Nice Work (If You Can Get It)
Apologies to all the working stiffs out there, but goddamn I'm enjoying this unemployment thing. It really agrees with me. And the feeling is mutual. Me and unemployment are getting along famously.
My schedule the last two days has gone something like this. Firstly, let us let X represent the time I wake up.
So is this really how the other half lives? Is this the fabled life of leisure of which I've heard so much? Now I see what all the fuss was about. This is, indeed, nice work. If you can get it. ßßß
Warning: Painful Human Experiences Inside
Oh, good Lord. The unthinkable has happened. Blawg.com has become yet another weblog of an unemployed former dot-commer. What's next? Will I start grooving to Dave Matthews, bro? Will I start enjoying — or, spookier still, understanding — Everybody Loves Raymond? Will I become an average guy?
Not bloody likely, I guess. I've always bristled at the mere mention of the status quo. (Not the '70s British rock band Status Quo, mind, but rather, "the existing state of affairs.") Chalk it up to being raised by bohemians in a blue-collar New England town, I guess. I learned early and often that fitting in was pretty much out of the question, so I went to the other extreme. Granted, it made for a miserable and lonely childhood and adolesence, but it was all worth it.
I distinctly remember my early and futile attempts at fitting in. I may as well have worn a "Please kick my tubby, brainiac, uncoordinated atheist ass!" sign through elementary school. By the end of junior high, I'd figured out that if I grew my hair, rocked a denim jacket, and started drinking schnapps in the back of the bus with the bad kids, I could avoid the worst of the ass-kickings. I mean, I was still getting my ass kicked, but it was mostly of the "My heart's really not in it, but I'm gonna slap the fat dorky kid around anyway because I'm bored and my friends are watching" variety.
Then in ninth grade, 1982 or thereabouts, I transferred from the public school system in my hometown to a private prep school in New Haven. Talk about culture shock. Good God almighty. I went from being rejected by the sons and daughters of the people who built tank engines at the AVCO/Lycoming plant to being rejected by the sons and daughters of Yale professors and community leaders.
I tried to fit in there, I swear. One abortive attempt involved the acquisition of a CB Sports down jacket, which were all the rage, apparently, in the Greater New Haven area. Said jacket was procured and worn tentatively. I must have had it only a coupla days when a gaggle of girls walked up to me and one of their number unceremoniously informed me that the CB Sports jacket in question was, in fact, a girl's jacket. I was, of course, mortified, and reverted to my working-class stoner persona posthaste.
Yep, I'd reject you before it ever occurred to you to reject me. You were on the list. Guilty until proven innocent. And probably still guilty even then. High school was long and lonely indeed.
So I've mellowed somewhat in my old, old age, but I still have no patience for the status quo. It's served me well, my distaste for the commonplace. It's prodded me to discover things I never would have experienced otherwise. I'm still drawn to things and people and art and politics and music that are different and difficult. Push the envelope. Explore. It's not better because it's different, but maybe it seems different because it's better.
And if the girl who who made fun of me for wearing a girl's jacket happens to be reading this, I forgive you. Actually, I thank you. I might have actually become a normal person if it hadn't been for you. Now that would have been a tragedy. ßßß
Take My Job, Please!
Well, it's official: As of 2PM PDT yesterday, January 28, 2002, I am disemployed.
Yep, it was a helluva ride, but it's all over. I managed to hang around through eight rounds of layoffs, and only the shutdown of AllBusiness, the dot-com for which I worked for the last 26 months, could dislodge me.
But don't cry for me, Argentina. There was a decent severance package involved, supplemented by a whole helluva lot of vacation time I never used. And besides, I sooooo needed out of that place, and I never would have left of my own volition. Even though morale was in the tank, the commute was horrendous, and I more or less stared blankly at my computer screen for eight or nine hours a day, it was still too damn comfortable to leave. Very little was expected of me, and I happily obliged. But it turns out I can't operate that way.
When I was hired in late '99, I routinely worked between 50 and 60 hours a week and was happy to do so. We were working frantically to build a website, to stay ahead of the competition, to figure this brand-new Internet thing out. To make something new and different and amazing. The pace, the work, the possibilities — it was so invigorating. I actually looked forward to coming in and working 10 or 12 hours. There was also the prospect of all of us getting rich in the process, but that didn't exactly work out the way we had hoped.
But over the last year or so, with management misstep after misstep and round after round of layoffs, things got grimmer and grimmer. My boss, for whom I gladly would have taken a bullet, left, as did most of the folks I was friendly with. My role became diminished and disparate. It got to the point where I spent most of my day writing song lyrics, reading weblogs, and bothering people on AIM. I'd say that in an average workday I was doing maybe an hour of actual work. Maybe.
Sounds great, right? Nah, not really. I mean, I've dug ditches, and it sure as hell beat the hell out of that, but the boredom and the frustration and the futility of it all were killing me. Crushing my fragile human spirit. But the checks kept clearing, and I kept coming in. And sitting down. And staring at my screen.
I slept through the night last night for the first time in recent memory. Fell asleep at 10:30, slept straight throught 'til 7. It felt fucking fabulous. So I'm already reaping the benefits of my new employment (or lack thereof) status.
Of course now I'm vacillating between unbridled ecstasy and abject terror. One moment I'll be daydreaming about the myriad ways I'll be enjoying my newfound freedom — the movies I'll see, the adventures I'll undertake, hell, I may even finish Infinite Jest! — then I'll snap into utter despair and be convinced I'm going to die penniless and alone and 40 pounds overweight unless I find a new job today. But more likely than not, it'll all work out. And, as is usually the case, the reality will probably fall neatly between those polar extremes.
I've probably learned more in the last 2 years than I did in the 31 that preceded them. I've got a few weeks' severance to depend on, and I've already got some promising job leads. I've got an opportunity to figure out what the hell it is I want to do when I grow up. And if all else fails, I've always got my rock star training to fall back on. So I got that going for me. Which is nice. ßßß
Love It? Or Leave It?
Thank God for Colin Powell. He seems to be the only person in the Bush administration not on crack.
At least he's the only one even paying lip service to the rules of war set out in the Geneva Convention. Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., are saying the Guantanamo detainees aren't POWs, but the Geneva Convention specifically says only a tribunal can determine POW status. It goes on to say that "such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." Powell is the only voice of dissent even suggesting that such a tribunal should be convened, and that's raising holy Hell within the Bush camp. Give 'em hell, Colin.
Rumsfeld's et al.'s continued assertions that the treatment of the prisoners is "good enough" just isn't good enough. Neither is their claim that this point is moot because the prisoners are being treated at least as well as they would be if they had been designated POW status. Not only is that ridiculous (they've been denied both communications with family back home and religious counsel, for starters), but it's also not the point.
The point is that the U.S. is doing it again: playing by our own rules, making them up as we go, and incurring the wrath of the rest of the civilized world in the process. Look: We're not special. For some unknown reason, we enjoyed a really long and mostly uninterrupted terror-free period. That's all over now. We're not invincible. In fact, we're just like everybody else. And, as such, we should be playing by the same rule as everyone else.
Just because terrorists attacked America and the American Way of Life, that doesn't give us carte blanche to do whatever the hell we want in response. Funny how we want to be the world's policeman when it suits us, but we become vigilantes when it doesn't. ßßß
Mullet Musings
Tonight I'm getting my hairs cut. And thank Christ. Never before have I looked so forward to getting my wig tamed. It started out great: an homage to '60s mods, Roger Daltrey by way of Paul Weller, perhaps. But it really came into its own when it started growing out. My hair was pure '70s rock 'n' roll, like the love child of the manes of Ron Wood and "Wired"-era Jeff Beck.
Then something went horribly, horribly wrong.
It came from the '80s, I guess. Since precious few of you have ever seen pictures of me with my permed mullet circa 1984, a comparison to that particular downy disaster won't be especially helpful. But let's just say it was far from a pretty picture. In fact, coupled with the vulgar peach-fuzz "mustache" (and I use that term very loosely) I was rocking at the time, it was downright ugly.
But the current state of the wig isn't far from that. It's trending precipitously and perilously close to a mullet. Now my particular criteria for determining a mullet have always been simple: the "party" part (the back) must be at least twice the length of the "business" section (the front). Bonus points are awarded for other distinctive elements, like completely exposed ears, jheri curls, braids, et alia.
So I'm not quite at the 2-to-1 party to business ratio, but I'm damned close. The back part is starting to flip out to the sides in a disturbing, strawlike fashion, and I've been doing that flipping the long back part back over the shoulder way too often. Spooky stuff, I tell ya.
Well, it all ends tonight. It's been nice knowing you, protomullet, but you gotta go. The diseased part must go so the organism may live and thrive.
Besides, mullets are, like, soooooo 1999. ... ßßß
Memo to President Bush, Speaker Hastert and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, et al.
Gentlemen:
Let's level with each other here. Mano a mano. Tete a tete. You guys claim al Qaida captives are being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Honestly, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, the only reason you've classified these captives "battlefield detainees" instead of prisoners of war is so you can deny them the very rights POWs are guaranteed by the Geneva Convention.
When you invoke international law when it suits you and cry conspiracy and national security and war on terror when it doesn't, it insults your allies, your enemies, and your citizens. So let's quit fucking around here, shall we? If America is gonna be the big bully on the playground of the world, so be it. But when I was in third grade and got the shit beaten out of me on the playground, the bully doing the beating didn't have spin doctors with him telling me it was necessary for national security and was actually for my own good. Even the bully wasn't that cruel.
Love,
Ian
P.S.: Here is a link to the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, in case you needed to brush up. Peace out. ßßß
Recipe for a Perfectly Awful Morning
You will need:
The good news? Well, I guess it can only get better from here. Right? ßßß
My Top 10 Job Prospects for When I Eventually, Inevitably, Get Laid Off
Rock star it is, then. Look out, world. ßßß
Happy MLK Day!
Lowlights of the day, as of 10AM, PDT:
Superbrief Weekend DVD Reviews
Big Night ruled. Can't believe it took me like 6 years to see this movie. Amazing performances all around (with the notable exception of Minnie Driver — ugh), and I'm a sucker for any movie that can give me profoundly flawed characters who are still sympathetic. Woulda been five pentagrams, but Minnie Driver brings it down to four.
Center of the World wasn't nearly as bad as I had been led to believe. The explicit sex stuff was mostly pretty cool, but what really spoke to me about the movie was how profoundly alone its characters were. As intimate as they were with one another, they were completely unable to connect. Scary shit. Not great, but got me thinking. For that, it gets a solid three pentagrams.
Ahhh, and what can I say about The Fast and the Furious? Funniest unintentional comedy of the year? The first three minutes of the film were awesome, and the last three minutes were pretty cool. Everything in between was complete bullshit. Honestly, no words I could type here could adequately describe this movie's badness. You should probably just see it yourself. Or not. Since I can't give it no pentagrams, it gets one.
Hope you're anywhere but at work today. Have a good one. ßßß
Happy Swedish Honey Week!
Crikey cold here in the Bay today. Don't believe me? Witness new cam picture, replete with Arctic Survival Parka and toque/toboggan/beanie/watch cap. Actual frost on windscreen this morning. Can't recall the last time that happened here.
Worked from home yesterday, which is almost always a good thing. I sleep later, am way more productive, and am just happier. No mass transit woes, no sales guys yammering away behind me, and I can play my music as loud as I please. It's a no-lose situation. The only downside I can see is the uninhibited snacking that takes place. But that's a small price to pay.
So that makes two consecutive nights of eight-plus hours of sleep. I also can't recall the last time that happened here. Funny how getting enough rest, eating right, exercising, etc., all that boring shit, colors one's entire outlook. Yeah, it's been a damned good week.
The emails per yesterday's post are still trickling in, but if my stats tool is at all accurate, less than 10 percent of you have actually written in. Thanks to those of you who have. Who you are, how you found me — all that stuff is pretty amazing. So if you haven't written yet, please do. So far I've been able to keep up and write at least a brief response to each and every one of you. So if nothing else, you'll at least get an email back. Not that that's anything, like, exciting, or anything. I'm just sayin'.
P.S.: A special prize goes to anyone who understands the oblique Swedish Honey Week reference. Have a great weekend. ßßß
Data-Mining and Other Junk
Hey, do me a solid: If you read this site regularly, or even semiregularly, or sporadically, or even semioccasionally, take a second to email me. Tell me as much or as little about yourself as you want. Send me a blank email if you just can't be bothered. I'm really curious about how many and what types of sick animals read this site, and I don't have any fancy comment or messageboard-type functionality. I'm not gonna do anything with the addresses (promise). I'm just genuinely curious. Thanks. Now hop to it.
In music news, things are cranking right along. The Hills Have Eyes have three shows already booked in February, and a whole slew (well, five, anyway) new songs, three of which were written by yours truly. And, if I do say so myself (and I do — watch), they're damned good. Great rehearsal last night. Very stoked.
In Wish news (that's the other band), we may not be called Wish after all. Yeah, some lame, pathetic funk-rock-mook-pop band in L.A. or something already has the name, but I bet we could threaten legal action or something and scare 'em into relinquishing it. Anyway, I'm gonna keep calling it Wish for now, because it's too confusing otherwise. I mean, I'm in the band and I can hardly keep it all straight.
Also, it looks like we're gonna ask the crazy Brazilian kid from L.A. to sing for us for the time-being. Yeah, long-distance relationships are always tough, but it can be done. And the kid (we'll call him Ricardo, as that is his name) is sooooooo damn good. So good. You'll see. Or hear. Or something. I hope.
Oh, and I took the plunge and spent way too much money on badges for Noise Pop 10. So far the not-to-be-missed list includes Big Star, of course, John Doe and Neko Case, Death Cab for Cutie and Dismemberment Plan, The Makers, and Daniel Johnston. More TK.
Sleep? What's that?? ßßß
Stand and Deliver
So Adam Ant lost it, apparently, and started waving a gun around in a London nightclub. Now he's been committed to a mental hospital. Those Brits are pretty uptight, it seems to me; American celebrities routinely resort to this type of behavior as a PR opportunity.
Those of you who know him only from his lame, late MTV hits might not know that Adam Ant (né Stuart Goddard) was really a seminal post-punk/new wave figure. Once Malcolm McLaren stole his entire band away to form Bow Wow Wow, Adam hooked up with guitarist Marco Pirroni. Adam and the Ants, and subsequently Adam Ant, reeled off a string phenomenally catchy, stylish pop albums that, along with comeback-era Roxy Music, paved the way for the New Romantic movement. But don't hold that against him.
Tracy and I had the good fortune to see Adam in '95 when he was touring to support his comeback album, "Wonderful." It was at one of those radio-station listener-appreciation things that are now ubiquitous in the way that strip malls and herpes are ubiquitous. My friend's band was playing, and we were hanging out near the backstage area when some security guards start plowing through the crowd, sending little modern-rock kids sprawling.
Then we see Adam Ant. He's on the short side, my height, maybe, but has that inimitable rock-star air about him. Just oozing charisma in the way that only the truly egomaniacal can. People are reaching out toward him, but he's miles away, with a stern, blank look on his face. One guy a couple of yards away from us actually endeavors to touch him.
"Fuck off!" Adam snaps at the guy as he strolls past us. At that moment, Tracy says "Adam!" and smiles her big electric smile.
Adam spins on his heel, looks right at her, and flashes an equally brilliant smile. He singled her out of the whole gauntlet of fans, and it was if we'd been touched by the hand of God. Rock 'n' roll, man. Rock 'n' roll.
Feel better, Stuart. We're pulling for you. ßßß
Amoeba Madness
For those of you who even given the flimsiest flying fuck about music, Noise Pop 10 is coming. And boy, will it rock. Big Star is playing, people. Fucking Big Star. And just about everyone who's anyone in indiepop will be in town. I may even take the week offa work, and I will most definitely be dropping 130 bones for a NP10 badge that will get me into every single show. I've always hated those smug, badge-bearing bastards, and now I will be one of them. Awesome.
One thing I see I left off the weekend's itinerary was the crazy record-shopping spree I went on at Amoeba on Saturday. Many quality recordings were obtained, by today's top recording artists like Botch, Cave In, the Louvin Brothers, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Aesop Rock, Sleater-Kinney, Alejandro Escovedo, Cannibal Ox, and more. Two hundred dollars, people. But I'm not addicted. I can quit anytime I want to. I just don't want to.
I have this weird, ambivalent relationship with clerks at record stores. For some reason their approval is very important to me. Why do I care what some pierced, minimum-wage-earning hipster kid thinks of me? Well, I guess they are, in some ways, the arbiters of cool. I see the way they look at people who bring Nickelback and Dream records to the counter. I see the disdain with which these philistines are greeted. God knows I don't want to be looked askance at when I buy a Robbie Williams CD.
It's almost like buying porn: Like camouflaging that copy of Penthouse in between issues of U.S. News & World Report and Architectural Digest, maybe I can justify getting that Britney disc if I get like an obscure Leonard Cohen CD and the new Vue record. On vinyl. Like my super-hip selections will somehow counteract the profound uncoolness of an O-Town record. Or maybe O-Town is so uncool that it's made the block of uncool and has come back around and now is residing in a duplex of uncool and irony that post-cool. Or perhaps it's gift for a prepubescent female relative. Or maybe I'll just put it back. All of which explains why I still don't have any Robbie Williams in my collection.
So if all of my imagined scenarios are true, if these world-weary, disaffected, sardonic clerks really cared about what I bought, then the opposite should also be true: If I bring some really cool, cutting-edge shit up to the counter, I should get some type of props, right? C'mon, who else would dream of buying the Louvin Brothers, Aesop Rock, Botch, and BRMC all at the same time? That's some kind of coup of creative consumption there. So I go to the clerk, I go, "So, do I get some kind of award for the most eclectic purchases of the day or something?" And she goes, "Huh? Oh. I really wasn't paying attention."
And so another chance to buy that Robbie Williams CD comes and goes. ßßß
Weekend Arithmetic
So 2 days + 10 hours sleep + 2 shows + a movie + 2 rehearsals + a cocktail party + 1 weightlifting session = me, really, really exhausted and in need of another entire weekend to recover from this one.
Saturday's Wish rehearsal was remarkable if only because we had a potential vocalist fly up from Los Angeles to audition for the band. Pretty nutty, huh? And the worst part was that he was really, really great but isn't sure he wants to relocate from L.A. Which begs the question, "Why fly from L.A. to Oakland to audition for a band you're not sure you want to join?" Good question, and one for which I have no answer.
Saturday night we went to check out both Black Cat Music at Cafe du Nord (good) and The Handsome Family at Bottom of the Hill (great). Little bit of culture shock, though, between the two venues: Du Nord was teeming with the hippest of perfectly coiffed and ascot-wearing hipster mod kids, and Bottom of the Hill was full of big-boned transplanted Chicago yuppies. Pretty weird. Weirder still was The Handsome Family themselves.
If you're not down with THF, they're a husband and wife team, the bipolar husband of which sings and plays guitar, while the wife writes the lyrics and accompanies him on backing vocals, bass, autoharp and banjo. Neither is even an adequate musician, and there's no way this agglomeration should work. But it does. Their eerie, sparse, rambling country sketches were alternately moving, hysterical, and terrifying without veering off into bathos. And now that they've relocated from Chicago to Albuquerque, we should have even more opportunity to check 'em out. I recommend you do the same.
Sunday we woke up way too early and went to see Orange County. I know, I know. I deserve exactly what I got — ripped off for six bucks and two hours of my life — but hear me out. I see the trailers for the movie and I see Jack Black. Awesome. Big fan of the J.B. I go on to see that Mike White of Chuck & Buck fame wrote the thing and has a small role. Excellent. This can't be all bad, right?
Wrong. It was even worse than that. It was disjointed, unfunny, implausible, uneven, and lots of other adjectives as well. Ten minutes into the thing I wanted to blacken both of Tom Hanks' kid's big puppy-dog eyes. Jack Black was awesome, of course, as was Mike White, who was on screen for all of 90 seconds.
Look, I don't begrudge Jack and Mike cashing in on their newfound fame, but these kind of I've-gotta-cover-the-bills-from-the-escort-service-and-my-coke-dealer-and-pay-the-mortgage-on-my-new-Hollywood-Hills-spread-type vehicles should carry some kind of warning. An "explicit stupidity" label of some sort. It's not like those guys need my money; tons of stupid suburban kids will flock to this thing, and Mike and J.B. get paid either way. But if Orange County had been labeled as containing absurdly improbable plot twists, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, and inept direction, I coulda skipped it in the theater, saved my time and money, rented it on Netflix, and fast-forwarded from one Jack Black part to the next.
Now The New Guy, on the other hand, looks like some quality viewing. ... ßßß
You talkin' to me?
As of this AM, I am back down to my pre-holiday fighting weight of 175 pounds. That's roughly 80 kilos for you non-U.S. types, and precisely 12.5 stone for you Brits. Never understood the "stone," myself. Unlike us self-absorbed, xenophobic Americans, you limeys will change over to the metric system, but you insist on holding on to an archaic measurement for the weight of the human body. You might as well go back to measuring shit in fathoms and furlongs while you're at it. Weird.
Oh, as you might have noticed, I also seem to have recovered my pre-holiday pique as well. Yes, it seems that all vestiges of holiday cheer and goodwill toward men has left the building. And not a moment too soon, may I add. That shit is draining. Yep, I'm much more comfortable as a seething ball of hate, as it turns out. Nothing but angry punk rock and caffeine for me today. So don't fuck with me, you fucking fuck. You've been warned.
The Hills Have Eyes have lined up another gig, with the help of our new booking agent. Yup, she gets 10 percent of everything we make at any shows she books for us. I don't have the heart to tell her that 10 percent of nothing is nothing. But she's a smart girl. She'll figure it out soon enough.
In any event, the show is at the Stork Club in Oakland on February 2 (Whoa — 02-02-02), which I guess happens to be Groundhog Day. Burt from Cast of Thousands, who are also playing, put together a snazzy website for the occasion. Check it out here, at www.groundhogfest.org. Bring your shadow, your date, your mate, or that new chick from Logistcs you've been meaning to try and get into the pants of. Our unique brand of indie-pop is like sonic pantie remover. It's been scientifically proven and documented. You'll get lucky or your money back. ßßß
RIP, JGE
A week ago today, a great, great man passed away. A consummate musician, bandleader, visionary, and legendary party animal, he may very well be indirectly responsible for the making of more babies than Barry White, Harold Melvin, and Marvin Gaye put together. Of course I'm speaking of the one and only Esquivel!
You probably know his work even if you don't know you know it: Esquivel enjoyed a kind of mini-revival in the mid-'90s, due in part to the inclusion of his work on the soundtracks of "Beavis and Butthead Do America" and "The Big Lebowski." Lots of post-ironic bobo hipster types ran out and snapped up the Bar None Records reissues thinking it was really cool and clever to goof on Esquivel's outré early-stereo experiments. But not only is that selling Juan Garcia Esquivel way, way short, it completely misses the point. Esquivel's sonic studies still hold up today, and he was no novelty act. Far from it.
He was an accomplished arranger, musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and mack of mythological status (he married his sixth wife just last year, at age 82). When primitive recording technology frustrated his bizarre sonic visions, he didn't give up. Instead he made RCA/Victor, his States-side record label, shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to create new state-of-the-art recording facilities for him in L.A. And he pioneered amazing new stereo recording techniques that, when you think about the actual equipment he had at his disposal (we're talking recording live to stereo two-track here, folks, no fancy ProTools trickery involved), makes it all the more amazing. Like Lee Perry, he did things with the recording equipment of the day that shouldn't have been possible.
But don't take my word for it. Fire up that audio piracy application, download some tracks, and listen for yourself. We lost a great man last week, but his music lives on. His rich, romantic soundscapes will continue to inspire couples around the world to get it on and bring new life into the world. What better legacy could one hope for? ßßß
These aren't the droids you're looking for.
So it turns out a friend of mine is dating the dude who designed the new iMac. Oops. Guess I shouldn't have said it looked like a lamp. S'OK, though. She said it looks like a lamp too.
In other news, I don't have anything clever or witty or interesting or nice to say, so I think I'll say nothing at all. Move along. Nothing to read here. ßßß
Curse You, Steve Jobs!
So Macworld is in full effect, which means downtown SF is lousy with Mac dorks. My normally deserted 6 AM city streets are teeming with techies. No sir, I don't like it.
So here's the new iMac thingie. I dunno. Maybe it's 'cuz I'm a PC guy — not out of any loyalty to PCs or Windows or anything, just out of necessity — but the iMac thing looks like a freaking desk lamp. Just not feeling it, Steve. Sorry.
So who says vegans have no sense of humor?
As some of you may know, Moby got attacked in New York — by a feral cat. Yup, he even had to seek medical treatment when the bit finger swelled up to ridiculous proportions. As you also may know, Moby is a hardcore vegan. (Go Moby!) So it was pretty funny to hear him say about said cat, "I've decided that, although I'm still a vegan, I will definitely eat this cat if I see it again." Moby is cool. Not his music, but the dude. ßßß
No Exit
Yeah, this weekend was pretty low key. Lots of quality time spent with my nephew who, by the way, has a whole new page of pictures up here. Plenty of pitchers of me and the wife and the nephew, from Christmas and from his 1st birthday. (Technically it's his second birthday, but who's counting, right?) I suggest you check it out posthaste.
He is now walking like an old pro. Which is great and all, but even constant vigilance didn't prevent him from bloodying his nose on the coffee table. Some scary moments for me and his auntie, but he seems none the worse for wear.
And through the miracle of my brother's new TiVo thing, I saw for the first time the moral and ethical train wreck that is Cheaters. Oh my. Basically, people who suspect their partners are cheating on them contact this show, and the suspected philanderer is then tailed by detectives, busted, and confronted by their partners. It makes Blind Date, Dismissed and Change of Heart look like the 700 Club.
The best part, though, might be Cheaters' mailing address, which is at 4516 Lovers Lane in Dallas. Oh, the irony. ... So I think that one French dude was right. Hell is other people. And those people all seem to be involved with the entertainment industry in one form or another. ßßß
Did Someone Say Liszt?
So it's Day 3 of blawg.com 2002, and I've already run out of interesting stuff to write about. Following the new year's resolutions I set down for myself yesterday pretty much rules out all the cop-out-type posts I usually go to when I can't think of good, substantive to write about. OK, screw the resolutions. Here are more lists.
Top Entertainment Products of 2001. Better Late Then Never.
Worst Entertainment Moments/Biggest Disappointments of '01
Blawg.com's New Year's Resolutions for 2002
Bear in mind that these resolutions are for the site, not for its author.
Rested, Relaxed, Rejuvenated.
Hope you are, too. Here's a list of some of the stuff I did over the last 10 days of freedom:
It wasn't until yesterday, after nine consecutive days off, that I actually felt relaxed. That always seems to be the way, though; I get all acclimated to my newfound life of leisure just in time to return to the grind. But better late than not at all.
Other Bidness
A note about the cam pic in the left bar: I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, and thought my coiffure should be preserved for all time. So I took a pitcher. It came out way better than any of those glammy pitchers I usually have, don't you agree?
Tune in tomorrow for blawg.com's New Year's resolutions, unless I think of something else to write about instead. ßßß
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
