also be confabulated?
i can write this in literally two hours
Greg: wow
you're blowing my mind
4:40 PM me: yeah.
Greg: vampire
me: and that's not all that's getting blown here
Greg: he is a vampire.
now
me: ben mezrich performed oral sex on the indonesians in his non-fiction sweatshop
and yes, he is a vampire
...
4:43 PM Greg: remember those unsolved anthrax attacks in late 2001?
4:44 PM i just figured out who did that shit
me: no way!
fuckin mezrich!
Greg: BEN MEZRICH
me: what a dork!
Greg: he's a clown
me: just a huge creep, this guy
4:45 PM Greg: if i lead by calling him "Ben 'The 20th Hijacker' Mezrich"
do you think that's going too far?
or not far enough?
me: do we already know about 19?
i think not far enough
4:46 PM Greg: he also....get this...
me: imply that he has a stigmata
Greg: he SHOT BARACK OBAMA
me: this guy is a jerk.
4:47 PM Greg: he also cured aids, but he was so stupid he didn't write down the cure and forgot it!
me: FOR THE LOVE, BEN MEZRICH
ben mezrich took my older sister out on a very nice date and then didn't call her, ever again
4:48 PM then they saw each other in whole foods and he pretended like the whole thing never happened
Greg: wow
do you know he exposed himself to an old lady?
he showed her his single testicle
and, get this
the old lady was geraldine ferraro!
4:49 PM me: BEN MEZRICH?!!!
Greg: and she totally dug it
none other
me: oh!
oh.
ben mezrich adopted a tarantula as a child
like, the tarantula is legally his child
4:50 PM and it goes to class with other children and just scares the bejeezus out of them
ben mezrich shares about 80% of his dna with tarantulas\
Greg: he also has two tarantulas which are BASTARDS
4:51 PM if you bible code ben mezrich's DNA, it contains instructions for making a molotov cocktail
and then if you read it backwards, it says you should use it to kill John Updike
me: NO
Greg: what a tool!

4:54 PM Greg: B Mezrich has about eight Twitter sock puppets
4:55 PM me: the only thing ben mezrich writes on twitter are angsty song lyrics
usually radiohead
or coldplay
they're not even entertainingly obscure
Greg: he uses them to get email addresses for his porn spam empire
me: what a disgusting pervert.
4:56 PM ben mezrich likes to go to this thai place near where i work
where they don't speak very good english
and he always asks for fried rice without peas, and they usually screw up his order
because, not great english
plus, who cares, they're peas
anyway, he just goes ballistic
4:57 PM Greg: ben fucking mezrich
me: completely unnecessary, am i right
Greg: here's the thing
he doesn't even like thai food
he just does that to do it
4:58 PM me: i know. i know.
Greg: he's such a weirdo
me: he's not gay, but he is dog-gay
that's gay for dogs.
4:59 PM i mean... christ.
Greg: what the fuck is he doing?
5:00 PM me: he had all this potential, coming out of high school
5:01 PM we really thought he was going to do great things

updates

2008-07-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

* i am on twitter now

* somehow i failed to write about this, but a week ago our house hosted 32 israelis from camp ramah and they were very pleasant and left us many, many bags of candy in gratitude

* i am moving to the south bronx in about three weeks

* specifically to a region that at least one google maps user has identified as relatively lacking in nutritious foods

* not to be weird, but after seeing batman the dark knight, i have become gay for heath ledger

* periodically i link to this blog because it is awesome and that is what i am doing again right now

extreme makeover, last five chapters of unpublished novel edition

2008-07-25T13:20:00.001-07:00

for anyone who is interested: i just finished the third rewrite of my second manuscript, entitled godspeed, and if you want to read it, regardless of whether you've read previous drafts, i will send it to you with what giambattista vigo once termed "the quickness."

blurb: godspeed is an alternately disturbing and hilarious romp through the past of a hyper-educated narrator with memory problems. it martials incest, drug addiction, tourism, and a manhattan apartment filled with human waste as stand-ins for self-love and -loathing. many readers have found it excellent. it is about 65,000 words, and three of them are "shrieking."

that is all.

cajon

2008-07-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

scenes from a bachelor party

2008-07-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

las vegas airport
me: how fired up are we.
bud and josh, chorusing: huzzah!
me: how fired up are we for
enormous television: carrot top... at the luxor... the greatest comedy show in the history of prop-tertainment
me:
josh:
bud: wait--aren't we staying at th
enormous television: yes... you ARE staying at the luxor
enormous television: ha ha ha ha ha ha
enormous television: here is some footage of carrot top holding a toaster and running around like a jackass

blackjack table
dealer: YOU BET NOW
damon: can i just fake-bet on this one?
dealer: YOU BET NOW
damon: i just sort of want to see how this one works out, before i start, uh
dealer: YOU BET NOW MUST
damon: okay, let's
dealer: TWENTY-TWO: BUST
dealer: YOU GOING TO TIP OR WHAT

outdoor pool
jack: my god, but this is pleasant.
keith: superb.
me: elysian!
large-breasted woman: hey! are you guys enjoying your gay little man-party over here? ha.
jack:
josh: we were until you showed up.
keith, sotto voce, furiously: WHY would you say that.
keith: no what, uh, ha ha, where were you, um...
keith: hi.

las vegas airport
enormous television: a cavalcade of humor-words... from the greatest funny-mind... the world have ever known...
bud: i'm sorry, i think it's "has"
enormous television: no, i'm sorry. I'M SORRY I DIDN'T GO TO HARVARD LIKE YOU.
bud:
josh: how did it
enormous television: jerk.

ESPNzone
waiter: you guys are gonna effing love me
waiter: okay so i couldnt get the brewers game on the television but check it out right i know you guys probably want to see vegas probably want to maybe see some ladies and the main thing is you gotta know someone who can give you the hookup
danny: um... this is ESPNzone.
waiter: i know right its great
waiter: so my dad right he drives a limo he can take you all to a strip club like scores or seamless or nipple treasure and youre not gonna believe this but he can get you in absolutely free plus maybe some drinks
jack: you can't get the brewers game on the television? the brewers game.
danny: it's like the only game on right now.
me: does anyone else's burger taste like [rooster/penis]?
waiter:
me: mine, it tastes like [rooster/penis].

outdoor pool
a different large-breasted woman: so your friend tells me he went to harvard.
me: no, no--keith went to haverford.
adlbw:
me: sometimes he pronounces it wr
man who is a giant steroid molecule, appearing suddenly: IS THIS FUCKER BOTHERING YOU
me: JESUS CHRIST
mwiagsm: NAW I'M JUST FUCKING WITH YOU, [slur denoting homosexual]
adlbw, suddenly tearful: brad, you leave him alone
mwiagsm: YOU STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, [vagina]
adlbw: BRAD DON'T BE CALLIN ME THAT
me: WHY AM I SUDDENLY IN A SCENE FROM "SLINGBLADE"

video poker machines
me: jack! jack!
danny: dude you gotta come game the system with us
me: check it: you can play one of these for like two hours and maybe lose a single dollar
danny: meanwhile, the beverage lady keeps coming by, and it's like: free drinks
me: they are strong like the MIGHTY LION
danny: i've already had a bloody mary, a white russian, jack and coke, a miller lite, some chardonnay, g and t, and a few more thingies
me: we're gonna take a break pretty soon for some breakfast

ESPNzone
jack: um, this is awkward;
bud: but we do feel like you should know.
me: your septum is literally leaking out of your nose.
danny: it kind of got on my fries.
josh: otherwise we wouldn't have said anything.
waiter: ha ha thats great guys seriously i love milwaukee or whatever
waiter: now are you gonna call my dad or what see some ladies check this i can even get you free drinks at one of the clubs its called the hole truth
waiter: the sunny vulva is another option i feel you should know about

video poker machines
danny: hey!!. THIS machine, ,. it's just teh best
me: it's so AWESOEM that we4 just spned oNE DOLAR, get liek 8ghty DRNIX out of it
danny: SO CHEAP
me: ,,,
danny: SO COST-EFFECTIVE
me: .;
me: im' just gonna PUT in $1100 and see waht hapens

overlooking the monongahela

2008-07-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

[a deck on mount washington, facing downtown]
matt, jabbily: no, let me tell—let me tell you something. don't go to new york. new york, um... new york smells like a butt.
me: i shouldn't even go anywhere.
brett: BURRRPPPP
me: right now i work at this place with literally a billion attractive women. it's completely insane.
a girl: please don't misuse "literally"
second girl: or objectify women
brett: who wants ANOTHER DRINK!
brett, suddenly aware of nearby child: of juice.
me, overcome: IT'S SO GOOD TO BE HOME.

fireworks, distantly: fwoosh. fwoom. krkrkrkrkrkrkrssh.
matt: so are you going to "kyle"'s wedding or whatever
me: "kyle" is NOT getting married.
matt: yeah!
brett, returning: the beer tastes better when you put gin in it
me: "kyle"! that's awesome! who the fuck would get married to "kyle"?
nearby child:
me: i mean, who the... sex.
me: can we please put this child somewhere else.
matt: he's had this girlfriend for like three years.
brett: did you not meet her? i thought we all met her.
me: i've spoken to "kyle" like twice since we graduated.
me, marvelling: which is so bizarre. we used to spend all this time together. christ. you remember that website.
brett: jesus, the beaver cult.
a girl: beaver cult dot com.
me: it was dot org.
second girl: my mom wouldn't let me go to that site.
matt, despondently: it wasn't even about vaginas. it was about that stupid beaver cartoon.
second girl:

me: man, i can't wait to get back in touch with "kyle."
brett: we should call him!
matt: so, i was thinking—you should come to pittsburgh, and we can form a band, but it would also be sort of a philosophical thingy. and uh... we would also fight crime
me, stealing phone, loudly: "kyle"! i'm gonna KILL you!! RRRAAAAAARG
"kyle": jesse? is that—this is jesse?
me: "kyle"! i'm still waiting for my invitation! to your wedding! i'm gonna stab you with my face. stab you with LOVE
"kyle," weirdly defensive and blustery: look, man. if you had made even—any kind of effort at all to stay in touch, you know, like just reached out even once,
me: uh.
"kyle": no, you're not invited. maybe if you had showed me that our friendship meant anything to you, then that would be different, but no. you're not invited.
me: all right.
"kyle": look, you—you can't just expect to drop back in, do you understand?, and get invited to someone's wedding, after running away, basically
me: yeah, no, yeah, i
"kyle": because it really just show
me: that's fine, i think—
"kyle": and you can't expect
me: well i think maybe we could talk about this when i'm not drunk.
"kyle": yeah, all right. because look—well, yeah.
me: okay.
"kyle": yeah. i mean, right?
me: yes.
"kyle": all right.
me: yeah.
"kyle": well happy fourth of july.
me: yeah.
matt:
brett:
me: jesus.
matt: i mean, he has a valid—
me: yes.

abe threatened to punch me

2008-07-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

[gchat]
Abe: too much ice cream
i'm moving slothfully
why can't i do things in moderation?
me: i can do moderation, but only in excess
Abe: hahaha totally blog that
me: i may
Abe: blog it now
stretch that pun out
me: i'm a little afraid of you when you get like this
Sent at 3:18 PM on Wednesday

excerpt

2008-07-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

STEVE jumps out of his car, and as he walks in, he notices a QUARTET of HOMELESS MEN cheerfully playing rhythm instruments in time to the music: tambourine, cowbell, egg shaker, makeshift drum set consisting of jugs. STEVE pauses, and then dances. STEVE does the RUNNING MAN. He does a TWO-STEP, pointing at PASSERSBY. They, in turn, are stopping to watch and getting into it a little bit. He does an IRISH STEP-DANCE. He does the WORM. STEVE and a CIRCLE OF STRANGERS are doing the HORA. The HOMELESS MEN are LOVING IT.

INT – THE ZONING DEPARTMENT. A sign tells us that we are in the CITY OF PITTSBURGH DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING – LAND USE & ZONING. STEVE strides in. HIS BOSS is bent over a copier, looking a little peevish. Then he looks up, sees STEVE, and his face lights up.

        FIRAS
    Ste-e-e-e-eve!

        STEVE
    FIRAS.

        FIRAS
    I saw you out there. Just now. Looked great. Nice moves, good look. Steve, why don’t you come into my office.

        STEVE
    Sure thing.

        FIRAS
    Good HAIR. I would kill for your hair, you know that? I would torture a man to death for hair like that.

STEVE nods sagely. FIRAS stares him in the eye. STEVE freezes. Then both of them burst out laughing. FIRAS claps STEVE a little too hard on the back and knocks him off balance.

INT – FIRAS’S OFFICE. Not all that big, but nicely furnished. A typical city department office. FIRAS is facing away from STEVE, toward the window. He turns, dramatically.

        FIRAS
    Two things. I want you to take over the surveying project on the South Side –

STEVE closes his eyes and balls his hands for another fist pump – smaller than before, but somehow more meaningful.

        FIRAS
    I know. I know. You were the guy for that project from Day One. I don’t know what I was thinking. I want you out there this morning. I want you to survey your little tush off. And second thing? It’s that time of year. Time for a raise. Oh yes. Time for me to put MY money where YOUR mouth is.

STEVE is not totally sure what this means.

        FIRAS
        leaning forward, quietly
    Thirty-two point eight nine... six... EIGHT percent. YOU do the math.

        STEVE
    NO.

FIRAS smiles, avuncular, obviously very proud of his employee.

        STEVE
        quavering
    Boss, I will NOT LET YOU DOWN.

        FIRAS
    GET OUT THERE AND KNOCK THEM ON THEIR ASS.

EXT – THE SOUTH SIDE. STEVE and another URBAN PLANNER named GEORDIE are examining a home. GEORDIE is holding up a MAP, which STEVE is assiduously marking up. GEORDIE lowers the map to reveal an OLD MAN sitting in a plastic chair in the front lawn, picking his feet.

        OLD MAN
    Say, what the hell you boys doin’.

        STEVE
    We’re with City Zoning.

        GEORDIE
    The Zoning Department.

        OLD MAN
        matter-of-fact, slightly defiant
    Is that right? Well this here’s the Pickin’ Your Feet Zone.

GEORDIE is non-plussed.

        STEVE
        awestruck
    This guy is awesome.

        OLD MAN
    Yee. I see you.

STEVE’S PHONE rings.

        STEVE
        softening – he is in love
    Leslie. Yeah, you’re – downtown around 6pm? Let me tell you this – we are going out to eat tonight. I am gonna take you to Fat Ricky’s Steakhouse. Because Big Daddy Steve is winning a little more bread, starting TODAY – it’s like a bread carnival, and then I show up, and they got those milk jugs stacked up, and then they give me a softball, and then – awright yeah! Go catch your flight then, 6pm at my office – I missed you, sweetie, I love you, I double-nuv you, I nibble on the ear, nibble on the nose, nuzzle in the face, squizzle on the –

LESLIE has hung up. GEORDIE stares at STEVE, blinking.

        STEVE
    I love that woman.

        OLD MAN
        with quiet menace
    Are you boys gonna get to feet-pickin’ or am I gonna have to come over there.

an email i sent to my housemates regarding cleaning

2008-06-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

dear housemates--

i have some good news and some bad news. the good news: i had some delicious indian food today and it nourished me. the bad news: is manifold.

1. our house is filled with insects. this is not new, nor is it completely reversible; however, it would be nice to reduce their access to our resources. let us all make an attempt to seal food in bags or containers and eliminate waste immediately. this especially applies to cans that have contained beverages. rinse them out and put them in the recycling thing, lest i sneak into your room at night and kill you with my forehead.
2. the level of dishwashing in this house could be higher. by this, i mean that objects in the drying rack are often oily and yellowed (cf. today, several items of tupperware) or have some kind of mysterious dried membrane on them (cf. today, the green cutting board). it is deflating to have to re-wash these. sometimes i have an awesome boner going and then i find something truly appalling in the drying rack, and poof! no more boner. the less often i have boners, the more often i enter the bathroom while you are showering and shriek at you in german while bleeding.
3. i am fairly certain that no members of the house (present company included) fulfilled their allotted hour of cleaning last weekend. let us avenge this blot on the record of our tenure at 17 bartlett by cleaning the house thoroughly tomorrow. the backyard is chaotic; however, our bathrooms are horrific. if we have to choose between cleaning them, let's take care of the bathrooms. i did the kitchen this evening, including the floors, and will embark on some major cleaning project tomorrow as well, perhaps the floors of the rest of the house. i may also do a bathroom, but just thinking about that is making the very core of my being resonate with pain and fear. I AM BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

in conclusion: insects, dishes, bathrooms.

with enduring love,
jesseth

ardent fascist

2008-06-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

me: so to review, we started here.
friend with clothing line: ha ha! the dumpy one.
me: she's not dumpy. she's not dumpy, she has a normal-looking— you know what? i promised myself i wasn't going to get into, uh, this whole
fwcl, unconvinced: i guess it's cute that you're all fired up about this.
me: yes. sure. moving on.
micah, from a distance: YO WE WERE GONNA PLAY BASKETBALL
me: GIVE ME LIKE FOUR MINUTES.
fwcl: i love this one! HI-YAH. i love it.
me:
fwcl: she looks like a samurai woman.
me: she has a bun, and is short.
fwcl: i effing love her. i mean, we can't use this, obviously.
me: i thought we could get into some culturally different, uh, territory
fwcl: that's really just going to confuse people.
me: yes. so here's clotilda—and already we're getting away from the sort of, positive-body-image thing,
fwcl: the coconut bra, yeah.
me: yeah. it's not a coconut bra.
fwcl: you can be honest: have you ever seen a bra?
me:
fwcl: i'm KIDDING.
me: i just don't want some plus-sized girl to look at this, and feel really bad about herself.
fwcl: yes. well.
me: or go on a psychotic murder spree, and kill all the hot chicks. i would feel terrible if that happened.
fwcl: girl #3 has stubby legs.
me: her boobs are awesome.
fwcl: they're probably too big. they're probably fake.
me: no! NO.
fwcl:
me: in nature, you can achieve boobs of this size.
micah: YO ROB WANTS TO KNOW WHY YOU WROTE ALL OVER HIS POSTCARD ON THE FRIDG
me: ROB NEEDS TO RELEARN HIS GODDAMNED APOSTROPHE USAGE.
fwcl: what was next?
me: number four.
fwcl: this girl is a SLUT.
me: this girl is basically a robot prostitute from the future.
fwcl: she needs to CHILL OUT.
me: long legs, huge boobs. somehow the dress is clingy as all hell.
fwcl: too clingy. too short! the dress isn't even that short.
me: it is when your body is shaped like that.
fwcl: i almost feel sorry for this girl.
me: i'm going to be honest here: drawing her made me feel gross. i felt like my hairline was receding.
fwcl: your hair looks fine.
me: i just got it cut at this new place.
micah: ARE WE PLAYING BALL OR WHAT
me: SOON
me: YOU GUYS CAN START WITHOUT ME
micah: NO, YOU NEED THE MOST TIME TO PRACTICE YOUR SHOT
micah: YOU CAN'T EVEN MAKE A LAYUP
fwcl: you can't?
me: here's number five!
fwcl: layups are easy.
me: shutting up is easy! for you.
fwcl: this girl has got it going on.
me: she's basically number three with better shoes.
fwcl, reverently: YES.

face melt

2008-06-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

teen plant has, at this point, a long and proud history of striding into sparsely attended open-mic events at bars, getting on stage, doing its loud-energetic-rock-band thing, and being met with puzzlement. the open-mic is an ecosystem of mild-mannered herbivorous species:

two guys, two guitars. only one of these guys sing, and both of them are playing exactly the same guitar part. the non-singer tends to be scruffier and aloof-looking, perhaps because he has just realized that, in an ensemble of two people, he is 100% redundant. the guitars are acoustic. the lyrics are completely unintelligible, because the singer is affecting a style that genuinely makes him sound retarded. sometimes this "band" is named after a star wars character.

the hot girl. mediocre hyper-modulated voice, guitar technique ranging between "whatever" and "utterly horrific." the hot girl isn't even that hot, and her voice—generally buried beneath a lot of breathy weirdness, or an eldritch muppet-keening in the tradition of shakira—is definitely an entry in the minus column. this will not prevent the majority of dudes in attendance from congratulating her after her set. the lyrics are pronoun-heavy and mostly in the past tense, and they depict a mind that is the abyss. "when i saw ... you standing with he-e-e-er ... i wanted you to know ... that we! were not! the same! as us."

two guys, one guitar. wait! hang on! what time is it? oh, snap—it's UNIMAGINATIVE TREATMENT OF COVERS O'CLOCK. the guitar guy is, functionally speaking, a karaoke machine. sometimes the singer will step out into the audience and serenade some particularly toothsome girl—in berlin matt and i got to know this irish guy who always did that—and when that happens, literally every other guy in the room is fantasizing about punching the singer in the face. meanwhile, guitar guy sits on the stage, grimly staring at his hands and strumming four chords in an infinite, degrading sequence.

one day, perhaps tonight, he will break.

"i... c-can't... live," he will stammer to the singer, a gun in his shaking hands. "with or w-without you."

one man, drunk, who is really into pearl jam. OHH I!!! HEYYY-UH! I'M STILL ALAHHHH-VE!!! YEEAA-EEEE-AAHHH I-I-I-I! YAYY-AWW!!!?! I'M STILL ALAHHH-IVE!!!! OOHH hang on, what's—it's like E minor, uh—FUCKIT SOMEBODY TELL ME THE CHORDS FOR THIS

i could go on and on, but mainly my point is that we like to get on stage and melt some face, and this is rarely done at open-mics. so when we showed up to one (actually advertised as an "open jam") on the north shore, and an incredibly loud rock band was in the middle of a twenty-minute all-guitar-solo song, we got pretty fired up. then, two bands later, we melted every face in the entire bar. it was completely awesome. the north shore audience may be our ideal demographic. people were flipping out. an indie filmmaker from hollywood wants to use our music in a thing. geoff had sex with like thirty women and now there is a bounty on his head. expletive yes!

this was at the "pickled onion," in beverly. they're having us back sometime soon to headline our show. it's gonna be sick. we're getting the pearl jam guy to open for us.

that's all i got.

DEATH DEATH DEATH

2008-06-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

my god, i am in an ugly mood today. my god. everything fills me with rage. you are thinking: "surely he's not going to blame this on quitting smoking, seeing as that happened a year and a half AGO THERE IS A CHAIR BEING THROWN AT MY HEAD." eat it!!!! THE PAIN IS YUMMY TO YOU. EAT THE CHAIR WITH YOUR FACE. the other night i lost three games of ping pong, then damaged my wrist by wildly pummeling the couch. i don't want to say "punching," because that implies at least the semblance of technique. there was no technique here. i wasn't unlocking my elbows, i can tell you that. i felt like that would complicate things and maybe make me fall down. i was also doing more snarling than the scenario may have justified.

honestly, i do think this can be attributed to the combination of smoking cessation (less recent) and being single (more recent). you can see how this would help to realize a substantial potential for berserk mood swings. on the singles front, you can also see how this would be self-sustaining.

me, at gallery: art! love it or leave it, am i right?
girl: oh ha ha ha ha! i'm jennifer.
me: i'm jesse.
girl: it's a pleasure to meet you, uh... justin?
me: it's FUCKING jesse, YOU PEAR-SHAPED ASS-WOMAN.

it's a struggle. the above is actually something of a misrepresentation,* in that i haven't really re-opened the old dollar shop on singles boulevard, as it were. that would be an unextenuated disaster. i have forgotten even the most basic tactics of flirting.

girl: so tell me about yourself.
me: uh, let's see. i just got contact lenses... um, so yeah. they're pretty good. i like them. my right eyeball itches but whatever. recently i've made linguine with squid four different times. tomatoes, et cetera. i went to the dentist last week, and that was pretty good. no cavities. it was this whole islamic, um... well. you probably don't care about that!
girl:
me: are you familiar with the theories of michel de certeau?
girl: you should buy me a drink.
me: but they're so fucking expensive.

*as is literally everything that has been written in this blog about my life

foreigners in america

2008-05-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

the late 1990s were a little window of contentment, maybe even ennui. terrorism: whatever. music wasn't great, but it was easy to ridicule. i personally was nearing the end of a decades-spanning Awkward Phase. it was also, i think, the last time i visited a dentist until yesterday.

i cannot tell you how proud of myself i was in the days leading up to this appointment. scene: one of a number of elevators. i am inching over to someone i do not know. now i am whispering into their ear: "i made a dental appointment." terrified, they stare rigidly at the vague distorted reflection of us in the elevator door. "all by myself," i add. "and it wasn't even because my teeth started throbbing whenever i put food on them."

no, i was just idly sitting around when the epiphany struck me: probably time to visit a dentist. so i did. i found one on the internet. the dentist had a name like dr. shawaz al-muhammat and shared a waiting room with a korean acupuncture clinic. i rang the bell and knocked on the door. nothing happened. the korean acupuncturist appeared in his doorway and eyed me with serene equanimity. i eyed him back. we were silent. with his eyes, the acupuncturist sent me a message: i wish to puncture you many thousands of times. with mine, i responded: please do not do that. he persisted: if you are wise you will consent to the holistic puncturement of your skin and musculature. i casually brought out the new yorker and started to read it. his gaze remained fixed on my head. i made a little humming noise from stress. the tides drew nearer. the rotation of the earth slowed imperceptibly.

eventually our little impasse was broken up by the receptionist, who was wearing a headscarf. she beckoned me into what i can say without hesitation is the most islamic dentist's office i will ever see in my life. this assessment is derived mainly from the superabundance of quotes from the qur'an affixed via poster or printout to every available surface. also, photographs of mosques and minarets. i sat in the dentistry chair and contemplated the 99 names of allah, conveniently displayed in front of me in an arrangement resembling the periodic table. here are some of the names of allah:

5. The Flawless and the Giver of Peace
13. The Shaper of Unique Beauty
30. The Subtle

these are not names of allah:

The Gouger of Your Sensitive Gums
The Unable to Contact Your Insurer

but allah is not a dentist.

gums throbbing, i went to whole foods for some squid.

genial whole foods squid counterperson: ah! you like eh-squid?
me: big-time.
gwfsc, happily, to himself: you like the squid! you like eh-squid.
gwfsc: you like eh-squid, and so, you like octopus?
me: well
gwfsc, hastily: eh, big. big octopus, no small.
me, suddenly uneasy: ummmmmmmm.
gwfsc: tonight, i make octopus. you want to know how i make octopus?
me: by all means!
gwfsc: i take a pan, and then i take a big eh-smell, like mmmmmmmmm.
gwfsc: [inaudible]
gwfsc: real quick, you have the ink, and then you must [inaudible]
gwfsc: each one, real careful, like ping! ping! you take some [spanish word or words], you must spread around, and then—muy importante—it is time to [inaudible]
me: uh... yum!
gwfsc: okay? you try?
me: it sounds sort of complicated.
gwfsc, suddenly dismissive: PFAH.

shut up shut up shut up shut up

2008-05-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

required reading for this post, curated by silvia:

emily gould, editor of gawker, quits
emily gould reflects on the highs and lows of professional blogging
new york magazine explores gawker, a seemingly endless fountain of bile

like many bright creative young people, i am planning to move to new york, and in that statement, the problem is encapsulated. new york is already teeming with bright creative young people. we all have manuscripts, and we are all really, really hoping you will read them. whoever you are. you can be the grandma of a kid who went to school with the kid of the veterinarian who neutered jonathan safran foer's west highland terrier. read our thing. read it. now make someone else read it. yes!

we are all applying for the same few jobs, and we are all doing what we can to direct more traffic to our blogs. i cannot emphasize sufficiently how many of us there are. we are all in various stages of accepting that to be successful, we will have to self-promote, a lot, an undertaking that we find distasteful, because it genuinely is. what the fuck are we doing wrong, that we have to be prostitutes all the time? we were told all our lives that we were incredible and talented. FUCKBUCKET.

and because we have been told all our lives that we are incredible and talented, and to wildly varying degrees are, we have giant and ridiculous ambitions. sometimes they take the form of phrases that will go on the front of our manuscript when it is a book. "Sublime... near-miraculous... this book brought me genuine sexual fulfillment." "Quite possibly the definitive use of words."

there are way too many of us, and there is not enough success to go around. this is the raison d'etre of (among other things) gawker, an organ of throbbing unremitting hate, which i used to think that i liked, because everyone liked it—it had its own angry and instantly recognizable lexicon, and it was easy to use, and it's always fun to learn new ways of speaking. gawker's dominant (maybe only?) mode is jealousy. read enough of it and you will hate yourself, and everything. for me, "enough of it" is about 15min worth. why the fuck are we subjecting ourselves to it? it's not even especially clever. anyone can write like gawker if they want, and many of us actually strive to do so. that needs to fucking stop. if we're genuinely talented and incredible, we can do better.

currently more and more is being written about the "creative underclass" (nymag's words, not mine), and much of it is being written by the creative underclass (cf. "all the sad young literary men," keith gessen). it feels like an already self-referential generation of writers is reaching its baroque period. hopefully this presages its own death, and the beginning of something else. i don't want to be part of a movement that spends its creative energy focusing on the means of its own self-mythologization. "i had a blog and a bunch of people read it and then i realized i was 'oversharing' but TOO LATE I'M A CELEBRITY AIEEEEEEEEEEE." trite. trite parade on trite street. international festival of hackneyed. we have learned that the squalid spiritual journey of the celebrity is a viable narrative even for bloggers. that is all.

if the problem is that we want to be celebrities—that that's where our ambitions are directing us—then we need to modify our amibitions. frankly, we need to grow up. a celebrity is a thing no thinking grown-up person wants to be. gawker must die. surely we are agreed on that.

in conclusion, boobs.

child actors

2008-05-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

strongtakes strongtakes strongtakes

production has begun on five thirty-second ad spots for rhythm rhyme results, the nation's leading educational hip-hop company. here is what the credits will look like:

producer, cowriter: robbie
director, cinematographer, cowriter: jesse
gaffers: tattoo-intensive dan, tessa, katherine
starring: ten to twelve child actors; ben jackson's mom
nervously onlooking: parents of aforementioned
film has been edited on pirated software provided by: "broke p"

this past saturday we worked with as many as four child actors at a time, and it was much easier than i was fearing. they were all total pros and took direction unresistingly and competently, except for one incredibly cute and enthusiastic kid we will refer to as "marcus," because that was what the casting company told us his name was, even though it was actually william.

me: marcus! what's up.
mother: are you talking to william?
me: i'm talking to my man marcus over here. give me a "m"!! for marcus.
mother: his name is william.
robbie: [inaudible]
me: FUU
mother:
me: UUU
mother:
me: UUUNN. this is gonna be "fun"!
marcus:
me: definitely not "fuck"!

the spot we were filming has no dialogue.

me: so, you three are sitting on this stoop, and chris walks past, and you just kind of nod at him. that's all!
two child actors: [nodding sagely]
marcus: okay but okay but okay but, okay but, maybe i should say, "hey! i think i KNOW THIS KID FROM SOMEWHERE!!"
me: well. let's try without any dialogue, and then we'll see how that goes.
marcus, mumbling: "hey! this guy looks kinda familiar."
me: yeahhhh. you know what, let's just
marcus: okay but, okay, but how about, "this guy OWES ME SOME MONEY"
me: hmm! this is all very interesting. let me give you something of a theoretical framework for this scene.
robbie, quietly, despairingly: fuck
me: what we have here is essentially a confrontation between two pedagogies—a kind of barren pop-cultural pedagogy, the taxonomy of the illicit, in really this stripped-down almost modal sort of language, and then this really wonderful inversion of those same linguistics, so to speak, obviously
marcus:
me: above all we want to communicate the simultaneous extraordinariness and everyday quality of that kind of inversion, sort of implanting the idea in the viewer's head that a pedagogical hip-hop is not only acceptable but inevitable
other child actors:
me: employing the lexicon of de certeau, we are here dealing with what originally was a tactical movement—rap, a set of tactics arrayed against a larger oppressive paradigm—that in its extreme chauvinistic forms was so successful and became so entrenched that it can be said to have become strategic—the radicals in the hills have occupied the capital city, so to speak—and perhaps the clearest gauge of that kind of transformation is the broad spectrum of tactical systems meant to subvert mainstream hip-hop—this is the appeal of the "Lazy Sunday" meme, for example
tessa: PLEASE, PLEASE SHUT UP NOW

audition piece

2008-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

sorry i haven't written in a while. life has been strange. i broke up with girlfriend and definitely do not intend to blog about that. meanwhile, it looks like frank w. lewis, who does cryptic crosswords for the nation, is retiring. i'm thinking about applying for his job. this would be an audition piece, here. let me know what you think:

yes god yes

2008-05-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

life is good

teen plant myspace

2008-04-25T14:33:00.001-07:00

teen plant is finally getting serious about the band myspace page. it now features six surely-you-will-agree-pretty-awesome songs from our album, and we are on a quest to add many, many friends. here it is! GO HERE RIGHT NOW. you can do it by clicking on these words. CLICK THE WORDS OR I WILL BE AGGRIEVED.

haarlemmer kerk

2008-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

this church was in haarlem, a town west of amsterdam. haarlem is apparently the source of the Most Powerful Easterly-Blowing Wind In The Entire World, and biking from amsterdam to haarlem with one's slightly-less-powerful-thighed-than-one girlfriend is a superb way to put great strain on an already fragile relationship.

12:30pm. "this wind is incredible!" "i know! i can barely hear myself laughing gaily over it! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "WHEEEEEE." "yes, wheeeee."

12:50pm. "babe, is there any chance you could... um." "could what." "could maybe go a bit faster." "no."

1:01pm. "it's actually harder for me to go at this pace, rather than faster, because—" "HUH. PERHAPS YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT."

1:07pm. "take your time then. take... your... time. just moseyin' along. yessir." "WHAT I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE WIND." "just... moseyin'... ohjesuschristgofasterjesus."

1:18pm. "HOW ON EARTH ARE YOU SO SLOW AND WEAK. HOW ON EARTH. HOW."

1:37pm. "you know what? you can just go on ahead. just go. just fucking go." "maybe i—oh, so we're walking. we're walking bikes now." "YOUR IDEAS ARE TERRIBLE. THEY ARE ALWAYS TERRIBLE." "it's good, that we're walking bikes. i was hoping we'd get to do that." "THEY ARE SO CONSISTENTLY TERRIBLE THAT YOU SHOULD WORK FOR FEMA."

1:39pm. crying.

2:04pm. "is that haarlem? i think that's haarlem! we're done." "that is a fucking cow, you fuck." "fuck you." "fuck."

2:05pm. icy silence.

2:31pm. "it occured to me that early, when you were laughing gaily, it should have been gale-ly. because—" "EVERY WORD YOU UTTER IS A THUMBTACK IN MY BUTTOCK."

2:45pm. "what—" "THUMBTACK."

3:22pm. "if—" "BUTTOCK."

drawing of red light district

2008-04-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

this drawing of amsterdam was completed in the red light district, a sort of las vegas for male britons aged 18-49. many nationalities visit the red light district, but the british have laid claim to it with a firmness that warms my heart. never have i biked through the red light district without coming across at least eight british men linking arms, swaying, and bellowing a football anthem at a prostitute sitting in a window, who is trying her darnedest to undulate lasciviously but is mostly just cowering. often they are also smashing glass over each other's heads, and if a bike comes within ten feet of them, they are electromagnetically compelled to lurch suddenly into it, like sweating crewcutted iron filings.

in conclusion, i feel that this drawing is pretty.

st

noordermarkt

2008-04-15T07:41:00.001-07:00

another picture i drew in amsterdam. the lurching tilting aspect of buildings is not really exaggerated in this picture. if you wanted to give my dad a nervous breakdown, all you would have to do is buy him a house in amsterdam, and he would be a gibbering hysterical wreck within hours. how do the gutters work? are the basements pretty much just flooded at all times? even i am getting upset thinking about this, and i live in a house that—we recently discovered—has been without a major portion of its guttering for god knows how long. in her wanderings, girlfriend stumbled across a section of rusty fallen gutter in the backyard. it was next to a raccoon carcass. we do not spend much time in the backyard.

our lives are wars

2008-04-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

corporations are the new nation-states. their battlegrounds are media. the consumer is the territory they hope to colonize. when at work, you are a citizen of a nation-state. when not at work, you are a great big fleshy land-mass of resources, walking around. you know this. everyone knows this.

marketing departments are armies. their weaponry, obviously, is informational. there are competing ethics of war, and so there are competing ethics of marketing. lies are unethical by most standards. the glamorization of self-destructive or antisocial behavior, also. classifying the homogenization of experience as somehow empowering: um, everyone seems to be okay with this.

ad agencies are mercenaries. hessians. blackwater. the premise of the ad agency is vile: "whatever your thing is, we'll sell it." i used to do this bryan adams impression: "whatever it is!!! i will eat it!!! you know i'll eat... that... thing... for break-fast." but i wasn't fucking serious. that sort of relativism is the abyss.

i'm thinking of starting an ad agency that is explicitly conscientious about its practices and its clients. we would do high-quality work at below-market rates for worthy clients (not ethically neutral clients—clients who are genuinely ethically positive). easy premise, no? i think this would work. example (and, um, current client of me): rhythm rhyme results.

marketing:the free market::dark side:the force. subvert the dark side. this has been part one of an 81-part manifesto. thank you for your time.

(please go to strongtakes every day)

(also: i now make absurdly delicious fried rice)

candlepin

2008-04-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

do you enjoy bowling? yes? excellent. how about intense and at times unbearable frustration? you do? awesome! let's go candlepin bowling, and maybe afterwards we could wind down by running around in a lumberyard and seeing who can get the biggest splinter in their forehead.

we went candlepin bowling on sunday. candlepin is a new england-area variant of bowling, and to me it reflects the new englander's dour, cussed weltanschauung. the ball is small and boring, the pins are malnourished, and it is fucking impossible to get a strike. aiming the ball is excruciatingly difficult, and then when you hit a pin, you pretty much only just hit one pin. the glory of normal bowling is that you get to throw this great big honking thing at some other things, and most of them fall down in a wobbly convex satisfying sort of way. there is really nothing else to like about bowling. certainly not the milieu. candlepin is like going to the grossest bar in town and then only drinking V8 when you get there. weak. weak sauce.

strongtakes strongtakes strongtakes

barnaby beckett a.k.a. novel #3 is fun to write, even if girlfriend told me the names of various characters make it sound like kim possible. so i'm having fun with that. i thought this was a good read. rob keeps sending me this link, and i'm worried he's trying to tell me something. he was also pushing this one for a few days, and for good reason: jackie chan is the sickest person ever.

kontakt

2008-04-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

i'm a red-blooded american man, yeah? and when a cheerful, attractive woman seated next to me is urging me to put a thing in my eyeball, by god, i do it. even if i have a girlfriend.

woman: try not blinking.
me: okay! not gonna blink. not gonna... oops.
woman: it's okay! try it again!
me: okay, let's try it again.
woman:
me: hmmm.
woman: that time, it sort of—it sort of flipped arond your
me: it flipped around the thing, yeah
woman: try it again!
me: all right, let's—let's see if we—oops.
woman: take your time.
me: ha ha! sorry.
woman: it's okay!
me: i'm all teary-eyed—okay. okay! let's get this little guy on there, and
woman: and just hold the eye open, and
me: is it—is it still on
woman: no. no, it's not.
me: it's supposed to like just jump on the eyeball. right? i feel like i'm jabbing my eyeball, and nothing's happening.
woman: try it again.
me: here... we... go.
woman:
me: that time i blinked.
woman: yeah, you blinked.
me: okay, i'm just gonna try this.
woman: take your time.
me: here it—oops.
woman:
me: now we're gonna—oops. ha! okay.
woman:
me: here comes the—oh for the love.
woman:
me: this time, we're—DAMMIT.
woman: it's okay, you don't
me: no, i can get this. we're gonna do it like THIS—ow fucking DAMMIT.
woman: why don't you try
me: GET. ON. THE. EYEBALL. YOU. STUPID. FUCK.
woman: it, um, flipped around your finger again
me: GRAAAAAAAGGG
woman:
me: sorry.
woman: it can take some people quite a while to get this right!

this went on for literally an hour. eventually we succeeded. now i have contact lenses. on the one hand, i get to walk around feeling like Captain Awesome for being able to put things in my eyeballs; on the other, i sort of look like i have been crying uncontrollably for three days.

what i want to know is: how much do they pay opticians? is the pay good at all? my job is fine, but if you offered me money to help people poke themselves in the eyeball all day, i mean, my god. it cannot get much more fulfilling than that. i am being about 20% sarcastic with this.

strongtakes today is about a breast massage robot.

do not populate my mouth and thoughts with your maudlin awfulness

2008-03-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

i had difficulty ordering breakfast this morning.

me: i'll take, um... that.
bagel-dispensing teenager: WHICH BAGEL WOULD YOU LIKE SIR
me: uh... that one.
bagel-dispensing teenager: ARE YOU POINTING AT THE WILD BERRY BAGEL OR THE TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHIP BAGEL
me: itdoesn'tmatter
bagel-dispensing teenager: I'M SORRY COULD YOU SAY THAT AGAIN SIR
me: um... the "wild berry" bagel, then.
bagel-dispensing teenager: WILD BERRY BAGEL.
bagel-dispensing teenager: SIR WOULD YOU LIKE ONE OF OUR ARTISANAL CREAM CHEESE APPLIED TO THE BAGEL
me: fucking... no.

what is wrong with me? i'll tell you what: i have become completely incapable of using corporation-selected names for foods. it causes me ineffable, rankling shame. and finagle a bagel is at the tame end of the spectrum, here. "wild berry bagel" is not especially cute or euphemistic. "triple chocolate chip" is needlessly superlative, but at least it has no made-up words. i can't even walk past an IHOP without shrieking uncontrollably. why in the fuck would anyone degrade themselves by ordering a food item called a "rooty tooty fresh 'n' fruity?" which inane grinning diaperface in marketing was able to convince his coworkers that that was a good idea? JESUS.

it's bad enough to live by someone else's narrative, using someone else's language. it is unacceptable when that language is created in complete opposition to the notion of dignity. if you can unblushingly tell a waitress—a complete stranger—that you intend to eat a thing called a "rooty tooty fresh 'n' fruity," then my hat is off to you. i would sooner eat cat litter. a pint of used cat litter.

(waiters and waitresses make me nervous in general, especially at cheaper places to eat. maybe it is the same for you. "it's honestly no problem, i can go get the food," i want to say. "you seem really busy.")

enough of that. we finished mixing our album yesterday, and we might be distributing it soon. stay tuned. in the meantime, if you fail to pimp strongtakes out to your friends and acquaintances, i will mail you a dead animal. ha ha! not kidding.

THE CONSUMER IS ALWAYS DEAD

frauds, adolescence

2008-03-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

two new short stories on puppy rabbit, the short fiction blog. also on the subject of short fiction: i invite you to add "the gettysburg review" to the list of fiction publications that can suck it.*

as always, don't forget to tell all your friends about strongtakes and link to us on your blog and stuff. also, i started my third novel last night. this one is about a courageous band of misfits and their struggle against the artificial flavor industry. please get excited for that.

*it = one of my testicles

side effects of lipitor may include lying

2008-03-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

someone found strongtakes. not really in the way we intended.

i feel closer to the world.

amsterdamn

2008-03-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

strongtakes today is funny.

amsterdam was superb. i hate telling people that i enjoyed amsterdam.

me: yeah, amsterdam was terrific—it's a really lovely town.
friend or coworker: [smirking]
me: from an urban-layout perspective it was obviously lots of fun to explore, with the canals, and the bike paths, and so forth.
friend or coworker: [smirking]
me: STOP PICTURING ME HAVING SEX WITH PROSTITUTES WHILE ON DRUGS.
friend or coworker: i'm not sure that i can.

i drew some nice pictures and will post them someday. meanwhile, now i'm back. we're entering the studio to finish the album today. please god let us finish it. it's been so very long.

please expect less-lengthy updates at dudefatale for a while. i am writing a bunch of strongtakes right now and editing the rest. YOU: write for strongtakes.com. do not forget that we are offering health insurance.

in conclusion, if the cat does not stop shedding giant bales of its own hair in the night, i am going to ship him to fucking peru, and i am not going to spring for airmail.

in the name of cod

2008-03-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

amsterdam is incredible. i just had a surinamese cod-and-pickle sandwich. now i'm going to take a nap.

i am pretty sure this is what heaven is like.

debaseball

2008-03-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

warning: this post was fueled by a brand of port called "CONQUEROR."

it turns out amsterdam gets a lot of the same channels as the u.s. one of them is animal planet. i know this because my girlfriend is directing our shared viewing experience right now, which in turn is the reason that we are watching lemurs.

girlfriend: HOLY CRAP LOOKIT HOW FURRY

the show is called "Lemur Street," and it is one of a surprising number of shows of its ilk. watching it, accompanied by the enthralled cooing and burbling of my girlfriend, i was reminded of something, but for a long time i could not discern what.

the answer, eventually, became obvious: a snottily humorous blog criticizing ill-written and -reasoned baseball writing.

here are some axioms of sports writing:

there is a lot of it. so much. so goddamned much. if you are interested in sports, and have ever been bored at work, you will know exactly what i am talking about. beat reporters, columnists for national sites, AP recaps, blogs. if you are oblivious to cliches and typos and tautologies and meaningless conjecture and of course the all-devouring nihilism of devoting one's time to reading about the arbitrary exploits of men and a projectile and maybe also a club in distant parts of the world, you can read all day. awwww yeah! BUST OUT THE "CHEE-TOS."
it's all terrible. the infuriating thing about sports is that there is truly nothing interesting to say about it, other than "paul pierce looks like a chipmunk," or "what if instead of a baseball, you were allowed to throw ham?"
no, the joy of sports is in watching it, and not in reading about it. all meaningful verbiage of sports can be summed up by this idea: "some guys are better than other guys at stuff." that's it! but do sportswriters restrict themselves thusly? no, because they are morons. instead you get a veritable infinity of observations like:
"It's always too early to criticize, too early to question, too early to panic. Except, of course, when it's too late."
ah, of course. please excuse me while i reproduce "the last supper" on my scrotum with a pen. a pen containing capsaicin and flames.
sports are actually much better explained by numbers than by words. this is probably an exaggeration, but i don't care. "this year, lebron james has achieved a new level of intensity." yawn. "this year, lebron james AVG PTS 30.9 REB 8.0 ASST 7.4 HOLLINGER PER 24.56." WHAT. ARE YOU SERIOUS. THAT'S LITERALLY FANTASTIC.

enter FIRE JOE MORGAN, whose genius is threefold:
1. easy layout. FIRE JOE MORGAN reprints sportswriters' columns, chat transcripts, and other written detritus in bold, then adds its own thoughts below:

Aside from Santana, Jose Reyes and David Wright,

That's a little like saying "aside from Bird, McHale, and Parish." "Aside from Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, there are like no fucking presidents on Mt. Rushmore."

the roster is aging and lacks depth. Have we seen the best of Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez and Billy Wagner? Probably so, and it hasn't been good enough.

Yeah, most of those guys are old. Beltran is 30 years old right now. Let's not assume he's settled into a routine of CBS crime shows and Malt-O-Meal just yet.

essentially, it is a representation of any thinking person's sportsreading experience. ("blah blah blah! i'm dan shaughnessy! i write hacky, inflammatory, ridiculous things because it actually boosts my readership! i am the apotheosis of cynicism in professional media!! I REGULARLY SMEAR POOP ON MY FACE AND NIPPLES.") i think we can all identify with that.

2. excellent title. specifically, FIRE JOE MORGAN targets for ridicule sportswriters who reject the idea that any non-remedial statistical analysis can provide insight into sports. this is like targeting nazis with cerebral palsy. it is pretty much a home run, every time, and the supply is inexhaustible, but at the end of the day, no one is going to feel good about themselves.

joe morgan is a commentator for ESPN, and not only does he reject complex stats in general, he seems to have difficulty remembering specific information of any kind and writes only in misspelled, hackneyed, and unnecessarily delphic ambiguities. here is a good example of his deficiencies. here is another. in him, FIRE JOE MORGAN has found a brilliant symbol of the vapidity of sports commentary. joe morgan is additionally one of the greatest second basemen ever to play the game, so it's provocative to agitate for his ouster. it'd be like if paul mccartney were to suddenly begin writing a music column for a newspaper, except that it was routinely awful, and someone were to start a blog called "PLEASE SHUT UP, PAUL MCCARTNEY." or if jesus were get an op-ed gig with the new york times and really start mailing it in. "TIME FOR A NEW JOB, JESUS, YOU LOATHSOME GRUNDLE-TASTER."

3. bad sportswriting is a constant. again: the supply of moronic writing of sports is inexhaustible. there will always be absurd and ill-informed pronouncements to ridicule. unfortunately, this is where the lemurs come in. what i mean is this: once you've seen a couple minutes of lemurs bounding to and fro, you've pretty much seen all that "lemur street" has to offer. the same, alas, is true for FJM. the writing is hilarious, but its subject will never change. how could it? as mitch hedberg used to say, "you got a good thing going, man. i used to draw you." he was talking to the idea of the turkey. it should surprise no one that mitch hedberg is dead.

which is to say: lemurs are furry and bug-eyed. half an hour of lemurs will always attract an audience. similarly, sportswriters will always be idiocy-prone. this is both the triumph and the failure of FIRE JOE MORGAN. the more things change, etc.

(nonetheless, i check it every day. those little bastards are so damn ~~furry~~ FUNNY AND A BLOG AND NOT LEMURS.)

p.s.
girlfriend: wait, so how are lemurs like blogging?
me: read the thing. FIRST, HOWEVER, THE PORT-WENCH MUST DO HER DUTY.
girlfriend, undeterred: is it because both have rabies?

city of hamsters

2008-03-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

i want this reporter's beat.

things for me are uncomplicated:
1. i am flying to amsterdam tonight to reunite with girlfriend
    a. the duration of this trip is 11 days
    b. the entire city is having a beer sale
    c. also i believe girlfriend has somehow acquired artisanal german gummi candy
    d. if you are not jealous of me right now, you are a fool
2. if you call yourself a friend of mine you must visit strongtakes every day, preferably multiple times
    a. do you want to write for strongtakes?
    b. no?
    c. hmmm.
    d. what if we offered you a salary and health insurance?
    e. we have a deal with the national health provider of trans-dniester. this is true!
    f. the only drawback is that you would probably have to switch your primary-care physician.
    g. specifically to a man named vassily who lives in tiraspol (which is sort of hard to get to) and does not, technically, speak english or use anaesthetic of any kind.
    h.
    i. please write for strongtakes.
    j.
3. we finished mixing four songs for Teen Plant One yesterday and will hopefully finish the rest on monday meaning FINALLY THE ALBUM WILL BE DONE
    a. so please put some dollars in a sock and lob that my way
    b. also if the sock is clean that is a bonus because i am running low

strongtakes

2008-03-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

fellow aspiring worldbeater robbie and i have launched our first blog: Strong Takes. it is a fun little daily updated news/media commentary site of hilarity and insight. this hyperlinked text, too, brings you to Strong Takes. isn't this fun? ha ha! go visit it now and fwd it to everyone you know or i will defenestrate your grandparents.

if you are looking at this site and saying, "piffle! i could do that," first of all, "piffle" is kind of an anachronism, but second, we're seeking writers for what we ultimately hope to be a paying gig. right now, of course, your work for us would be pro boner. if you know what i mean.

what happens in estonia...

2008-03-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

Although Mrs. Clinton has been in the Senate just four more years than Mr. Obama, she has been on the Armed Services Committee and traveled around the world with Mr. McCain.
Examples of their mutual respect typically include a tale of holding a vodka-drinking contest in Estonia. Such a celebration may have been unlikely to happen with Mr. Obama, who on a trip to Russia in 2005 asked that his shot glass be filled with water.
MSNBC

You have been invited to a conference chat with Raising_McCain and thatshillaryous1026. Do you accept? y
Raising_McCain: BARRACK
Raising_McCain: WHATS UP
thatshillaryous1026: lol
thatshillaryous1026: u just called him "barrack"
thatshillaryous1026: like from teh army
BarackObama: Good evening, Senators.
Raising_McCain: SO YOURE PROBABLY WONDERINIG WHY WE ASKED YOU HERE
BarackObama: John, are you aware that your caps lock is on?
Raising_McCain: WE WANT TO DISCUSS THE UPCOMING APPROPRATIONS BILL
Raising_McCain: YES IM AWARE
thatshillaryous1026: rotfl
thatshillaryous1026: no u didnt
thatshillaryous1026: john ur hamared
BarackObama: Perhaps I should convene with you at another time.
thatshillaryous1026: like dag hamarskjold LOL
Raising_McCain: JESUS HILLRAY
Raising_McCain: HOW ARE YOU SUCH A GODDAM NERD
thatshillaryous1026: barack stay
thatshillaryous1026: do some shots
BarackObama: I'm afraid I don't have any alcohol at my immediate disposal.
Raising_McCain: GET SOME
BarackObama: Nor do I feel that it is professional to work on legislation while drunk.
BarackObama has left the conference chat.
thatshillaryous1026: everytime we use the word "appropriated" we have 2 do a shot
Raising_McCain: THE JOKE IS THAT ITS TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE

-----
STRONGTAKES
COMING SOON
love,
ruthless wainwright

electroma

2008-02-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

remember high school? no? um, let's pretend that you do. imagine you became friends with the cool kid—the sunny, hilarious, mellow kid who got good grades without trying, maybe was a star forward on the soccer team, brought a stereo to wendy's after school once and breakdanced to a remix of "hungry like the wolf." remember that? you love this kid. everyone loves him. maybe he's french.

then one day, he takes you aside and says, "hey, i've been working on this thing, do you want to check it out," and you, excited, say, "sure!," expecting something off-the-wall, effervescing with his irreproducible absurdity and warmth, and he hands you a sheet of notebook paper that says:

desolation

i am loneliness,
child of the waste,

my days are empty

at night i THE VOID consume myself
i am the treacling blood and ichor and the colorless crawling DEATH

also i will never have a girlfriend

etc etc., and you look up at him, expecting that this is a joke, except it is not. no, he seems to be serious. your opinion has changed totally. he is no longer the shining beacon you thought he was. he is just a kid like you, with the same maudlin melodramatic emotional palette. FUCKDAMMIT.

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

this was how we felt after watching ELECTROMA, the recent film by daft punk. matt and i were very, very fired up to see this movie:

me: around the world around the worruld / around the world around the worruld
matt: doot doot / doot / doo doooooo! / na na neeeeew! na na neeew!
me: around the world around the worruld / around the world around the worruld
matt: doot doot / doot / doo doooooo! / na na neeeeew! na na neeew!
me: around the world around the worruld / around the world around the worruld
matt: doot doot / doot / doo doooooo! / na na neeeeew! na na neeew!
me: around the w
heather: OH MY GOD STOP.

and then, it turned out to be a little different.

here's a synopsis of the movie:
robots drive through desert
robots enter a lab and have big fake rubber human faces glued to their helmets
robots are persecuted by other robots
robots remove melting human faces
robots wander through desert
one robot commits suicide by exploding
other robot sets fire to self:

fin. 80 minutes of my life. this is not the daft punk i know and love. this daft punk has undergone a lobotomy. is it really still provocative to make a film about robots wanting to be human? hasn't that ground already been covered by steven spielberg? and haley stupid joel osment? holy baskets of fuck.

some of the shots were beautiful, but mostly it was a very, very slow-moving movie about robots, which is a contradiction in terms that isn't even that exciting. robots should be zipping around! being efficient! perhaps having comically formulaic social encounters at high rates of speed! with insane dance music in the background!

also there should be boobs.

in conclusion: i paid $12 to see that movie, and i want $10 back. i'd ask for all $12, but i don't want to be a jerk.

-*&-*&-*&-*&-&-*&-*&-*&-*&-*-*&-*&*&-*&

unrelated: robbie and i are laying some groundwork these days for a MIGHTY BLOG EMPIRE, including a spinoff of the stuffwhitepeoplelike entry called "About Your Blog." essentially this blog does free-wheeling critiques of other faddish and trendy blogs. mostly i'm just writing about this today to show off my design for it:

i'll have some inestimable fame and wealth, please.

creative versus retarded

2008-02-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

matt has a story he likes to tell about working at the apple store: a homemade music thing he was in aired briefly, in clip form, on martha stewart, and one of his coworkers saw it and took him aside the next day. "i didn't know you were creative," said the coworker, goggle-eyed. "i thought you were just special, you know," making the finger-ear gesture for brain-damaged. "but now i get it! you're creative."

the moral: there's a fine line between "creative" and "retarded."

which brings us to miranda july. i wanted, wanted, wanted to love miranda july. she has staked out some pretty difficult emotional territory, i think. (here we are talking about "no one belongs here more than you," a compilation of short stories [and also, upon inspection, an insult].) however, it is the same territory for every single story, and after pacing around in it for 200 pages, one more or less wants to feed oneself to cougars. i made a checklist:

main character is female? generally
main character is naive and unworldly? yes
main character is sexually damaged? big-time
main character genuinely comes off as autistic? yes, genuinely
dialogue is a cross between: awkward hipster-romance banter
and: conversation had by four-year-olds, and not the precocious ones, either

i really feel guilty about this. part of me feels compelled to send miranda july a card in crayon with errant pieces of pasta glued on. something along the lines of: "you tried!! you tried so very hard." however, part of me is also filled with rage, i think because in part because it all felt fraudulent. there was an inordinate amount of winking and mugging and general ironic-twentysomething humor, magically coming out of the mouths of people who also seem to have difficulty holding down jobs and spend time standing in the middles of rooms for hours trying to hold as still as possible and earnestly, wholeheartedly attempt to learn how to swim in a kitchen and have orgasms when their sisters graphically describe their sexual exploits over the phone. essentially, it's a humor-poignancy hybrid that doesn't work. at all. at least not for me. the joking and cuteness is curdled and spoiled by sentiments like these:

Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else.

whooo! party!!

there's just so much fucking loneliness. here, have a look at this:

synopsis:
young woman attempts to simulate generic romance with photos and tv static
young man gets attention of kids, sets own hand on fire
young woman brings grandfather to shoe store
young woman and young man have garden state-esque conversation about foot pain
young woman and young man walk several blocks together
young man attempts to hang a painting in a bush

there are moments here that should be funny. i know there are. it's just that this fucking anodyne deadpan hipster delivery and faux-poignant indie score are KILLING THEM LIKE FIREFLIES IN A JAR.

A JAR OF PAIN.

ALSO I AM IN THE JAR.

here's more:

christ. you could give me a basement filled with football players, air hockey, and cocaine, and i could film you a more tender, humanizing scene than that. i mean fuck.

i can't articulately explain why this is making me so upset. these excerpts are from "me and you and everyone we know," which won the camera d'or, and there really seems to be nothing good about it at all. maybe i should see the whole movie instead of fragments on youtube, but maybe also i should invest my time in something potentially less unpleasant, like systematically skinning my own feet.

all of this work shares DNA with "stuff white people like." you can't tell me that these videos, this fiction, these characters aren't reeking with the sickly smell of a privileged class's self-hatred. it is a luxury to explore the problems that miranda july is exploring. maybe too much of a luxury. it's fatty and cloying, and it's probably going to make me throw up in a few hours.

tomorrow: the long-awaited harvesting of my girlfriend's cat's fur.

exercise in self-loathing

2008-02-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

i feel invaded.

so first of all, "stuff white people like" has achieved a major internet-popularity point of inflection, defined as "me finding out about it." this happened over the weekend, prior to some aggressive pickup basketball at tufts. (in passing: if you like being humped, elbowed, and then yelled at by in-the-future-obese-but-for-the-time-being-just-unnecessarily-bulky guys, the pickup basketball scene at tufts is excellent.)

me: ...and then on the way home i realized, the problem was that we were grinding intermittently. like, every other five minutes we'd just sort of take a break. and then it was like, back to work! so that sort of killed the vibe. i assume responsibility, obviously.
robbie: right.
me: so that was pretty much my high school prom.
robbie: oh, so there's this hilarious blog i found the other day.
me: oh yeah?
robbie: yeah, it's called "Stuff White People Like."
me: oho!
robbie: yeah!
me, expecting horrible things: like what do they have?
robbie: let's see. "expensive sandwiches," that was one.
me:
robbie: mos def was on there.
me:
robbie: "difficult breakups," because then you can write a lot of whiny
me: um, this is hitting a little close to home.
robbie: i know!

in my formulation, "stuff white people like" has two broad categories:

items that are wonderful but for some reason you should feel guilty about them
in this category we have bicycles, recycling, michel gondry, and study abroad. this is all in the last fifteen entries. i would delve further into the archives, but i have already stapled my own face a bunch of times. for example: what the hell is wrong with recycling? this, apparently:

"Recycling is fantastic! You can still buy all the stuff you like (bottled water, beer, wine, organic iced tea, and cans of all varieties) and then when you’re done you just put it in a DIFFERENT bin than where you would throw your other garbage. And boom! Environment saved! Everyone feels great, it’s so easy!"

so, i'm sort of confused. these points make perfect sense, except that they have been delivered in the tone of a sneering, braying jackass. let's break them down even further:

recycling benefits the environment
few would dispute this.
recycling does not require major lifestyle changes
also not contentious.
YOU SUCK FOR RECYCLING.
oh. i... i see.

a few entries are aimed at white people's enjoyment of travel. needless to say, it is great fun to mock the annoying habits of travelers. nonetheless, it seems unfair to blame americans for wanting to escape an increasingly materialistic and jaundiced society experiencing a form of post-imperial hangover.

on that note, the other category is:
items that caricature white people's propensity for narcissism/solipsism/sanctimony/self-pity/self-regard
this category includes being the only white person around, difficult breakups, standing still at concerts, and knowing what's best for poor people.

i don't want to go on yet another of my tired little anti-capitalist soliloquies (JUST KIDDING I TOTALLY DO), but i'm pretty sure that anyone who believes this blog is about race and not class is mentally retarded. after all, we are not talking about the white people who love football and drive comically large compensatory-for-penis vehicles. instead we are using the formula "white people" = "american upper middle class." it's a lot less edgy, i'll grant you, to say:

"A great way to make the American upper middle class feel good is to tell them about situations where poor people changed how they were doing things because they were given the ‘more American upper middle class’ option."

i would also bet a bag of artisanal german gummi candy that the authors of the blog themselves are aumc, in which case the whole shebang is an exercise in self-loathing so exquisitely self-referential that i am close to having an orgasm just thinking about it. (and even if it's not, it's clearly directed at upper-middle class readers. no one else reads trendy omg-you-have-to-read-this blogs, first of all, and definitely no one outside of the aumc is going to be like, "that's hilarious! because it's so true.")

in other words: "stuff white people like" is probably the whitest blog i have ever read.

so to conclude: kindly nibble my junk.

[update: i knew it.]

lunch meeting

2008-02-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

two new short stories on puppy rabbit. one is very short and about the afterlife, one is still pretty short and about anarchists.

me: so, uh, i tried to print out the spreadsheets but then my tie got trapped in the ink cartridgJESUS CHRIST THIS MEETING HAS LUNCH
junior boss: yes, we decided that for this two-hour meeting we'd have some pizza.
me: OH SNAP.
junior boss: so, the printouts
me: and we don't have to pay for it?
senior boss: no, it's on the company.
junior boss: did you say your... tie? was stuck in the ink cartridge?
me: NOM NOM NOM NOM
other development editor, entering meeting and clutching a decrepit old boot: the printer had this... this boot lodged in it.
senior boss: our understanding was that your religion forbade you to wear a tie at work.
me: oh. yes, that is correct.
other development editor:
me: yes, i—i believe you have my boot.
sales representative, entering: so a CD-ROM ate all of my emails before i had a chance to OH MAN THERE'S SO MUCH LUNCH AT THIS MEETING

tea

2008-02-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

if i were a twentieth-century inventor, i would be harold beverage. why? because i love beverages. hot, cold, sweet, sour, alcoholic, slightly-less-alcoholic, alcoholic-and-caffeinated, actually-a-soup-with-vodka-in-it: the beverage is one of my life's dearest joys. rare is the epoch of my life that i do not associate with compulsively drinking one type of beverage or another, be it vitaminwater (current epoch), toscanini's vietnamese coffee (college), or experimental government wine (berlin).

which brings us to tea. i am currently drinking an earl grey tea—"flavored with natural bergamot," at that, as though it were some kind of selling point. i'm not going to beat around the bush: this tea tastes like dirt. in fact, come to think of it, nearly all tea tastes like a flavor of dirt. the world of dirt is rich and varied, yes, but in the matter of taste, it is congruent with that of tea. green tea? tastes like wet grassy dirt. black tea? somehow industrial-flavored dirt. this particular earl grey? the kind of dirt you would get after several dedicated months of composting radishes, and perhaps also a deceased sciurid.

i'm not saying this is a bad thing. far from it. tea is a warm, replenishing beverage. it just strikes me as odd that so many cultures love it, because it consistently tastes bizarre. frequently these are cultures that have little else in common.

china
drinks tea? yes
history of human rights violations? yes
predominant emotion: inscrutable

england
drinks tea? yes
history of human rights violations? yes although not recently
predominant emotion: diffident

uruguay
drinks tea? yes
history of human rights violations? no
predominant emotion: incredulous that you are paying attention to uruguay

in uruguay, when i was there, everyone i met was cheerfully slurping on local mate pretty much the entire time. mate is nothing more than wet leaves in a gourd with a straw sticking out, and if you lose your gourd, you are forbidden ever to drink mate again, on pain of banishment. this, at least, was what my family and i were told by juan pedro, a genial, elderly gentleman who spent all of his time on a chair in our apartment lobby and had a giant dent in his forehead.

"i still have my gourd," he would chirp, gamely holding up a shoe filled with ants, or an old, burning sock.

in conclusion, i don't get tea. at all. someone explain this to me.

viking-themed short story

2008-02-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

brand-new short story on puppy rabbit, my short fiction blog. there's a chance you may not understand it, in which case, send me an email and i will mock you heartily. i mean... answer your questions. with great politeness. um, i have to go.

a letter that i did not write to fiction magazine

2008-02-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

dear "fiction magazine,"

i read your recent letter to me with great interest. i should note prefatorily that i do not have the letter in front of me at this time, as it has inadvertently fallen into a bucket of goat vomit and flames. however, its contents have imprinted themselves on my memory more or less verbatim:

Deer Contributor,

Unfortumately, we cannot publish your submission at this time, or for that matter read it, or read anything, or tie our own shoes without the aid of a manual. Additiomally, we recieve so many subnissions that we are required by law to respond to each with a brusque, demeaning form letter riddled with typographicous errors. By law!! We're assuming that's the case, at any rate, seeing as we cannot read.

Love,
Fiction Magazine

well spoken. i assure you i take no umbrage at having been rejected for publication by your magazine, for the following reasons:

[1] it's not as though my psyche has already been rendered perilously fragile by the many, many rejection letters i have received from your ilk
[2] all of them impersonal form letters
[3] which does not fill me with rage, despite the wildly out-of-balance ratio of [hours i spent writing and revising my submission]/[hours it took you, presumably drunk, on both power and martinis, to casually print out your insulting little form letter, insert it into the envelope i had thoughtfully provided, and then laugh deliriously at the thought that it will soon be stained by my bitter, futile tears]
[4] and as such, i definitely have not been hanging out in the parking lot behind your building, drinking malt liquor and keying cars that i believe may belong to you
[5] also, many of the pieces in your most recent issue seem to have been written by eighth graders

all is forgiven. to quote your website, "a description of some sort goes here."

your devoted reader,
jesse

p.s. also, you're called "fiction magazine"? are you fucking kidding me? that's like a band calling itself "rock band." it's the most dumb-shit name ever. i mean, jesus.

perhaps this army of ents can help you redesign the mike gravel website

2008-01-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

okay. yes. i realize my silence on a certain subject has been deafening, and it's time to stop screwing around. without further do, here is:

A HASTILY DRAFTED GUIDE TO EXOTIC BOSTON-AREA SANDWICHES

ha ha! remember when i used to do those? man, they were great. anyway, triple psych.

---------------

A HASTILY DRAFTED GUIDE TO AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
based on handy left-wing prejudices combined with no research at all

i cannot stress to you enough how little i know about these candidates.

hillary clinton
hillary clinton, or, as one of my housemates calls her, Vagina-Tor, has policies ranging from health care to the economy to some other thing. her husband bill was the president for a number of years. blah blah blah, divisive figure, yak yak yak, possible continuation of era of hysterical partisanship, etc etc etc.

here's my litmus test: let's say this presidential candidate were on a bike, just riding down the street. if some other biker were to zoom past them, beforehand helpfully calling "o-o-o-on your left!!!," what would happen? i don't want to generalize here, but every female cyclist that i have passed in that manner has calmly said "thank you" and left it at that. every dude, on the other hand, has glowered at me resentfully and, in most cases, attempted to start some shit. some shit i like to call Five-Lanes-Plus-Both-Sidewalks-Bike-Maneuver-Warfare-Game.

it is a game that usually ends in tears.

john edwards
it is customary to mock john edwards for his expensive, shimmering hair. what the fuck is wrong with spending a lot on your hair? or having a pleasant appearance? our current president has tiny beady eyes and looks like an ape-vole. that is because we completely fucked up our priorities last election. nice job, america.

anyway, john edwards is commonly classified as a populist, which means that he strives to represent the american middle class. as a group, however, the american middle class watches nascar, amasses enormous credit-card debt from buying things like doritos, and doesn't know how apostrophes work. in other words, a vote for john edwards is a vote for john edward's. fuck that.

rudy giuliani
i don't want to sound biased, but if rudy giuliani doesn't scare the hell out of you, perhaps you have a plate in your head. the man hasn't held public office in like twenty years. he ran new york city as though it were benin. i literally can't sleep sometimes because i think he's going to sneak into my room, pointy teeth glistening in the starlight, and then—with his customary nightmarish banshee-shriek—appoint a deeply unqualified friend of his to a position of influence.

"why are you doing this in my bedroom," i would say.

"why are you sleeping in the new york city mayor's office," he would retort.

then i would make some witty observation about the new york housing market.

um... let's move on.

mike gravel
this guy cracks me up. i mean, his campaign strategy sessions must be spectacular:
campaign manager: all right! so let's take a few minutes and brainstorm some
mike gravel: STARING CONTEST.
interns:
campaign manager: is that—is that an idea for
mike gravel: STARING CONTEST.
campaign manager:
intern, terrified: all right! you win! see? i'm blinki
mike gravel: ROCK-IN-POND-HEAVING CONTEST.
campaign manager: i feel like we're getting off track here.
mike gravel, heaving a rock into a pond: MY PREFERRED CONSTITUENCY ARE THE TREES AND STONES AND BIRDS AND ACORNS
web designer, dusting off hands: okay, gravel2008.com is ready to go.
mike gravel: THE SUFFIX .US WOULD MAKE OUR WEB PRESENCE SEEM MORE LEGITIMATE.
web designer: actually, that's the opposite of truemmMMMRPH
mike gravel: PERHAPS THIS ARMY OF ENTS CAN HELP YOU REDESIGN THE MIKE GRAVEL WEBSITE.

mike huckabee
mike huckabee. where to begin. one of his most notable accomplishments: losing 100 pounds. additionally, he functions as human testimony—as if we needed it—to the completely batshit insane importance the american electorate ascribes to being a devout christian. especially relative to, i don't know, a working knowledge of geography. for example, mike huckabee believes that most pakistani immigrants come to the u.s. via mexico. this is like suggesting that most fans at basketball games attempt to upgrade their seats by parachuting from the catwalk. but hey—at least he's not fat anymore!

tool.

john mccain
john mccain]'/:::::::::::::::::::??????????
um—i just wrote the words "john mccain," then left my computer to make dinner, and when i came back, the cat had typed the rest of the above. that actually happened. i guess the cat is a democrat.
anyway, here's my john mccain checklist:

senator of: arizona
tanned: not even a little
was tortured for years by the north vietnamese? yes
leadership qualities doubted by my girlfriend's cat? yes

verdict: this guy is awesome.

barack obama
i know this is pretty boring, but barack obama is my favorite, and thus he shall be spared of glib mockery. instead, here is a conversation i just had with the cashier at johnnie's foodmaster while purchasing a baguette:
cashier: oh, what's that symbol on your shirt?
me: d'you really—my shirt?
cashier: yeah, what's that.
me: um, it's the hammer and sickle.
cashier:
me: the symbol of the communist party.
cashier: ohhh.
me: it's ironic because if we were actually being governed by the communist party, they would disallow the freedom of speech necessary to wear a provocative
cashier, brightly: that'll be two nineteen!

ron paul
oof.

thinks taxes should be abolished? yes
has vivid memories of the mckinley administration? yes
even a little bit charismatic? no

ron paul, you need to take a gander at governmentisgood.com, like, right now.

mitt romney
as with john edwards, people like to talk about how preternaturally good-looking mitt romney is. frankly, i don't see it. he looks like a smug, coiffed wolf.

anyway, i remember mitt from when he was governor of massachusetts. what a nightmare that must have been, for a republican. the man is surely a masochist, and it does not help things that he is an adherent of the silliest religion this side of scientology. not to sound intolerant, of course. i would never want to offend my many mormon friends, for example by pointing out that mormons put the "m" in "morons." that in no way comports with what i believe.

in conclusion: i am so stoked about this cat-typing thing. i gotta go lie down.

LITERALLY INCREDIBLE HOUSING EVENT

2008-01-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

dear reader! are you looking for housing in the boston area! but up until now you have not been able to find an option that ALLOWS YOU TO LIVE WITH THREE MEMBERS OF TEEN PLANT! plus some other guys!! so exciting!! if you do not write me an email right now you are a fool!! okay.

two of our housemates are moving out, one in february, one in march, and we're seeking replacements. look at all of our house's wonderful attributes:

- large
- soundproof recording studio in basement
- washer and dryer also in basement
- all housemates now consistently wear pants
- proximity to 77 bus (20min ride to harvard square), foodmaster, the various establishments of arlington center
- neighborhood is almost irritatingly safe
- biggish kitchen, dining room, living room with ping pong table and cable tv
- wireless internet
- no dishwasher, but you have the option of simply leaving your dishes lying around and eventually the mystical dishwashing fairy will spirit them away with a flutter of its scintillating gossamer wings*
- all of this for just $600/month INCLUDING UTILITIES

*dishwashing fairy will then make passive-aggressive, caustic remarks whenever you are around for the next two days

dr. doolittle can suck it

2008-01-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

at around 6am every morning, i have a conversation with my girlfriend's cat, who lives with me and whom i am definitely claiming as a dependent on my taxes. in fact, that reminds me: this year, i should probably do taxes. (ha ha! um, help.)

cat: [padding stealthily about]
me: zzzzrngh zzzzrngh zzzzrngh
cat: kerrrunch.
me: zzzzzmrgh.
cat: kerrunch krerrrrunch krerrrnch
me: MRRRRRRGH.
cat: kerrrnch kerrrrurnch kerrunch
me: NO. STOP EATING THE CARDBOARD. OH MY GOD. NO ONE THINKS THAT THE CARDBOARD IS DELICIOUS EXCEPT FOR YOU.
cat: [stares into space, agitatedly]
me, leaving bed, pouring dry food in bowl already brimming with dry food: DO YOU WANT FOOD. HERE COMES SOME STUPID FOOD. GORGGGH.
cat:
me, returning to bed: unnggrggghzzzzzzzzzrngh zzzzrngh zzzzrngh
cat:
me: zzzzrngh zzzzrngh zzzzrngh
cat: rowr
me: zzzurngh.
cat:
me:
cat: rrr... raowr.
me:
cat:
me:
cat:
me:
cat:
me:
cat: rowrr?
me: JESUS CHRIST, WHAT. WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT.
cat: cormpaniurnship
me: "companionship"?
cat:
me: IT'S LIKE SIX IN THE MORNING.
cat: [biting itself]
me: little dude. what about when i spend the day at home? and you're all like, too cool for school? what then?
cat: [grabbing a toy mouse with its front paws and kicking it furiously with its back paws, then becoming disinterested]
me: i'm just saying. i'm the breadwinner. we can't always just drop what we're doing and pet the cat when the cat wants to be petted. all right?
cat: [has a boner]
me: WHAT. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.
cat:
me: OH JESUS, THAT'S WEIRD. IT'S LIKE A WEIRD THIN MAGENTA CRAYON.
cat:
me:
cat:
me: i'm going back to sleep.
cat: raowr
me: and you are getting locked outside.
cat: [has been locked out of the bedroom]
me:
cat:
me: zzz
cat:
me: zzzzrngh zzzzrngh zzzzrngh
cat:
me: zzzzrngh zzzzrngh zzzzrngh
cat: scrrrabble
me:
cat: scrabbby scrabble
me: STOP SCRATCHING THE DOOR
cat:
me:
cat: scribby
me: here. here is a brick of the finest afghan catnip. it cost over four dollars.
cat: thrank rowr

in other words: cat for sale. look how cute he is! methadone not included. -$100 obo.

jordin sparks told me to live each second like it was my last one

2008-01-21T08:53:00.001-08:00

but then the bus driver told me to stop screaming in terror

the plague descends

2008-01-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

actor clive owen: what up jigga
me: yee
me: check
actor clive owen: this club is aight
me: check it
actor clive owen: its aiiight, nawm sayin, its like: aight.
enormous talking pony: yo i brought jetpacks
me: SICK
me: lets bounce
[several minutes later, moving through an unfolding fractal colorscape at indeterminate speed]
actor clive owen: dang these jetpacks are loud as hell
me: yee, also my legs be all cramped and $h!t
enormous talking pony: THATS CUZ YOU HAVIN A DREAM
enormous talking pony: SPECIFICALLY ON THA SMALL-ASS-SEAT-HAVIN AIRPLANE BACK FROM PITT$BURGH
me: oh that explains thaaaAAAAARRRNNNNNGGGGHHHH

obviously, i'm sick. i say "obviously" because i think everyone in boston is sick right now. it's impossible to be sure, because my ears are clogged with whatever idiot substance you get in your ears when you're sick (phlegm? bile? WTF), and so i don't get to hear the "HELLO I'M SICK YOU MUST ALSO BE SICK BUT NOT AS SICK AS ME HA HA HA BARFFF HA" conversations that residents of boston enjoy having around this time of year.

anyway, i'm sick. i've been sort of sick for the past three weeks, and then in pittsburgh i got sick again, and then i tried to take a plane back to boston, and that's when the above-described dream happened. i awoke in extreme pain. imagine your left ear is a central asian country. now imagine that this central asian country has a well-funded, broadly supported separatist movement. voila. i have just introduced you to the awesome power of analogy. anyway, i was able to quell this "separatist movement" by "calling for a referendum" (shrieking into a pillow) and then, when the results were unfavorable, "sending the national guard to pacify the afflicted area" (attempting to strangle myself back into unconsciousness).

sick sick sick. this did not deter me from riding my bike to work today, nor from making a delicious vegetable soup last night flavored with smoked paprika and crushed anise seed. nor from embarking boldly on the godspeed revisions—after the completion of which, i am told, a specific literary agent has actually agreed to read all of it without then laughing maniacally and feeding it to a specially trained paper-eating dog. (you would be amazed how difficult it was to negotiate that.) so this is it: last call! for suggestions on how to improve my novel! not for alcohol! that would be absurd! it's not even 4:30pm!

okay i have to go staple some spreadsheets together at random and then finger-paint on them with chocolate.

the autonomous zone

2008-01-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

[1] i'm coming to pittsburgh this weekend. email me if you'll be in pittsburgh, and let's meet up, preferably to eat deep-fried things in a diner in the dead of the night. do not try calling, as per [3] below.

[2] there's a new story on the short fiction blog. it's compelling, fast-paced, and above all, short. in fact, it may not be done yet. i can't really tell. perhaps you have thoughts on this.

[3] i lost my phone and may not have a phone for a few days.

[3a] i guess if you have my family's home number, you could try calling that. please do not try calling it between 11pm and 9am, unless you want my father to be irate for the next decade or so.

gunkanjima

2008-01-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

first of all, this is the coolest thing i have seen in a while.

second, girlfriend is safely back in amsterdam, after some frantic scurrying through charles de gaulle airport that would have been much more difficult had she been toting a live cat, as was originally the plan. (or, perhaps it would've been much easier. like: "could i take a look at your boarding pass please?" "hmm! perhaps you would prefer to take a look at THIS FURIOUS AND BLADDER-CHALLENGED ANIMAL I AM HOLDING IN A TOTE BAG.") instead, the cat remains with me, with the unspoken but firm agreement that i am permitted to harvest his fur every six weeks for incorporation into whatever garment i deem appropriate. right now i am working on leggings. the cat is resentful but ultimately accepting.

girlfriend and i got to spend some but not nearly enough time together.

attendance of a celtics game
we want to know: is kevin garnett always that intense? for example, we like to think that when he's putting his kids to bed, it's like: "whose house is this? whose house is this? THIS IS OUR HOUSE. AND AT 10PM, WE GO TO BED. YEAH. GET UP ON YOUR FEET. GET UP AND MAKE SOME NOISE. (BUT THEN STOP MAKING NOISE AND GET BACK OFF YOUR FEET BECAUSE I AM SERIOUS ABOUT IT BEING BEDTIME.)"

this is also as good a place as any to note that we now have the comcast sports package, and a lot of basketball is currently getting watched over at our place. if you are in the boston area, and on any given night you want to watch some basketball with three to five twentysomething dudes arguing over the utility of john hollinger's PER metric, or whether kobe is ultimately motivated by his desire to distract people from the fact that he looks like a ferret, you are welcome over at our place. bring german gummi candy.

german gummi candy
we ate us some german gummi candy, and here i mean, i ate some german gummi candy and hid it whenever i thought girlfriend was getting "the craving."

ice skating
ugh. this was a local indoor rink, on a sunday, between 2 and 4pm. if you have ever been in a family before and you do not have the brainpower of hummus, and you are presented with the scenario of sunday afternoon ice skating, your brain is telling you: "WARNING: CHILDREN. AVOID." i, on the other hand, am an idiot. skating with children is pretty close to how i imagine piloting a space shuttle through an asteroid belt, and if you are as good at skating as i am, the space shuttle also has no brakes or steering, and can only dodge the asteroids by bellowing at them in alarm. at all times, fast-moving objects are whizzing around you, cutting you off, careening into your legs, etc.—and everyone involved has razor-sharp blades on their feet. i mean, come on. whoever thought of this should be murdered. needless to say, girlfriend is adept at skating and had a terrific time, and i didn't knowingly decapitate anyone, so i guess it was a success.

literary magazines
we went to the coop and read literary magazines for a solid afternoon, basically in preparation for me submitting a bunch of Puppy Rabbit A Short Fiction Blog stories to them. this made us contemplative and melancholy.

then we went here and ate a truly unprecedented amount of guacamole.

resolutions

2007-12-31T09:37:00.000-08:00

i made all of one resolution last year, and it was:

cease fucking with balochistan.

so i guess 2007 was a success, largely because after writing that blog entry, i completely forgot about balochistan until now. here is the obligatory wikipedia entry link. note that balochistan has at least sixteen distinct separatist movements. how many does one even need? isn't one pretty much set at, i don't know, two? also, do these movements coordinate in advance? like:

"hey! you there! the one agitating against the government! what are you doing?! it's thursday."
"yeah, thursday it's Baluchi Autonomous Movement. DEATH TO THE INFIDEL GOVERNMENT."
"no it's not. remember? we switched."
"oh darn it."
"thursday is Balochistan Liberation Front."
"yeah yeah. no, yeah."
"you guys have tuesday now."
"yeah yeah yeah. no, i totally forgot."
"it's all in the outlook calendar, if you want to check outlook next time."
"yeah, we have macs but we've been meaning to get outlook. here, you were probably wondering where the shoulder-mounted rocket launchers were."
"word."
"this one needs a refill but the others should be good to go."
"this is pretty long for a hypothetical joke conversation."
"true."

anyway, i have some resolutions for 2008:
1. at least get a short story published in a 100-circ literary magazine or something

remember how i used to write short stories? um, yeah. call me a horrible sellout, but it's time to start getting those in a place where maybe more than ten people will ever read them. speaking of which, i'm working on two more right now to post to Puppy Rabbit A Short Fiction Blog. one, redundantly enough, is about separatist movements in the caucasus. the other is about a generational sense of ennui. right now, you are saying: "ennui?! FUCK yeah. why are you even fucking around with that separatist story? just make the ennui one twice as long." maybe i will, mom. maybe i will.

anyway, i get that it'll take a while to get godspeed in shape, and because literary fiction by unpublished young authors is not so much of a seller's market these days, i'm not going to promise anything crazy with that. like: by this time next year the movie rights to "godspeed" will have netted me enough to purchase an atoll in the pacific and populate it with furry, furry kitties. that is not on my list of resolutions.

2. get a driver's permit
it's really time. i mean, this is just embarrassing. i'm 22 years old, for god's sake.

girlfriend: you're 25.

WHAT.

girlfriend: you're 25 years old.

SHUT UP. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

girlfriend: you were born in 1982. your little sister, who is seven years younger than you, knows how to drive. also, it may be time to set up an IRA or something.

YOU'RE FIRED.

3. stop telling people they're fired.
I MEAN... UM... YOU'RE "HIRED."

HIRED AS MY NOT-GIRLFRIEND.

HA HA HA HA HA.

4. move to new york with teen plant and become The Next Big Thing.
clarification: by "The Next Big Thing," i mean "overweight."

happy new year. stay real, balochistan.

kevin garnett is sort of like a warlock

2007-12-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

coworker in elevator: pretty slow around here these days, eh?
me: i certainly haven't spent the past two hours compiling a spreadsheet that documents the performance of every team in my fantasy basketball league so far!
coworker:
me: and then another hour agonizing over whether to trade free-wheeling sharpshooter keith bogans for brendan haywood, a workmanlike center whose defensive performance could be described as "unheralded!" but not by me!! right now i am heralding it!
coworker:
me: the decrease in scoring is more than offset by
coworker: PLEASE BE QUIET NOW.

how in the name of bill simmons did it take me this long to discover fantasy sports? i mean, jesus. i'm huge dork. i love statistics. i get paid to write sport summaries for a news website. it's mortifying that i'm just getting started this year. also mortifying:

- our league of eight teams has four zombies in it, which is to say, four owners who have lost all interest and put their teams on autopilot
- one zombie team beat me last week
- i almost wrote a detailed and angry blog post about it
- the week before, i whomped on a different zombie team (micah), then casually started talking smack around the house—which micah failed to even notice was directed at him

me: micah! man, quite the game from brad miller the other night.
micah: [is beatboxing with a distant expression on his face]
me: quite... the game.
micah: yo we got any of that soup left
me: if by "soup" you mean a TWELVE-REBOUND SEVEN-BLOCK PERFORMANCE that any fantasy owner would have been thrilled with HAD HE TAKEN THE SIMPLE STEP OF ACTIVATING BRAD MILLER rather than allowing him to languish on the inactive list like so much rotting fruit FOR NO GUESSABLE REASON OTHER THAN LAZINESS, then no.
micah:
me: no, we do not have any of that soup left.
micah: what about the pizza

a final note: i am pretty sure this rant has been reproduced elsewhere, but i don't see why it has to be called "fantasy." are there elves? no. orcs? shawn marion looks a bit like an orc, but no. is it a lanky blue-eyed warlock whose mystical free-throw percentage is all that is keeping your team afloat? no. dirk nowitzki is a german, not a warlock. also his spell-casting is at +7 and hasn't reached double-digits since 2004.

(actually—and this is the best idea i have ever had—if we're going to call it fantasy basketball, it really should be combined with dungeons & dragons somehow. like: you would have a draft, and then your team would enter some kind of evil castle, or goblin-intensive mine shaft, or something, and then various stats for the week would determine whatever bullshit d&d attributes you're supposed to have numerical values for. like:

assists = craftiness
rebounds = muscularity
three-point shooting = wizardosity
turnovers = dumbassitude

i would be very, very surprised if this wasn't already a game somewhere. regardless, if anyone is interested in developing this concept, please do so and then give me some money. also, just thinking about all this has given me acne all over my forehead.)

------

work in the studio was great, although we didn't get as much done as we wanted to. matt and i are going back in early january to record vox and keyboards. in the meantime, i'm gonna bug matt to finish up those first six tracks we did in october so i can send them to club owners and you if you want. we intend to be super-active in the boston-new york area this spring, so obviously keep an eye out for clubs/campuses in need of mind-melting rock & roll.

also: girlfriend arrives on friday. she brings gummi candy. you will understand if for a while, blog updates will be like:

GUMMI CANDY IS GOOD

EXPLETIVE

ORC

OKAY BYE

judios in the studio

2007-12-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

what up suckaz. tomorrow, our monastic, self-abnegating phase ends, and we approach instead a mystical punctum of total creative realization, eyes aflame, hearts like hot jelly. that's correct: matt is driving us all to chuck e. cheese's. dibs on the ball pit!!!

ironically, i understand that as a good gen-yer i am supposed to adore chuck e. cheese. he is toweringly lampoonable, the transparent means by which marketers can enter the heads of children and permanently fuse the ideas of
- celebration
- brightly colored plastic
- competition with your screaming snot-nosed friends whom you suddenly hate
- cheap pizza
- vermin
i can't really get up for that. even ironically. then again, i was never personally invited to a party at chuck e. cheese, so perhaps my perspective on childhood is a bit jaundiced. i tend to think of it as an experience of unremitting awkwardness and scarring missteps. this may have been specific to me.

me, wearing pajamas at school: tee-nage mu-tant nin-ja tu-u-ur-tles tee-nage mu-tant nin-ja tu-u-ur-tles—omg, this paste is delicious
teacher: okay, children, it's time for math.
me: MATH IS GOOD BECAUSE IT ALLOWS ME TO AUTOMATE MYSELF
teacher: today in math we're going to talk about our feelings!
me: FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

where was i. oh yeah, we're going into the studio tomorrow (galaxypark studios!!! i would name-drop some of the other acts recorded there, but they generally have names too profane even for this blog), and we intend to walk out on sunday with a complete album, as well as $4,000 in purloined guitar pedals. ha ha! um, yes. that was a joke, about the pedals. WHY DOES THE BACKSPACE KEY NEVER WORK THIS IS A STUPID KEYBOARD.

------

in the meantime, i guess i can stop marketing my novel—it looks like the fiction market has just been officially saturated. seriously, my eyeballs hurt from the jabbing. also, this interview is embarrassingly obsequious. here are the last eight questions, abridged:

1. you're the most connected kicker on the planet
2. You're also quite an adventurer.
3. you're the Indiana Jones of kickers
4. You're single-handedly squashing the stereotype of the sissy NFL kicker. Are you the baddest kicker in the league?
5. I bet you're a heckuva tackler, too.
6. [actual question]
7. You're such a badass.
8. please account for the deliciousness of your penis

just kidding! i made up #6.

DUMBEST-EVER HUMAN UPDATE

2007-12-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

just for future reference? if it's going to snow? and nevertheless i am planning to bike all the way to work? which in the best of conditions is a 29-minute ride? i want you to put a bunch of raw ground beef in my favorite breakfast cereal.*,**

i mean, good god.

*right now this would be Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and it's looking to occupy the #1 spot for quite some time.
**I HATE WHEN PEOPLE PUT RAW GROUND BEEF IN MY FAVORITE BREAKFAST CEREAL

two americas

2007-12-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

there is the tidy, self-contained, impersonal america; the transactional america; the america that doesn't drip messily onto your hands. then there is the america that is for lunch, at least if you, like me, are an imbecile.

youthful chacarero guy, with special emphasis: hey-y-y.
me: hello there.
ycg: you like it... super-duper-extra-mega-crazy hot?!?
me: yes indeed.
ycg, shaking head admiringly: super hot.
nearby coworker, failing to disguise worry: madre de dios.

i found out a while ago that at chacarero, and perhaps among chileans in general, "super hot" is a step up from "extra hot." in fact, it is an entire paradigm shift. perhaps the best way to put it is this:

extra hot : super hot :: being licked by a frolicksome kitten : having an appendage masticated by a team of suddenly humorless and, it turns out, feral kittens

the thing is that this guy at chacarero and i are deep into what is perhaps the world's most one-sided game of chicken, where every time i go in there, he puts an even more absurd amount of habanero sauce on my sandwich, and then i eat it, and then i lope quickly the fuck out of chacarero, because my tongue is bleeding and parts of my brain have imploded. who will snap first? almost certainly it will not be him, as he stands to lose nothing at all in this grotesque little contest. dammit.

also the sandwich, once a marvel of tidiness, is now kind of gloopy. moral of the story: OW FUCK. I JUST INADVERTENTLY TOUCHED MY EYEBALL WITH HABANERO JUICE. OH MERCILESS GOD. OH VICIOUS FANGY JESUSES. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM. which is to say: my manhood is enormous.

------

as for my mustache, it is gone, thank christ. also we have a show at the midway cafe in jamaica plain on sunday night. we go on maybe around 10pm. this is our last show until we finish recording our CD (half of which is the six tracks that were going to be our previous EP) and then take a month-long nap. come for the love songs, stay for the screeching. brian fairley is "fairley" sure you will like it! ha ha!

(this is to say that brian fairley is coming. if you do not know brian fairley, please at least acknowledge that i am the cleverest person you have ever encountered.)

stache ii: book of secrets

2007-11-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

we have another show this sunday at the all asia cafe—we go on around 11pm—and so what was a harmless bit of folly has become several days of nightmare. basically, i have to go around with this mustache until the performance, because the look i have right now (mustache, assiduously parted hair, glasses, plaid shoes) is somehow incredibly well-suited to rock & roll. the problem is every other context. the best way i can describe the attitude of my coworkers is "bemused." i walked into H&M today for some gloves and there was audible shuddering. other storegoers seemed angry, as though i had marred their shopping experience—and i probably had. i see myself in mirrors or car windows and think, "oh christ, what a spiritually impoverished persoHOLY FUCK THAT'S ME." abe and i decided today that if the new mustached version of me had a name, it would be "gary," and of course every gary has the following attributes:

- shops exclusively at j.c. penney
- is sort of a racist
- is secretly gay and bitter at himself about it
- thinks that mike huckabee's tax reform proposal makes a whole lot of sense

so i'm hurting. i'm hurting bad.

the all asia is our second-to-last show before we go into the studio and then take off for winter break, so of course you should come. watch us kick some ass, then watch me shave this fucking thing off while still onstage. christ.
-----
BLOG BONUS:
this is a facebook exchange i had with a total stranger, who friended me (whatever) and then proceeded to post a video of someone (him?) surfing, with names superimposed over it, one of which was mine. a number of his friends, all italian, added comments like "Good-Times!" and "it was so great!!!!!" we will protect this person's identity by renaming him "la france."

la france

Today at 8:07pm
haha, I tagged you in a old surf video of mine.

write something fun if you have the time.

Jesse Andrews

Today at 8:13pm
hi--i'm pretty sure we don't know each other. are you looking for a different jesse andrews?

la france

Today at 8:22pm
by all means, you have the right to be pretty sure on the fact that we don't know each other, but from the info you have, for example:

the cars, the clash, kraftwerk, the strokes, the streets, talking heads, ted leo & the pharmacists, thin lizzy, weezer, gorillaz, gorilla zoe, obviously the beatles.

you are just like a old friend of mine, who sadly past away some while ago.

so if you don't mind, it would be honor to have a nice comment on that video from you.

"as long as you remember them, they will live forever"...

la france

Today at 8:34pm
in other words, in my mind you are him.

so is it to much to ask, to copy c copy v this: Good-Times

Jesse?

Jesse Andrews

Today at 8:35pm
it is too much to ask. bye :)

la france

Today at 8:36pm
too bad...

la france

Today at 8:44pm
that phrase you wrote was longer than what I asked.

please?

Jesse Andrews

Today at 8:46pm
only if you send me $50 and some delicious cookies

la france

Today at 8:48pm
I will, I promise.

Jesse Andrews

Today at 8:51pm
DO IT NOW, FOOL

la france

Today at 8:52pm
weird combination of things though. anyway I will, but first the comment then the $50 and the delicious cookies, please?

Jesse Andrews

Today at 8:53pm
IF THE MONEY AND COOKIES ARE NOT ON MY DOORSTEP IN 90 SECONDS I SHALL BE DISPLEASED

la france

Today at 8:56pm
Ok, you are not the person I thought you were.

make fun of dead people, is far from cheating death, you will probably have a very displeased life.

stache

2007-11-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

for hopefully the only day of my life, i have a mustache. in fact, if for some reason i should die today, i would really like someone to shave off the mustache before my burial. actually, fuck that: keep the mustache, send my body to a taxidermist, and stuff it in an "attack mode" pose. if this is a taxidermist worth his salt, he will know what you mean by that. then put me in one of those museum dioramas next to a raccoon and a stream full of fake trout.

speaking of attack mode, teen plant has a SURPRISE ATTACK show tonight at the midway in jamaica plain. we go on around 9pm. i have no idea how to get there.

-------UPDATE------

coworkers: blah blah blah ian mcewan
me, strolling out of my cube: hey! are you guys talking about "atonement"? i love that b
female coworker 1: oh SHIT.
female coworker 2: uh... nice mustache.
female coworker 3:
me: oh, right. um, i had a beard for a while
fc1: yeah we remember.
me: right, so it was time to get rid of it, but um... my band has a show tonight.
fc3:
me: so we're all... uh.
fc2: you guys all have mustaches?
me: no, it's... it's just me.
fc1:
fc2:
me:
fc2:
fc1:
fc3:
me:
fc2:
fc3:
fc1:
me:
fc3: you look like a child molester.

fred the creative terrorist

2007-11-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

somewhere beneath boylston street
fred the creative terrorist: a biker approaches! quick, release the gas.
henchman: it is done! HA HA HA HA.
at street level
pedestrians: SUDDENLY WE ARE MORONS
me: fuck! please get out of the way! ACK WHY ARE YOU LYING DOWN IN THE BIKE LANE
pedestrians: NOW SEEMS LIKE A GOOD TIME TO BUY REAL ESTATE

there aren't too many other explanations for this. i've memorized a lot of the salient attributes of my route to work—traffic light patterns, blind corners, traffic probabilities, left turns designed by sadists, etc—and i realized with a pang today that i have also subconsciously registered parts of boston as Moron Pedestrian Zones. primarily, these are the central square stretch of mass ave and pretty much all of boylston st, and if you are a biker navigating these areas, all bets are off. this is the normal pedestrian order of operations:

1. check for traffic
2. cross street

but in the abovementioned, it goes something more like this:

1. begin crossing street
2. check for traffic

so already this is stupid.

3. fuck! oncoming traffic exists!
- a. freeze in path of oncoming traffic
- b. blurt garbled obscenity, perhaps also fall down
4. wait for oncoming traffic to come to complete stop
- a. ...staring resentfully at driver/biker
- b. (as if somehow pedestrian has moral authority)
- c. (when in fact pedestrian is unwitting agent of satan or terrorists)
5. slowly finish crossing street

i mean what the shit. i would also like to point out that while it is not technically illegal to double-park in the bike lane, it is incredibly annoying, especially if your vehicle is commercial aircraft or larger. i am not far from becoming an urban, less-morally-defensible version of this guy.

our last show at the lily pad went very well, and i'd say something about how we're likely to youtube the video we have of it except that all of my previous band-related promises have gone blatantly unfulfilled. so, um. here's a promise: i am shaving my beard TONIGHT. definitely the sides of it, perhaps all of it. i might leave the mustache, if only to sketch people out.

beer: i spent about five minutes trying to figure out where you worked, and couldn't. patagonia? that seems too easy.

my thanksgiving was good. it turns out "no country for old men" is spectacular. also, i can eat 5.4 pounds of food before my stomach wall ruptures, and then an additional 1.8 pounds before it's time to go to the ER.

famous last words

2007-11-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

"FUCK"
"OWWWWWWWWWW"
"let's see what happens when we nnNOORGH"
"OH SHIT"
"hey clarence! hey clarence! hey clarence! hey you gotta--hey clarence! hey come look at thWOOORF"
"FROOOM"
"EVERYBODY CHECK OUT HOW STRONG MY FOREHEAD IS"

our last lily pad show is this saturday

you're flyered

2007-11-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

YES. i'm not so sure about the font, but everything else about this image is deeply awesome. the uneasy foregrounding/backgrounding of heads. the cornucopia of beard. the orthogonal parallels: matt and mike (irish) both look like they are very sleepy, but still want to kill you, whereas dave and i (jews) are getting our simultaneous wall-eye on. anyway, this is what our band looks like, except again for the font.

our show saturday night went great, except for one foreseeable disappointment; we already knew everyone who came, meaning no one was seduced by this sick flyer.
this is a shame mainly because i fucking love flyering, and will do it, in the words of probably shakira, wherever, whenever.

adolescent cashier: thAt'll bE $5.87.
me: sick!!! hey man: are you into rock and roll?
adolescent cashier:
me: you know, like: BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I DID THAT THING
adolescent cashier: uH
me: BEEN A LONG TIME BEEN A LONG TIME BEEN A LONG LONELY LONELY LONELY LONELY LONELY TIME
adolescent cashier: yeaH i gUEss cOldplAy is g
me: here, take this flyer. take eight! our show is gonna be sick, and if YOU don't come, i'm gonna beat the hell out of you! ROCK N ROLL.
adolescent cashier: uMMM
me: gimme a sec, i'm pretty sure i have exact change.

but apparently it doesn't work. either that or i haven't been doing it enough. or perhaps i simply need to shave off this ridiculous furry encumbrance that i have elected to grow on my face, because it openly frightens people, and while this has netted me a tidy little salary increase at work, the shrieking has become tiresome.

so we filmed the show, and i'll post stills from that at some point. overall it was great, as i said. our one cover (moonlight sonata) succeeded, despite me deciding both
1) not to wear glasses and
2) to position the music stand five feet away from my head,
meaning for about ten minutes i sort of looked like a tall, emaciated mole. this is why the footage will not be posted in its entirety. or perhaps at all.

---------------

our next show (saturday again! 8pm again! lily pad again!!) will give you plenty of time to get back from harvard-yale, if you're going to that. we might. probably not, though. once you've intentionally barfed on the top of one yalie's head, you've barfed on them all.

p.s. STEELERS ARE GOOD AT WIN

múmia

2007-11-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

with a series of teen plant shows coming up, what better way to get into the proper "frame of mind" than by "chillaxing" at a múm show at the somerville theater? i can think of a literally infinite number of ways.

1. well-organized, comprehensive rehearsals
2. eating healthy foods
3. sneaking up on the cat in the middle of the afternoon when it is asleep and deftly placing its paw in a cup of warm water to see if it starts peeing, and then when it does, shrieking and throwing the cat bodily across the room
4. exercise

múm is an icelandic electronica band that matt got us all tickets for, although dave couldn't make it, which is just as well, because iceland fills dave with rage. we showed up late, thank god. the first opening act was a pianist who had attached bells and other clicking jingling shit to the strings of his piano, and we sat indulgently through that without making a single farting noise with our armpits. then came tom brosseau, a singer-songwriter from north dakota. i don't want to sound overly negative, so i will say absolutely nothing about this person.*

i like múm's recordings a lot, and i was very curious to hear their live performance--their albums are super programmed and produced, of course, and i figured those effects would be hard to reproduce in person. they use lots of fun little music-box sounds and bleeps and bloops and things that sound like jingling keys and tiny mutant birds and wooden marbles falling down the stairs.

here is what they sounded like live:

LA! LA LA LA LA LA!
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA.
DOO DOO DOO DE DOO
LAAAAARGGH

there was some electronica, but not much. mainly, it was two small and bouncy icelandic women singing very, very high-pitched melodies, doubled by melodica and trumpet and occasionally also the voice of a predictably thin and worried-looking icelandic man with a beard. underneath, the drums and bass were, to put it kindly, over-miked. at times, the effect was transfixing and really lovely; at other times, i felt like my head was being stomped on by giants. pixieish, ethereal giants, yes, but still.

we have resolved that reykjavik must burn.**, ***

------------------------------------------------

expect an announcement about our album soon--we need a version ready by the 9th, in any event, to audition for sxsw. thus far in the mixing process, we are pleased. we sound pretty kick-ass. copies will almost definitely be available for purchase at our shows, which are the next three saturdays at the lily pad. in fact, here's the information again.

TEEN PLANT LIVE AT THE LILY PAD
Nov 10, 17, 24 : 7:30pm
Lily Pad : 1353 Cambridge St : http://www.lily-pad.net/
$10 ($8 on the 10th)
All ages : no dress code
RSVP welcome but not necessary : http://harvard.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6984591974

great. we'll see you there then. our friendship is on the line, you understand.
-----
*except that his performance was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and i have been hit by a bus four times
**with the burning passionate fire of HUGE GUITAR SOLOS
***also literally with real fire

state of the bunion

2007-10-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

soon it will be too cold to play sports, and thank christ for that. lately it seems like not a day goes by when, crazed with testosterone, my housemates and i don't go bounding behind the local high school for a round of basketball, or frisbee-hurling, or kicking the soccer ball repeatedly at sarno's head. basically anything involving projectiles, which is problematic for me, because as you may recall, i am stereoblind. not that i give much of a fuck at this point—it's not like i have any happy memories of once upon a time being able to rain hellfire down from the three-point line, or cause the soccer ball not to go careening out of bounds pretty much every time i kick it—but it's good that we're going to stop playing soon, because i think it's damaging the cartilage in my knees. also, my feet hurt. in other news, i am 58 years old.

i also joined my first fantasy basketball league. we have our draft today, i think. girlfriend is also in this fantasy basketball league. writing about this now, i can't really recall why this struck me as a good idea. here are the possible outcomes:

1. girlfriend wins, i do not
obviously this outcome is unacceptable.

2. i win, girlfriend does not
as much as i would like to believe otherwise, i would probably be a total bastard about this. "aw, honey," i would coo, for a solid decade. "i still love you. even if allen iverson's FG% flagrantly does not."

3. neither of us wins
death of the relationship. we would look at each other every day and think, "loser" (or in my case, "loser with a truly hideous beard"). frankly, i don't see this not happening. the upside: ladies, i am back on the market. who wants to make me some pancakes.

dave is in california for a few days, so matt is putting together a rough mix of the album right now. we're also prepping for our first more-than-24-hours-notice shows, which will be at the lilypad in inman square every saturday night in november except the first one. come to all of them! our music will melt your face.

finally: way to go sox. i would rag on you, but then my grandmother would administer what we in my family have come to call "the beat-down."

PSYCH SMALL-MARKET PRIDE OKAY BYE

beards of glory

2007-10-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

this is an experiment that will likely end in tears, but as the band member who is easily the most recent to have shaved his face, i have decided to dispense therewith, effective now. there are photos of my dad on his wedding day—a skinny clever-eyed kid with a goofy grin—and he is sporting a triumph of a beard. it looks great. it could in fact be a healthy woodland animal clinging to his chin and ears. the point is, it is time to do him proud. unfortunately, the following characteristics apply to my beard, which is already a week old:

- itches
- is functionally invisible
- itches a lot

when i say "functionally invisible," i mean it's impossible to tell that i have a beard, and when i gently draw people's attention to the beard, they say, "huh." however, the beard is detectable in that i look vaguely seedier than before, or possibly have some dirt on my face. so i guess that's progress. dave's facial hair kicks ass, and mike's is abundant if not especially cultivated. even matt has let his go for a few weeks, and been rewarded with a furry arrangement that is more than capable of netting him some spare change on occasion.

it's important to feel scruffy. we just recorded six tracks at this punk rock studio in allston on wednesday and thursday, and now we're adding vocals and synths, and then you will be able to buy it at our shows for some ludicrously reasonable price. also, if you are rick rubin, you are getting one for free. at least, rick rubin's personal assistant is getting one for free. rick rubin's personal assistant, if you're reading this: get pumped, baby.

we're thinking of calling the EP Attention Deficit Disorder. the tracks are:

1 THE KRAKEN
2 IT'S MY BIRTHDAY I CAN DO WHAT I WANT
3 STAY INSIDE
4 ROME HAS FALLEN
5 ANCHORHOUSE
6 SEABEAST

we have no way of accounting for the nautical theme other than the basic fact that the sea is awesome. you are asking, "jesse, aren't the kraken and the 'seabeast' basically the same thing?" for my sake and yours, please never even entertain such a stupid question again. the seabeast is a remorseless creature of vengeance and justice. he is basically a huge dork, albeit with the ability to summon lightning from the heavens to illuminate your gruesome death. he loves world of warcraft, and he has had zero girlfriends.

the kraken, on the other hand, is a party animal.

teen plant is available for your next manhattan rooftop party

2007-10-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

except if you are lacking an elevator.

so we played a rooftop party in the lower east side. it was awesome. there will be visual evidence of this hopefully in the next few days. in the meantime, allow me to set the scene for you: friday night, at the burren in davis square, which is sort of an appalling meat market, matt and i (girlfriended) were playing the protective, cheerful mother hens to mikes zerking and ramos (non-girlfriended; "zerking" is pseudonymous). mike ramos acquired a phone number without even asking for it, because he is smoother than a baby's ass. please do not think about that comparison too hard.

anyway, we were in the burren, and i was using my incredible game to try to get mike zerking laid, when someone called matt.

matt, answering phone: what's up.
me: where the hotties at
me: MIKE ZERKING WANTS 2 FUCK
mike zerking: uh... honestly, i don't see how that will be effective
me: WHAT UP BABY
me: THA PLEASURE-TORNADO THAT IS MIKE ZERKING WANTS 2 GET ALL UP IN UR STEEZ
matt, still on phone: no. no way. holy shit.

it was our drummer dave; he was in new york, having played a jazz show there the night before. the guys he was staying with were throwing a party the following night. on a roof. they were also bringing in a band from philly. they wanted to know if we could do it.

matt: yeah. yeah. yeah. omg. yeah we can do that. oh yeah. awright peace.
matt: WE'RE GOING TO NEW YORK
ramos: sick!
me: THE HOTTIES OF NEW YORK BEST RECOGNIZE
me: THE REDONKULOUS SEXUAL APPETITE OF MIKE ZERKING IS LIKE A NEVER-ENDLESS, UM
mike zerking: please stop? please?
me:
me: HUNGER OF SOME KIND

the philly band—platinum mustache—was like us in that they were restarting after a long hiatus, with a small yet tasty functional repertoire. they were not like us in that they were a soul band that rolled about thirty deep. in fact, the philly soul band and hangers-on constituted about half the attendance of the party, i would estimate, but it wasn't a big roof, so that was fine. mainly we were concerned about how we would be received. while we play with a whole fuckload of heart, our music is not what you would call "soul." much of it is also hard to dance to, at least without seriously injuring yourself.

it is also not what you would call "quiet," and as a result we volunteered to play second, reasoning that we were far likelier to get the party shut down by the cops. platinum mustache, however, wanted us on first. "so be it," we said to dave on the phone, because at the time we were told of this, we were eating $1 spicy chicken sandwiches at a burger king several blocks away.

burger king is nasty.

it was about 11:30pm when we went on, still an iota punchdrunk from the five-story elevator-free load-in we performed earlier. a volume-wheel decrescendo of the hip-hop thumping over the speakers left us alone in the anticipatory quiet—alone, and naked—before one or two hundred wide and skeptical eyes.

that is when we turned on the rock.

never have i played a show that has at once so comprehensively demonstrated a band's flaws and yet proven that we have it in us to kick a lot of ass. parts of the show were outrageous. parts were very, very sloppy, yes, but parts of it were seriously triumphant.

the flaws, as we see them:
- band needs more songs
- lead singer needs to do less "freelancing"*
- band should fuck up endings, transitions, builds, etc., less
- band should definitely have an arrangement ready for the song "happy birthday to you"

these are easy to overcome. in the meantime, the philly guys loved it. while under-rehearsed, we played our hearts out, and i think that got them pretty fired up. also, as mike pointed out, we could easily have been a wimpy indie band, and maybe they were bracing for a lot of whining vocals and asymmetrical DIY keyboard lines, where instead we are loud and pure like the thunder of god. anyway. i haven't hugged that many large black men whose names i didn't know since my high school graduation. it was a great scene.

then, as platinum mustache launched into their first song, the cops came and shut it all down.

pictures tk.

*freelancing = blatantly forgetting the melody and/or words, and opting instead to scream or mumble nonsense lyrics punctuated by expletives, like "you got the fuckin sha na na na na, nobody wants a FUCKIN murngh, murngh, murngh cock," etc

he is the seabeast

2007-10-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

THE SEABEAST LURKING
HE IS THE SEABEAST
THE SEABEAST HATES YOU
HE WANTS TO EAT YOU

it's mike's tune, but i thought for a while i had the perfect lyrics to SEABEAST, a song that is distinct from THE KRAKEN. both will probably be recorded during our two full-day sessions next week. anyway, mike's own writings won the day, and the repertoire's belt continues to loosen. what's remarkable is that we haven't even touched any of the songs our band played in its first show, over three years ago:
- "trogdor," a cover
- "guess what fuck you," a song i wrote with some help from jilly gagnon which featured lyrics like, "you're just my fucking ex / who has promiscuous sex / with guys in turtlenecks / GUESS WHAT FUCK YOU"
- "bushkiller," a song of mike's whose politics will be irrelevant in one and a half years

perhaps this is for the best.

on sunday, to celebrate absolutely nothing at all, i biked up to burlington mall and purchased a lego star wars imperial shuttle, which is just about the sweetest thing ever designed. that's what i wanted to explain to the cashier, a perky bespectacled smiling-constantly lots-of-patience-with-kids type of person: the incredible design miracle of the marriage of legos and star wars, two of the best things to happen to popular aesthetics probably ever, was the thing to which i had come to pay tribute. i am appreciating this imperial shuttle on more and loftier levels, do you understand. instead:

cashier, squinting kindly: you find everything all right?
me, sweating powerfully: IT IS FOR THE LITTLE BROTHER THAT I DEFINITELY HAVE
cashier: mmm!
me: HOW COME YOU GUYS NEVER HAVE THE X-WING

or the millennium falcon. my buddy jack got one of those last year. i want it so goddamned bad. the sweating was because i biked to the burlington mall, an unlovely ride through an undulating suburbia.

the steelers are awesome.

p.s. band name idea: MAGICAL SPIRIT FRIEND
p.p.s. the cat's litter has now been replaced with a bowl of water which he hates using and so now he holds it in as long as he possibly can, which is making him hop around like an idiot and just generally make even more noise than he used to, generally when certain people who FEED HIM and EVEN PET HIM WITH THE STUPID BRUSH are right smack in the middle of an REM cycle, and so if i look grumpy to you these days do not ask about the cat

every day is a sort of symphony

2007-10-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

new band name ideas: Tail; Uh-Oh; best of all, The Young Dads. girlfriend, sorry to go public like this. it's time you told your parents, for serious. also, it's cute when you drunk-gchat me at 3am GMT, but i swear to god, if little la'shawndrae' has EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIRTH DEFECT you are written out of my will. that's right. kiss that mid-four-figure sum goodbye, sweetheart. (sum presumes generous appraisal of used bass guitar and amp. sum may also become deficit after taxes.)

what's that? i sound a little hoarse to you? i have been screeching all weekend. well, for a lot of the weekend. i have been sort of roaring for parts of the weekend.

we have one song where i do the cookie-monster voice for fifteen seconds or so.

basically: we have been playing every day since mike got here, and, um, our band is incredible. i thought there was going to be a letdown, after two years of quasi-messianic expectations, but there has been none. the reality of playing every day in an incredible and very loud band has not stemmed the huge-and-crazy thinking at all.

1. for stadium shows, we want to make our entrance:
a. in scuba gear
b. surrounded by water acrobats
c. completely submerged in a gigantic fish tank
d. suspended and lowered to the stage by a fleet of helicopters.
1) honestly just take a second and visualize that.
2) fuck. FUCK.
3) that's awesome.
2. we intend to become the first rock band to play in outer space.
a. as soon as we win some kind of award, we're going to use our acceptance speech to address sir richard branson.
b. "sir richard branson! what is up.
c. "we would like to help you promote Virgin Galactic by becoming THE FIRST ROCK BAND OR IN FACT ANY TYPE OF BAND TO PLAY IN OUTER SPACE."
d. like you wouldn't watch a concert performed in outer fucking space.
e. holy cock in a fuck-sandwich.
3. i've decided to get private instruction from a dance/movement coach.
a. yeah. yeah.
b. um... if you know any such coach in the boston area, please advise.
c. i guess technically this does not qualify as thinking huge and/or crazy, but hey.
1) it's time.
2) outer goddamned space.

okay commuter

2007-09-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

the bicycle is a superior apparatus. i will never learn to drive. my quads have the size and rubbery firmness of adolescent tigers. somehow i am also doing way more pushups.

[conjecture: if you're a parent, you're more likely to be generous with a twentysomething kid who doesn't need the money than with one who does. it's depressing, when your kid's birthday rolls around, to have to scribble a note like, "this three-figure sum ought to alleviate your 'rent situation,' at least modestly!!" it's way less depressing to say, "go buy a bike! it doesn't even have to be used. buy a bike. it's so nice to know that this isn't going straight to your landlord." let me say this now: my living situation is comfortable, and on sept 15, 2008, i expect to own a helicopter. or a tiger-sled.]

but right now i have a bike named "rosebud," and matt (newly enthusiastic biker) and i have discovered that we are fucking nuts about biking. we fucking love it. i am using expletives here in the same sense that i do when i say, "i am going to go pet the breathing trembling fuck out of that cat." (the cat lives on the third floor and, in his opinion, does not get petted nearly enough. he is a furry little whore, and he gets his exercise by sprinting literally into the side of my bed at 3am and then skittering away in a daze, like:

skibbety skibbety skibbety SKIBBETY SKIBBETY WHAM
skibbety skibbety
FUCK
skibbety
YOU FURRY FUCK
cowering
I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL KILL YOU

hesitant skibbety
I!
AM NOT FUCKING AROUND

.

snoring

skibbety skibbety skibbety SKIBBETY SKIBBETY

to be fair, last night was Powerful Cat Laxative Night. i am not remotely joking. ask girlfriend. i don't want to talk about it.)

anyway, mom, dad: thank you for this incredible bike. this may even cause me to position the tattoo i have been planning* in a somewhat less visible place on my body.

(i also can't take credit for this blog post title; it's the name of a playlist on girlfriend's ipod. this is admittedly way more clever than the retaliatory playlist i made entitled "kid gay.")
(addendum: the title was originally going to refer to how commuting is now fun due to biking, but i completely forgot to write anything to that effect. uh... here is a recent chorus matt and i wrote.

[triumphant]
lead vox: solid bros!
backup vox: BROS!
lead: hangin out!
backup: OUT!!
[meditative]
lead: solid bros hangin ou-u-ut.)

-----__---_-------------%-----

ramos arrives tomorrow morning. matt and i are picking him up at the airport, perhaps also with dave. it'll be pretty early, so maybe that will suck. then again, some fool showed matt how to operate the coffee machine, so actually i guess we will all be caffeinated and jittery and talking in incredibly loud voices, as mike stumbles groggily out of the baggage claim and into a glorious new life.

*ring encircling arm, comprised of text from de certeau:
il n'y a pas de droit qui ne s'écrive sur des corps
meaning:
"there is no law that is not inscribed on bodies"

ineluctable modality of football

2007-09-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

television, for eightieth time in three hours: OMG YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS THE TRUCK AND UTILITY VEHICLE EVENT OF THE YEAR!!!
micah:
me:
television: IF YOUR TRUCK IS FLACCID AND INADEQUATE THEN YOU WILL BE DELIGHTED TO KNOW THAT THE FORD GRAND ADVENTURING RAPIST IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR LIKE FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
me:
television: [generic guitar solo; vehicle trampling entire forest]
micah: you know, we really go through a lot to watch football.

why. why in the hell do we do it. i would be so much better off, in life, if the steelers weren't a good team. i would have spent so many fewer hours either
- smugly re-reading the same mediocre AP recap of an arbitrary and violent event that has no effect on my life, or
- wanting to kill myself

whether your favorite team wins or loses, you lose. if they win, it means nothing, and now you are gloaty and awful and everyone wants to push you down the stairs. if they lose, it basically feels like god jabbed you in the eyeball. also, you have spent three and a half hours listening to ill-spoken idiots with nothing of interest to say except for an occasional trainwreck of cliches ("THEY'RE JUST TRYIN' TO RUN THE CLOCK DOWN THEIR THROATS"), liberally interspersed with ads for
1) trucks
2) a more reliable boner
3) all-you-can-eat shrimp

i'll go further: sports has robbed me of a lot of my humanity. i don't even want to go into details, but essentially the Belichick-Patriots videotaping scandal has turned me into Boston's Most Awful Housemate. all of my roommates are patriots fans, and i am the one who now routinely walks into rooms and announces things like:

"boy! how about them patriots!"

[uneasy silence]

"ALL OF THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS HAVE BEEN EXPOSED AS ILLEGITIMATE. BY ASSOCIATION, YOU, TOO, ARE A FRAUD. HA HA HA HA HA."

[resentment, settling opaquely over our bodies]

"I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE WANTED THE LAST BEER IN THE FRIDGE."

whatever. The Arrival (ramos) is a week from this morning. ideally we will schedule rehearsals on sundays.

until then, though, the 49ers must die.

it's my birthday i can do what i want

2007-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

every year, on september 11, i find myself thinking the same thing: FOUR DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY YESSS

(recently i've also found myself thinking: TERRORISM IS OBVIOUSLY AN UNEQUIVOCAL EVIL BUT THE SENSE IN WHICH IT IS EVIL IS NOT AS OBVIOUS NAMELY THE VIOLENCE IS NOT INNATELY EVIL BUT RATHER THE DEGREE TO WHICH IT ENCOURAGES AND OFTEN DEMANDS A VIOLENT RESPONSE IN KIND AND IN SO DOING ERODES OUR HUMANITY)

i've been messing around with this swift locrian-mode metal riff for a few months, and i set some lyrics to it which are almost certainly my best work:

it's my birthday i can do what i want
i want to take a nap... ALL DAY
i want to play a video game, in my nap
i want to eat a sandwich in the video game
IT'S ALL RIGHT

this song will be ideal for a movie scene in which a birthday party goes horribly wrong. by this i do not mean a party in which two rival girls show up wearing the same dress, and then one of them says something catty, and the other starts crying, and the gossamer skeins of their social relations are severed and flutter gently and poignantly to earth. i mean a party that is raided and destroyed by mongols.

pertinent upcoming dates:

sept 14: birthday party, my house in arlington. come if you're in town. um, rsvp and also bring beer or something.
sept 15: my actual birthday, plus micah's/matt's/heather's/sedgie's pop-minimal project The Arlingtons (name may have changed) has a gig at bill's bar i think at 10pm.
sept 26: ramos arrives in boston

the band is setting up gigs for october and november, including maybe a weekly residency at a pleasant all-ages location in union square tba if it doesn't fall through. also: we are seeking a manager. you! you there. how would you like to drive us around? and set up shows for us? and helm the ship borne recklessly forward on the winds of our astonishing talents? and ultimately make appearances on television apologizing to a nation horrified by a super bowl halftime show in which we succeeded in playing our respective instruments with our junk?

we would love to have you. matt put our demo here for now. listen to it, get back to us. i kiss you.