Dumping is my business

Alright, it has been a long time. I have to get back in the groove. Here is a quick update. So, I have been slowly realizing that I have too much stuff. Again, not hoarding, but just stuff I have no idea why I never pulled the plug on some of it or just not gotten to the point of looking at a shelf and asked the question "what is all that shit?" I started about a year and a half back, sometime after covid took my mom off the planet and a few months before it almost tanked me. I started looking at stuff and seeing it as not just stuff I did not know why I had it, but as stuff that could be other things I did want. It is math. Have ten things and want one? Sell the ten and buy the one. This has worked out pretty damn well. Except in diving in and parting ways with stuff, I found I did not want to get much of anything. I just throw it on the internet and the money goes into my bank. After a long time wanting stuff and buying stuff - well intentioned collecting - I don't want anything. I want to just get rid of stuff. It is good stuff. I know it. The people who buy it from me know it. But I don't want anything. So I dump. And biz is good. There you go.

Always Too Much Stuff

So, I'm piling through a stack of records - my crack - and I had this flash of a thought. It was a voice in my mind, one I clearly do not listen to enough, saying to me something plain, simple, and honest. It said to me, as me, "I don't need that." It was while looking at a very nice copy of Frank Sinatra's Where Are You? lp. I have had it for several years. Now, at this stage of my life several years could be between 5 and 20 years ago. I know I have had this one fewer than 10 years. But several of my Frank lps have the small, vintage, gummed, return address labels of the previous owner, those of a young woman who lived at one point in Washington DC. I like to think she was young. Back when this lp came out, young women still did listen to this kind of stuff. So I imagine her as thus, although she could have been middle aged. I imagine she could have even, since it was DC, been a young black woman with sophisticated tastes and aspirations that reflected away from the nearby segregated south, so she listened to Frank. But I do think she is now dead. I bought this stash of Frank lps at a thrift shop in Boston several years back, and normally I would, and typically do, leave them. I know I have owned this title before, many years ago (definitely more than 20) when I was younger and would wash dishes to Frank lps on the Zenith hipster hifi console that I had waaay back, and got rid of not too long ago. I had the inner wisdom chime through on that one too, and it was time. However, lets get back to this Frank lp stash. I found them in a Goodwill - all with the same address label - which is a dang good sign that the owner went tits up. Or to a nursing home or assisted living dump, where the will to live has a stunning half life. That is how it goes. As it happens in these cases, the surviving family or, sadly, some social workers, throw the lps in a box and haul them away to the thrift shop. The reasons, places, and everything involved with our former owner buying this lp is lost. I have her name. And somehow, I do know she got from DC to Boston and brought her lps along. Her lps ended up on the floor of a Goodwill, in wonderful shape, when I found them. They couldn't have been there more than a day, as vinyl in thrifts, even back however long ago it was, get trashed pronto. I'm sure this was about 6 years ago. I was looking for a distraction. But back to that fucking voice. I really need to listen to what it tells me. It is right. I don't need this lp. I haven't listened to it more than a couple of times since I got it - this second copy. I did listen to it - my first copy - for a good run when my wife and I lived in a little rented house, that was very cozy, and horrendously cold in the winter, and had a small fireplace that you really couldn't burn anything in lest you asphyxiate, and where I watched a woman sit in her car and inject heroin from the front porch. I really liked it there. It was a nice place and time, and it seemed like every day had some opportunity hanging outside for both of us to run into. And I would stack Frank lps when I got home from work and do the dishes and clean up and get ready to go out that night and do something. That is why I bought these Frank lps again, and have kept them in my now much-larger collection of records. If I heard them I could close my eyes and be right back there. The voice is the prick that tells me I don't need to have the lp to do that. Any of them. I have been selling them off of late, to used shops and people, and giving away a few. And, yes, getting a few. I always will, I think, but they are really losing their appeal, and hold on me. That voice is right. The lp in the pile I went through, right after Frank, was a Herbie Hancock Blue Note comp, and I don't really want that either. If I were honest with myself and the voice, and even whoever is reading this, I don't need any of them. It isn't a digital vs analog thing. I am - we all are - going to end up like the dear young lady from DC. All of this shit we have will go somewhere. We don't take anything with us, and I am now understanding that we don't even get to take anything with us before we actually leave. They don't let you bring stuff like that into the hospital. You can't fit that in a retirement condo. You do not even want to. People who try, or insist they will, are nuts. I may be, or have been nuts myself. But I am now not a nut job, and that voice that speaks to me of the reality that clashes with my tomorrow-never-comes pile of vinyl. A nut's voice says to buy several copies of the same lps and keep them all. Forever. No, I and my brutal voice aren't nuts. I know it's right, and I think I am going to say goodbye to the Frank lp. And a few others. Truth is I shouldn't leave that job to someone else. But saying goodbye to a clean Frank lp somehow got hard for a while. It still is, so I am setting it as a goal for this summer. It will take a while to let go of this hobby-turned-unwanted-behavior, and it will give me something to write about. So, ultimately, our DC lady's lps will end up in a store or thrift in Minnesota somewhere this year. What a globe trotter this one has turned out to be! Maybe the new owner will be in town burying a family member like I did, and take it home on a plane to someplace he or she has gone off to. It's occurred to me that there could've been some other middle man. Maybe some college kid picked it up in DC, moved to Boston, and when leaving their sky-high priced apartment after graduating, and moving on to their new life, donated it. It's funny to imagine. There are a million stories in the naked city, but I still think my DC gal is dead. I'm pretty sure of that. And if she's trying to keep track of how she had an impact on the world in small positive or negative ways, or both, then here's to you, darlin'! Her name was Susan M from Washington 16, DC.

Try Some Quick Start

OK, lets get this out. So, I have been doing next to nothing, writing wise, and I have been slowly, and sometimes horribly, recovering from an ass-load of tragic shit. But I need to get the old writing machine in gear. It has been dead, not happening, kaput. So, shit, lets just do this and see if it grows. I hope so.

Fall Falling

Oh, God, I have been remiss in blogging. I have many thoughts, I just haven't been in the mood to write them down. Soon. Soon.

Son Of Kong

So, I’m revisiting things. Sue me. Just don’t blame me. You could always blame Bush. But really, blame King Kong. I come to bury Son of Kong, not to praise him. Or it. So, we all know that I love King Kong. Or I am fascinated by it in a more positive way, say as opposed to Honey Boo Boo. But as far as big gorillas go, Son of Kong gets no respect. It’s not right. King Kong has been remade a few times. He even pops up fighting Godzilla. Mighty Joe Young – the Edsel of big gorilla movies – even got remade. But poor Son of Kong, who appeared to be an orphan? Shit out of luck after one go round. And sure, it was a shitty movie. And who’s his mom? But lets look beyond the debacle, the shameless cash-in, and complete sham that was Son Of Kong, and lets pay respect to the majesty of Son Of Kong. It gave us….Son of (fill in the blank). When you want to let people know a film, TV show, comic book, rock band, or anything else is a lesser spun off version of a previous thing, it’s Son Of. It works only on crummy things. Frasier was a quality show, but if it had hung from a big fat prick, it would’ve been cancelled and labeled Son Of Cheers. George W Bush is Son of Bush. Put Son Of in front of anything, all expectations are lowered. I replaced a kitchen faucet once, and it was such a disaster that any venture into blind home repair gets dubbed Son of Kitchen Faucet. By me. In my head. Probably by my wife too. We never speak of it. But even with that, Son Of implies you’re around 50 to 90 years old. It’s an old timers cinematic homage to ridiculousness. Youngsters were treated to the equally compelling Breaking 2: Electric Boogaloo. A movie that actually outdid Son of Kong as a horrendously awful pointless sequel. So I guess since I wrote about King Kong, I will re-dub this Thinking of Kong 2: Electric Boogaloo. Fuck that. Son Of Kong. I can’t wait for Bride of Kong. You know they have the script written up for that somewhere.

The Things I Used To Do

Ageing for me has never been a gradual shift of opinion or perspective. There’s been no overwhelming concept of wisdom washing over me. Sure, I’ve learned things, but I think I’ve always had the good sense to recognize that while I have the ability to master complex areas of thought, that life is too short to chase a passing fancy down a rat hole. One can make a good living as a mechanic, surgeon or lab manager. I am not leaving this world as any of those. I gave up poking around under the hood of my car in my 20’s. Later than most, but good enough. I can change my oil, air filter, spark plugs and even tackle belts and hoses if the car is old and simple enough. Fairly early on I had the wisdom to pay people to do those things. I don’t know if I could reap any benefit from school anymore. Maybe. Not med school. Age has a more subtle way of letting me know that it’s made my acquaintance. It’s jarring to know adults who talk of 9/11 as a childhood event. Favorite teen songs are tripe from – oh, I don’t know – a couple of years ago. Or 15. Nowadays, I recall distantly moving my neck freely up and down and standing upright without a dull ache. I have learned over the last few years that age is a constant companion. A houseguest that slowly becomes annoying, and then just moves in. It’s here, and it’s too late to do anything about it. Because it’s getting late. Just yesterday it seems I could spend Sunday evening on the phone with Dad. He would ask how I was doing, and that part was important to him. You could hear that in his voice. The phone would be passed to my brother. Our deeper conversations happened via email or calls that weren’t for the whole lot. The Sunday call was catch up. Mom would ask of the kids, and none of us would talk about my other brother. If he were there he’d be in the background muttering. And after a while I would hang up, and think of when I could see them again. Scheduling is tough. I was cleaning the garage when my dad died. I had given permission to pull the plug on him the day before. The call had been both quick and too long to come, but it did. Both of my brother’s deaths had been via odd jarring phone calls. Mom is still here, but I’ve prepaid the funeral expenses. When I was younger I was never a huge athlete. I could run a decent clip before what – with age – would be revealed as asthma would shoot me down. I’ve put on a few pounds since dad died, as my jogging experiment triggered ankle and hip injuries. I hoped the doctor would find some easy therapy, but the repeated concept was to ease up and back into it. I’m not 25. I just think that way. I still want to travel, to wander far off places and not be thought of as an old guy or worse and on old guy who doesn’t think he’s old. I want to walk to the library, go fishing, push a shopping cart around the supermarket, go to a movie with my son. I want my son to be a boy maybe a tad longer than he’s going to be. I don’t want to sit in hospitals or funeral parlors. I don’t want to think my next car could be my last. But wanting is nice. The last few years have shown me that death does walk beside me. Age is already inside me.

In Defense of Sports - Pee Edition

I was asked to tell a story at a show, aptly titled In Defense of Sports. I am a sports fan, so I figured I could do something. Also, as it was people I like as funny people doing it, I was honored to be asked. And I was also a little confused. Not because there would be a bunch of Chicago Jack-offs up there. That can be insufferable. But the show is called In Defense of Sports. It’s hard to defend it a lot. Even the show promo card had the D and the picket fence – I can’t defend that. You see guys holding that up at a game and you know they are morons. Then there are the balls - sports balls, and right there in your face is the big soccer ball. Soccer? I went to a party in NYC a million years ago. A rave, people on ecstasy, I got a Schooly D record. Say I made a habit of that shit and I could have gone to one and smoked some weed that was dusted. I find myself on a chair, with Pele and Beckham on my lap, they’re naked, tonguing each other, Beckham’s giving Pele a hand job, and the chick who took her shirt off in the Olympics comes over and starts licking my left nipple, - I still wouldn’t give a fuck about Soccer. I’d watch. But fuck soccer. But that would never happen to me. It happens to them I am sure, but not with me and sports stars because no one ends up being in the same place as a sports star without paying. They don’t live in our world. I have never seen Joe Mauer at Home Depot; I have never run into Kevin Love at Rainbow. Never saw Kevin Garnett at Southdale. They have people like us do that stuff for them. Unless you’re a hot blonde, it is accidental. I was in a BK drive through and looked in the rear view to see in a gold Benz behind me – ML Carr. But he was retired, and it’s not the same. I have run into TV and movie people. I did meet and talk to Bruce Springsteen at a gig I did. Nice guy, short. Cool 64 Impala. I hate his music, but that was cool. But even he knows he’s no Thurman Munson. So here’s my special Sports story. It’s a boxing story. And it involves me, and not a star, but the reigning champ - and both of our dicks. I took a leak with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. It was in a hotel men’s room, not unlike the one at the BLB where the show was, but not nauseatingly filthy. It had three pissers. A guy was at one end, so I took the other, leaving the appropriate empty one between us. And he walks in – bald, and wearing sunglasses – and takes a leak right next to me. I know what you’re thinking, and NO – I did not look at his cock. Sure I wanted to. I pictured it then as now – massive, dark caramel colored shaft, purplish tinged mushroom head. All the while his forceful stream made the porcelain chime. I wanted to look but I got hold of my thoughts – He’s a boxer. A good one too. He beats the living shit out of people for a living. I just knew if I looked… It’s a sure bet I’d see he was pissing BLOOD. That would make me fucking sick. Blood out your ass? Fine: everyone has that. But, out your dick? Jesus, I would’ve keeled over. We did our biz, and the fucked up thing is a month or so later I’m walking down Boylston St, and who’s coming right at me in a Root Beer colored three-piece suit with a tall hot piece of action in an ankle length fur? SUGAR RAY LEONARD. That’s two champs in the flesh within weeks – didn’t cost me a fucking dime. No, I didn’t piss with him, so I can only imagine his mammoth prick, and bloody urine. They say these things come in threes, so its possible I played slots with Buster Douglas at Ho-Chunk and missed it. But still – two champs that I could’ve literally stuck out my hand and stabbed. So I keep it here in my heart – for a brief moment in time my cock did a synchronized whiz with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. And the other guy who probably remembers me as I do him – some asshole.

Son Of Guy With Metal Things For Feet

In reading, or re-reading, my earlier epic on the guy who ran in the Olympics with metal things for feet, I thought at times I might be too hard on the guy – and people who embrace the Olympic dream in general. Truth be told, I made a lot of heavily opinionated presumptions about the guy, and people who devote their early time on the planet to intense sports training. My opinions are often my downfall among many of my acquaintances, who end up holding me at arms-length after being exposed to them. Sometimes my wife falls into that group as well. But I’ll be G-D’ed if I am going to change at this stage of my life. And I will admit that I tend to take a bleak view of large swaths of the greater population in my proclamations, especially in light of how, just to recap, there were humungo blobs of people who just felt all glow-y and inspired by the athletic aspirations of this disabled “hero.” So, just to bring it all back into focus, even more than I ever gave a damn for, the guy was South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius. Old Oscar ran on prosthetic feet that I accurately described as being akin to the leaf springs from a 1967 Pontiac Firebird. Others less accurately described them as being like blades, and he was apparently dubbed the “Blade Runner.” Blades, leaf springs, cake frosting spreaders – whatever. He had no feet, and wanted to run so intensely, that he and some other sports-focused prosthetic engineer cooked up these things. And to recap again, my opinionated rant concluded that the guy was a fucking nut job. And people who get so into sports that they consider this a healthy endeavor are also fucking nut jobs. And I did all of this before our hero Oscar MURDERED HIS GIRLFRIEND. Seems he thought she was an intruder. And he stabbed her repeatedly. I have seen photos of his girlfriend, who was also a model. Her name was Reeva Steenkamp. If he had not butchered her I may have thought of her – if ever - as the woman who hooked up with the guy with metal things for feet. I may have thought of her as a model – a hot one by the way – that hooked up with the metal feet guy, if I had known that much. Her motivation for hooking up with a guy who ran on leaf springs? I could go off on that tangent, and alienate some more people, but please: you do the math. Again, as sure as I am not an athlete, if embracing that lifestyle as normal would be required to be an athlete, I am also sure that I, if a woman with a chassis like Reeva was an intruder in my bedroom, would seriously try to avoid stabbing her until it was absolutely necessary. But, in a nut shell, I went out on a limb and gave my two cents on the Olympic afterglow for the blade runner and said what I thought: something is off with this shit. I ain’t down with it. And so, if I annoyed anyone by saying that I could see this particular emperor’s cock, sorry. But, between me and Bob Costas, I think I nailed it a tad better.

Post Show Blah

Well, I had a decent show. Boiling it down, I moved about $40 worth of vinyl and took home a load more than that. Sadly, I took home most of the vinyl, which is conflicting. I want to get rid of it, but then I wish I had some more hot stuff for the next one. I want to do a next one, but then I don't. I would probably want to just go and buy shit. Crazy. I had a disc that was pretty rare, and moved it for about 60% of what I was asking. I felt good. Then the guy threw it on ebay and sold it for over $200, which was about 4 times what I got. So I feel like a schmuck. Then the car blew a head gasket (or possibly the head) and that pretty much kills that car. Oh well.

Record Show's a coming

I typically find no desire to post what I am doing, or to even ramble on about what I think about something in particular. Seems to be a thing women do. But I am about to plunge into a record show again. It has been over a year. I love going to the things, although deep down I wonder how long I can enjoy this hobby without it being a distraction from other shit, like writing stuff. But I have too many lp's, and it is time to start dumping. Truth be told, I typically buy a lot of the discs I do with the idea that I can probably make money dumping them. I have. I have toyed with a blog that would chart my rise into capital gains tax status with some of the things I have sold off. But a show comes up next week, and I have to cull the herd. Maybe I will write about that. We shall see. I hope to write about something that I really feel the need to write about soon, like the metal feet. But this is something, no? Oh, yeah - mom's in the hospital, and I worry this is the end run.

Torch Dropped

I am not an athlete. I know this about myself. Now, I do wish I were more athletic in general, but I have come to understand that I do not aspire to be an athlete. A musician may or may not show the same dedication as an athlete. It takes practice to get to Carnegie Hall, but a guy who gets bombed every weekend and plays the ukulele at 3 AM is still a musician. I was a musician and still pick up and play things, but I am not an active performing musician. Anyone could be into sports. That does not make you an athlete. An athlete is different. I think nothing is more exemplary of the peculiar nature of an athlete than this past summer’s Olympics, in which the world was enthralled by the dedication and perseverance of…well, I don’t remember his name. But lets call him that guy with the metal things for feet. He had suffered some mishap that resulted in the loss of his feet, and he competed in the Olympics with a pair of springy metal things. The world was inspired and, as I just said, enthralled. Count me out of the world for this one. Here’s the thing: say one afternoon I was shopping at Von Maur and riding the escalator when I began to feel faint, and then I fainted, falling on the escalator. Not down it, but just falling back. And I was wearing shoes with too long laces. As the escalator reached its end where the steps go flat and into the floor, they catch my laces and suck my feet into them, mashing my feet up to the ankle into a pulpy shredded mess of blood, flesh, and bone. I briefly snap back into consciousness, shrieking an un-Godly howl, but promptly go into shock and unconsciousness again. Some time later - days perhaps - I awaken in the hospital, where an emotionally flat doctor, I think from India, informs me that my feet have been amputated, but as they were able to do this below the knee I should be able to walk again with prosthetics and much lengthy rehabilitation. I am not sure what might go through my mind at this point. Maybe I might wonder, “Where’s my underwear?” But I am pretty damn sure I would not first think, “I have to run in the Olympics.” And for pretty good reason. That being running in the Olympics after getting your feet cut off is mental. Without feet, one would still wander the planet into a ripe old age, even bouncing around on what look like a pair of leaf springs from a 67 Firebird. I might think something like “what am I going to do for a living in ten years?” If a violinist got his hand cut off – say the fingering hand – I think they would be universally practical and sell the violin. They might take up percussion, or slide guitar, and still play music. But they wouldn’t probably start asking Dr. Bombay for the bionic hand and an audition at Julliard. Just a guess. I don’t rule out one day that being an option. I hope so, yet I worry that the re-attachment point would be less suited to stress, maybe resulting in the fake feet sheering off mid marathon. People who go deaf can benefit from cochlear implants, so if you love listening to the ballgame on the radio, there you go. But a true athlete will hear none of this, nor will their parents. Olympic athletes and their parents – who don’t just stumble into Olympic training programs with their kids accidentally – regularly, subject themselves to rigorous and stressful routines. These routines often involve your child not living with you anymore while in grade school, intense workouts that delay sexual development, social retardation when around people not involved their sport, obsessing with their physical appearance, and familiarity with sexual predators. But, they don’t worry about paying off student loans, so maybe that is good. After the Olympic competition period of their lives has passed – sometimes by 15 - they can have reunions where they swap stories of their depression, psychiatric counseling, drug and alcohol abuse, how they are coaching some kid now and those special competitions way back, like the one where they had a group encounter with Usain Bolt. And they can remember that guy with the metal feet. No, I am not an athlete, and with age I grow more uncomfortable with every wistful Bob Costas report that I am pretty sure is supposed to be inspiring to me, but only makes me think of the Ottoman Empire raiding Christian villages for young boys to be taken and turned into efficient killing machines that would then turn around in 20 years and kill the village. The ratings for the Olympics have been trailing off for the past couple of decades. The novelty of seeing them may have gone the way of networks telling us the program we were about to watch was in color. Their height seemed to parallel the economy running low in the past, like Tarzan being wildly popular in the depression. But they were up again for this year's. Times is tough, but I did watch more this year, what with the women’s volley ball camera angles and the guy with metal things for feet.

KING KONG!

I like to get out to the movies, but I don’t get to that often. I can watch movies on demand if I miss them even at the buck theater, which is now two bucks. I can do that, but I just never do on demand. A week or two later, then its just on TV. If I wait long enough, it seems that King Kong will be out – again. I saw the Jack Black one. If you saw the original then you know the story. Same basic script. And that is tough because there is something that bothers me about it. You know the part where Denning unveils Kong for the people in the theater? He says

“Behold Kong, The Eighth wonder of the world!”

Now here is the thing: Kong is a big gorilla. I mean gigantic, and that is impressive. But we have just watched these guys go to an uncharted island, fight the stone-age tribe that lives there, run into man-eating giant insects, the complete collection of Jurassic Dinosaurs, and King Kong, whom they knock out with a gas bomb, tie up, throw on a boat, take to New York, and load into a theater WITHOUT incident - and THAT is the 8th wonder of the world? How about that ISLAND? 5 minutes before, they are being attacked by dinosaurs. DINOSAURS!! Millions of years on this island, I would say they get to be 8th wonder before Kong. How about the tribe? They live on this island for 10's of thousands of years, and built a wall that keeps all these things away. Including the flying dinosaurs. How come they never fly over the wall? 8th Wonder right there. Initially, I am thinking Tyrannosaurus Rex has 8th Wonder down pat, but that wall is literally amazing. In comparison, a giant gorilla is a frigging birth defect. But they remake the movie every 20 years. Why? Because we LOVE King Kong. We do. A movie where a giant gorilla goes nuts – APEshit – in New York. We relate. Not the whole over-the-top Beauty and the Beast thing. Sure, bestiality is fascinating. But the anger, the violence, a blonde in her undies, and there is a cuddly big pet thing in there. They don’t remake it because of the story. I think the guy who wrote King Kong was a con man. It’s built on that whole con artist thing where they tell you some story and we all sit there and go, “what? Yeah sure. Ok” Think about the gaps in the story. The whole leap of faith. They catch Kong and bring him to New York City. I haven’t tried to import anything via ship lately, but I think that it is not too easy to just show up at the dock with a giant gorilla. You couldn’t import a case of soy sauce in this country. And I think wouldn’t somebody be looking for all the guys who died on the island?

“My brother was on the ship with the giant gorilla, and he hasn’t come home.”

“What? Can you wait till after the theater premiere?”

“Ok.”

That Denning character – just not a big picture guy. He gets the gorilla, and: Shit – how can we make money with this big fucking gorilla? Maybe we can bring him to a theater and have people pay $20 to ….LOOK at Kong. For how long? I think after 5 minutes that show would suck. What was the show going to be? Was he going to dance? It’s not like he could be funny…LIKE ME. He was all chained up. Maybe, I think, they were going to torture him. Its possible - people would dig that. Behold KONG, the 17th wonder of the world – then he shoves a tazer into his nuts. In the flick, this thing goes to Broadway. I said $20 because I am guessing a show was $20 before Pearl Harbor. Maybe less. I know that nowadays, even if you scored tickets at a booth, you’d be out a week at a bad motel. Even in New York, how long could that show run? A couple of months?

“Hey, I got tickets to King Kong.”

“Oh, it’s just a gorilla, plus he shits and pisses on his platform and it is gross.”

Maybe they planned to take it on the road. Two years later they would be playing Anchorage, and Kong would be so bored and fat he would sleep on stage. Then they would really have to tazer his nuts. You’d read in the paper that King Kong got sold to a roadside hick show in northern Florida. Or they would figure out he cost so much to feed they would pull over on some road in Nebraska and shoot him, throw him over the side of a hill. Big gorilla is fascinating, but come on. If they caught the Tyrannosaurus, I would be interested. I would want to eat it. There is not a lot of thinking through with King Kong, but boy, do we love it.

Damn Your Eyes

This is a rare classic slam, old Damn Your Eyes. I heard it a
few days ago, and recalled the first time someone yelled it at me, or more accurately,at a kid I was with. The yeller was an old gal herself, and my friend really deserved it, or possibly even a kick in the ass. Or both. I didn’t deserve my eyes being damned, but I did laugh at what he said. Whatever. But even then, it really hit home with me. Damn Your Eyes was a top drawer rip. There are lots of things you can say to people to let them know you wish harm on them, and think they are less than shit on your shoes, but Damn Your Eyes, now that is a cut above the rest. It expresses all of that, but it is clearly wishing a severe state of affairs on your eyes. You could just say “I hope you go blind,” which is rough. But damning one’s eyes? Now, that is calling God into the mix. You are wishing God would remove all holy protection from someone’s eyes, and tangentially the whole bag of bones. Opening someone’s eyes to evil is wild. That could be blindness, but it could also be injury. An injury birthed from Hell itself would imply a lot of nasty crap. Like, maybe they could still see, but their eyes would burn, from something like a handful of Snowy bleach. That would really suck, especially if you were young, and could live a while, but would always walk around thinking “why me?” all the time. Wishing death is pretty bad, but wishing an existence with damned eyes is harsh.

Maybe the idea was a big rip AND wishing that your eyes would see evil. Seeing evil is bad. That reminds me of the movie The Sentinel, where this chick has to guard the gates of hell. It starts showing up while she is reading a book – maybe Jacqueline Susan – and it turns into Latin to her. Her eyes were damned. Actually she was, because she tried to kill herself. People today wouldn’t buy that. Killing yourself, and not doing it right, well, then you just have problems. Not a sin. Sin is hard to buy, angels are easy. Either way, seeing into hell every day, watching out for demons trying to sneak into the world, not a gig I want.

And I think that is why I really like Damn Your Eyes. It is multi-purposed, and it is really heinous. I just was part of a film fest, and our flick failed to impress, but when I think of some of the things that did, I really don’t feel bad. I mean I did, but I didn’t as far as content and effort wise. But when I see some things that do impress people, and I think of what a lot of people tell me is good comedy, or when I think of Hotel For Dogs. Then I think too of that old gal, yelling “Damn Your Eyes!” And maybe she did mean me too.

Animal Crackers In My Soup

4/30/2008

I got a call asking me to pick up animal crackers with frosting and sprinkles, so I did. I love those myself, but I also like regular animal crackers, in the teeny box with a string. Frankly, I find those to be delish. Funny thing is, every time I see them, I think of Shirley Temple singing that song. It is a fun tune, catchy and pretty much a classic. But I think the guy who wrote it was just making shit up. Regular crackers – saltines – they rock in soup. Oyster crackers work as well, especially in a nice chowder. I'm no fan of Manhattan Clam chowder, but if I had to, I would put Oyster crackers in that. But who the fuck puts animal crackers in soup? That would be horrific. First and foremost, they are cookies. You don't get a bowl of chicken noodle soup and pop in some oatmeal cookies. You don't eat that. This guy wished they were crackers, so his song would work. Perhaps, he never even had them, and just saw them and assumed they were crackers. But I guess it is possible that people back then put cookies in soup. Man, the Great Depression was no fun. Great songs, though.

Wow. I forgot about this. Well, I am back. I never went anywhere, kind of. I just dealt with my brother dying, and some other hideous shit. Makes writing just another thing you can skip. But I have been writing again, and thinking, and moving beyond doing laundry in my free time. So, there you go. I will start putting stuff up again. I promise.

The Wonder of Radio

If you listen to as much radio as I do, then you are probably someone who gets stuff done. You can have the radio on and still do the laundry or whatever you need to do. Maybe not as much as you could, or you wouldn’t be on the internet reading this stuff. But with radio, you also stay informed and you are up on the latest whatever. So you probably have heard the Preparation H commercial. If you haven’t, go turn on the radio and wait.

In case you have heard more than one, or you really don’t have time to listen to the radio as it might get in the way of that scrabble game you play on Facebook with someone you know but don’t ever get to physically be in the same place with, then I will give you the nickel tour of my fave. It extols the virtue of Preparation H via the sad tale of a guy who takes a romantic carriage ride through the park with his beloved. He speaks in a deep voice with a hip urban vibe. In the process, the bumps and horse-trot-induced jerky ride send shockwaves to the poor guy’s hemorrhoid filled asshole. I am just taking it that he has hemorrhoids. He could have poison ivy of the ass, or maybe his wife threw cayenne pepper and fiberglass resin in his ass while he was asleep. But he does talk about the itching and burning. It being Preparation H, I am thinking rhoids. At any rate, I have heard this commercial several times, and I laugh out loud every time. I guess as comedy goes, I have a sophistication level that reaches far enough to enjoy Monty Python and not so high that I can ever chuckle along with the pretense of humor in a Garrison Kellior show. But when I find lowbrow humor, I can go waaay below Curly Howard drinking out of a rubber boot. And this is about as low as it goes.

Not that I want to tell you about that one slim aspect of this wonder of a commercial. That would be too easy, and besides that, anyone who knows me knows I laugh at shit like that – pun intended. No, there is so much more to behold here. Lets start with the creative process. The agency that came up with this had to have been the happiest and most fun place to work at in the world the day they got this assignment. Having a hemorrhoid cream company as your client assures a good sense of humor will develop if there wasn’t one. (Yes – rhoid imagery is hard to suppress right now) And they have the BEST. But if this is the campaign that the client bought into, what in the hell did they reject? I tell you who knows: the guys that came up with this work! And I bet they die laughing still over each one of them. I bet the client did too. The secret to happiness is loving what you do for work. And I bet these are a lot of happy people. Why not?

It goes beyond the concept of adults at an ad agency brainstorming over how to illustrate a really bad place to have your ass if you have hemorrhoids.

Once, a countless number of years ago, a small semi-aquatic creature dragged itself out of the primordial ooze and used its primitive lungs to breathe life-giving air. In doing so it set in motion the evolutionary process that lead to modern mankind fighting against all odd to survive (creationists, play along). In the years that followed we gathered together to survive, to spread over the globe, to create great civilizations, to withstand anarchy and war that followed their collapse, to contemplate our existence and creation in great religions, to invent, to philosophize, to love, and learn. In the past one hundred years, humans have come up with wonderful inventions: electric light, air travel, space travel, harnessing of atomic energy, medical advances, and standards of living that would have been unimaginable a generation or two before. We can communicate directly from our desktops with any number of people around the globe, we can digitally send volumes of books and music to anyone instantly. And with radio we have the latest news, sports, and entertainment for free floating in the air. And what do we do with that technology? We have the deep and accented baritone voice of an adult tell us how he slathers his festering asshole with a soothing cream. Or, as I like to think of it, the zenith of western civilization.

I think if we could communicate with that first creature to leave the water, and tell it of the commercial for Preparation H, he would turn the fuck around.

Oh, God. I haven't been in a writin' mood. I have been pulling records to sell, which is cool because A) records are HOT now, and B) I have too many. So, here is another oldie:

Spicy and fast

I have enjoyed Big Bowl since I was in Chicago. Now, I still enjoy it but the service has kind of dwindled with the novelty. You wait a while longer, they fuck up the orders every other time. The wait staff used to be the top drawer people, now they are the ones who are trying. But overall, still good stuff and the ginger ale is a trip. I keep pushing myself beyond the pad thai comfort zone, and I find that is where life's true rewards lay. And they give out fortune cookies. I find these to be both fun and irritating. The name itself is misleading, as they very rarely tell your fortune. This may have been a mistranslation of some Chinese word, if the Chinese actually had these things. Chinese food, like Ginger Ale 40 years ago or Kit Kats in Canada, is still remarkably different depending on where you are here, as opposed to where the Chinese people who make it are from. But the fortune cookie is pretty much universal. And again, Big Bowl is not Chinese food, but a corporate regurgitation of pan-Asian cooking. But really not Korean or Mongolian. I suspect the Chinese may call these things Interesting Observation Cookies. The idea that the cookie is magically connected to you on some spiritual level, and somehow finds its way to you, is still there. At any rate, I went to Big Bowl, and my fortune cookie actually told a fortune, and was not some odd flattery or character assessment as most are. It said I was going to receive a cheerful message. As I was reading this, the waiter was bringing the check to the table behind us, and apparently he had to add or fix something and was back with it. He was a fairly short and apparently Mexican guy. The cheerful blonde gal accepted the bill and said with a big smile "Wow, you really are Speedy Gonzalez." He smiled. I did too. She seemed oblivious. If my fortune cookie had said "You will hear a woman call her waiter something that could offend the dogpiss out of him" I would have shit my pants at its mystical accuracy. I hope by telling what it actually did say that I have not ruined my fortune. I can always use a cheerful message.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Max And Ruby

Have you seen this cartoon? I don't know if you watch cartoons, and I really don't want to, but do. I haven't had any serious head injuries, but I imagine life would be like this if you had one. Ruby is glib and all, being more mature. Max is reasonably intelligent for the small child-like bunny he is. Yet they live in a world where all thought and action is delayed and stunted. I hate this cartoon.

Originally published Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Large Regular is coming right up

Hi, I'm Jimmy D and this is my blog. I call it The Large Regular in honor of the true life's blood of any place that I can feel at home in - a large regular. That is a large coffee with cream and sugar if you are from a place that I feel less than at home in. I will post my ramblings as I get to them, and move over some stuff from the old facebook dump. Consider these to be the mental donuts to go with your large regular. They will wake you up and keep you going. Atta-boy!