Ceci n'est pas une weblogue.
Apologies to René Magritte, webloggers, and French-speaking people everywhere, but this is not a weblog.
Y'see, in my copious spare time, I've been reading lots of weblogs, and I've come to the conclusion that weblogs are terrible and must be stopped.
Never before in the course of human history have so many people wasted so much of their own and others' time writing and reading about nothing. I mean, c'mon. Your average weblog really is atrocious. I don't care what your dog is doing, what you're wearing, or especially what you think about life, the universe and everything. Life is too short, the Internet's too big, and most people are just too stupid.
So I'm distancing myself from the weblogging community. Apart from the facts that I update this thing every weekday, have links to other folks's sites, and feature the occasional lame attempt at photography, this doesn't much resemble your average weblog. The following are some notable points of divergence:
So if you write a weblog and feel stung by any or all of my comments, please, feel free to flame me. But we'd all be better off if you took that energy and used it to make sure your weblog doesn't suck. Write about something someone other than you and all three of your friends care about. Be passionate. Take a stand about something. Use spellcheck. Make people angry. Make people laugh. Do something different. And above all, remember that this is not a weblog.
I knew that old Jedi mind trick would come in handy one day. ßßß
Who Killed Halloween??
When I was a wee lad, lo these many, many years ago, Halloween was the undisputed greatest day of the year.
You got to dress up in cool costumes and pretend to be someone else. People gave you more free candy than you could consume. What could be better than that? At age 9 or 10, nothing. Nothing was cooler than Halloween.
We'd walk all night, from one end of our redneck New England town to the other. I remember both sides of the streets packed full with hordes of kids and parents. It was like a giant, community-sanctioned orgy. But the best part was coming home and going through my take. Throwing away the pennies, mini bibles, circus peanuts and crap like that, horse-trading candy with my little brother, and eating way more sugar and chocolate than should be legal.
And kids today are getting totally screwed.
We got three batches of trick-or-treaters last night. Three. Fewer than a dozen kids total. We have several metric tons of candy sitting idle in a bowl next to the door, there for the taking. It's pathetic, really. Sure, maybe some of them went to Halloween parties (lame), and maybe some went trick or treating at the mall (lamer), but those kids will never know the sheer sugar-fueled glee that I once knew. The ecstasy you can only experience after consuming your own weight in Snickers bars. The satisfying heft of a king-size pillowcase full of chocolatey goodness. The unmistakable feeling that you're somehow getting away with something. ...
How is it that we've given up on Halloween so easily?? Are we just lazy? Is it too much work to actually get up and walk around and get free stuff? Or have we turned into a nation of pantywaists? What, a couple of psychos put cyanide in some candy? The odd razor-blade-enhanced apple? It would take a lot more than that to keep me from free candy.
If someone's gonna kill me or my hypothetical children, they don't need to wait for Halloween to do it. They could just as easily poison a Happy Meal or spike a batch of juice boxes. So I'll be damned if I'm gonna let Halloween go without a fight.
Now I haven't sorted out the details yet, but we must reclaim Halloween. To bring back the evil. To put the teeth back in the implied threat that is "Trick or treat!" I'll need your help, of course. If you've got kids, next year, get up off your ass and take 'em around the neighborhood. It's going to involve having some actual human contact, but you've got an entire year to work up the courage to deal with that.
No kids? Then at least buy a bunch of candy and hand it out. Put on a mask. Scare the hell out of 'em. Do something. Anything. Don't let Halloween fade away. But don't just do it for me. Do it for the children. ßßß
It's "breast," dammit. Breast.
"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," that is. That's how William Congreve wrote it, anyhow, although Robert McKimson screwed it up for generations of us when he had Bugs Bunny say, vis a vis the Tasmanian Devil, "Music charms the savage beast." But I digress.
Aside from the allergy medicine I used to pop like candy to manage my mood from like age 6 or 7, music was my first drug. From the beginning, I used it like I'd later use chemical drugs; to soothe my savage breast when I was enraged, to celebrate when I was happy, to fuel my adolescent melancholia, and to generally escape the tedium of my everyday existence.
I can remember at 11 getting into beefs with my parents and running up to my room, slamming on my headphones, and listening to Highway to Hell at earsplitting volumes. Slowly but surely, the anger would fade and a feeling of, well, not exactly well-being, but one of relief, would wash over me. It was definitely the best thing going until I discovered the other two-thirds of the triumvirate — sex and drugs — the following year.
But when I cleaned up at the ripe old age of 17, it was the music that saved me. I'm convinced, as sure as I'm sitting here right now, that without records like Can I Say, New Wind and Embrace, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. Just call me the O.G. emo boy.
And it's still the same today. Taking the train to work in the morning, the appropriate sequence of songs on the mp3 player — usually involving Billy Bragg, Radiohead, and Creeper Lagoon — will reduce me to tears. Not so hip on public transit, but what can I do? And god bless the inventors of the Nomad II, cuz I don't know what I'd do without it. The music is the only thing that shuts off the unrelenting chatter in my head. Well, along with sex and food, that is. But my opportunities to enjoy those during my morning commute are limited.
Nope, like the booze and the drugs before it, it's the music that allows me a few precious moments of respite from my own brain. And the hangovers aren't nearly as bad. Although I have been arrested both for driving under the influence of alcohol and punk rock. The booze made me drive poorly and occasionally pass out at the wheel, but the punk rock just makes me drive fast. And the occasional speeding ticket's a small price to pay for having my life saved. ßßß
Is the summer really through?
Winter has come to the Bay Area. Or, more accurately, summer is over. It's gonna rain, on and off, for the next three or four months. Wake me when it's over, please.
I did get to break out the Winter Survival Parka, though (no picture available). With my mod hairstyle and furry parka, I'm even more ready than usual to kick Sting's ass.
Went back to the gym today after a weeklong cold-enforced hiatus. I feel like a new man. Or a different man, at any rate. As soon as I find out who that man is, I'll let you know.
High point of the day so far: hearing Rancid and C&C Music Factory back to back on DMX while I was working out. I'll take my comedy where I can get it.
Like here, f'r'instance. I thought the Onion only did pretend news. Apparently not. Oaktown in the house.
Atheists rule, OK.
Jim Crace rocks my world. I loved his last book, Being Dead, and this Salon interview made me dig him even more. Take this gem, par example:
We live for 70 years and we die, we're roadkill. We rot away like shells or sea gulls on the beach. We're like that; we're that kind of dead. ... We have to backtrack and look at the impact we have on those people who survive us for a short while, the love we make, and for the shallow imprint we make in the sand, which is soon erased by nature. Now that may be a slim kind of optimism, and the route to it may be ugly and hard, but it's a real optimism. It recognizes the world for what it is, not for what it isn't. So here we are.
Inquiring Minds Wanna Know
Did you know that neither Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" nor Fyodor Dostoevsky "Notes from the Underground" have the word "the" in their titles? It's true.
Or that "cemetary" does not have an "a" in it? Me neither.
Do the stars conspire to kill us off with loneliness?
Do they still do Devil's Night? Or did Eminem ruin that too? I'm down for breaking stuff tonight.
Did you spot all three Jets to Brazil references on this page? If you can, you should get some kind of prize. Or psychiatric help. Both, perhaps.
ßßß
Rock 'n' roll won't wait.
If you need me in November, I'll be at Bottom of the Hill. Too many good shows. The things I do for rock 'n' roll. Ahh, well.
Murder City Devils and Botch both crushed on Saturday night. You can read my full and gushing review on the world-renowned musicrag.com.
He's back, he's black, he's better than ever.
Like Michael Jordan before him, Dack has unretired himself. Yes, dack.com is alive and well, having recovered nicely from its jaundiced yellow color and post-ironic malaise. Dack has retitled the site "America Strikes Back: The Dumb War," and is collecting links to point out the futility — if not the stupidity — of America's military response to the terrorist attacks. A tough stance to take, and one for which Dack should get mad props for taking. Keep it real, man.
Note to self:
If you're already feeling sick and depressed, remember: Avoid Amy Bloom short stories at all costs. Good God, man. Every other story has dying infants, lovelorn cancer patients, terminally ill men enlisting the help of their mistresses to help them commit suicide. ... Too freaking much. I'm still not sure that I liked A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, but it certainly affected me.
P.S.: Feel free to avoid poignant, heartrending movies like David Lynch's The Straight Story and Terence Davies' profoundly mirthless The House of Mirth. You're liable to become a complete emotional basket case. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. ßßß
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
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