05.21.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:42 am by Gregory
…because she’s the best candidate. She understands the process, and has earned an ability to lead. Don’t let the media’s slant contort the reality.
Despite the gung-ho enthusiasm of her Democratic opponent’s loosey-goosey “Hopeful!” types, he simply isn’t ready to walk his talk; this is obvious to anybody with eyes, ears and a brain. (In four or eight years, maybe.)
The Republican option, meanwhile, is purely ghastly.
I repeat with sincerity: Hillary Clinton for President.
Incidentally, I’m still in Cannes, and it’s fun. More fun than you’re having, ha-ha. Yesterday, while Harrison Ford was stoned off his ass, I accidentally boinked Calista Flockhart (it was her idea). I said, “Calista, honey, you’re that old guy’s arm candy, and I don’t even watch TV; I really don’t care who you are.” But she insisted. It reminded me of what Vonnegut said, during his boinking-everybody-at-first-blush-of-fame phase: He equated boinking modelesque women with “sleeping with a racing bicycle.”
My own Tour de France, yo.
Anyway, it won’t happen again, um, Crystal Skull is really good (Stoner Skull, more like), and I’ll post up the recent daily reports as soon as they’re fully baked.
Permalink
05.16.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 11:42 am by Gregory
Apportez-moi une chaussure avec fromage sur cela, et je veux masser votre grand-mère!
It’s non-stop sexiness here for Team ÜberCiné!
The next two reports from Cannes: SOON!
P.S. “The Wrath of Cannes”? That’s pretty funny, but no, actually — we were just imitating Mr. Bean.
Permalink
05.14.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 11:42 pm by Gregory
I’m in France!
Les mots ne peuvent pas exprimer comment heureux je suis!
They named this guy after the airport.
I’m not even gay, and yet I’m thrilled to be in France!
Team ÜberCiné landed yesterday at Charles de Gaulle, slightly weary from Priceline’s seventeen-hour layover in Newark, but otherwise chuffed to be back in the City of Light! We were all so excited, we barely suffered from the culture-shock of observing most Parisians (including children and dogs) smoking and/or urinating in public (see: Le Cinéma Français des ’90s) whilst all of the other French people filmed them. Weird, but…Oh la la!
Obviously, because we have no sugar-daddies and the studios don’t care about us, we couldn’t afford to land at l’Aéroport Cannes-Mandelieu like all the tabloid bitches and media freak-a-zoids do, so we decided to transform our inconvenience (Cannes is quite a long way from Paris, especially in flip-flops) into a Holiday — like Mr. Bean’s Holiday!
How we got here.
Yep, since Mr. Bean’s Holiday was absolutely one of the finest (and most beautifully-lensed) Motion Pictures of last year — wherein Rowan Atkinson essentially steals the concept of “Monsieur Hulot” and bumbles his way (natch-urellement) to Cannes — we decided to retrace his steps (and errors, and pratfalls, and general idiocy) all the way to The Greatest Movie Event In The World (Except For, Let’s Face It, Toronto).
Nous arrivons à Cannes!
Arriving even more slightly weary at the outskirts of Cannes where the gypsies dance until dawn, we got lost ninety-four times but finally found our way to the only Motel 6 in all of Europe — where we were smart enough to book ahead.
Mind, in France the concept of the “non-smoking room” causes people to laugh — much like the concept of the “quiet American” or the “actress who isn’t merely a slut who got lucky” — so we quickly grew accustomed to the notion of our breathing passages sealing themselves closed through the night, as well as all of our clothes and belongings quickly smelling like holy hell. This is Cannes! We’re going to have a good time if it kills us (and, if we’re all really lucky, if it kills Shia LaBeouf, too).
Since ÜberCiné is world-renowned for having the absolute best coverage of news, stock reports and pop culture on Planet Earth, we were greeted this morning with fifteen (!) oversized gift-baskets from the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Rupert Murdoch and Pauly Shore (ever notice how the ladies never spend centime #1 on gifts for other people?) — and these we immediately had Fed-Exed to our P.O. box in Winnipeg, because some of the Blu-Ray Special Editions enclosed might be totally worth something someday (possibly even Son In Law — suddenly thinking: “Why didn’t they cast Pauly Shore as “Mutt Williams”? — but I digress…)
Pauly on the Shore (right, with half-boner)
Arriving at the Festival proper, we immediately flip-flopped straight to the middle of Cannes and walked up to the Media Accreditation Table and begged like pathetic little girls for our laminates — which are pretty cool, really, and feature a picture of Pepé Le Pew to signify ” Online Journalist - Restricted Access - DO NOT ADMIT!!!” (This, of course, is a joke — but nonetheless I’m not going to publish a photo of our badges, so that some unscrupulous types don’t bogart it and try to crash the best parties.) The P.R. Women in France are extra-nice, actually, and gave each of us a beret and bottle of champagne by way of welcome.
A Typical French P.R. Woman
And then it was off to our first screening of the day — a brilliant new drama from director Peter Weir called You Only Lick My Daughters! — which was preceded by an introduction by Mr. Weir himself, wherein he confirmed his latest epic as “a sort of spiritual sequel to Witness, only nowhere near as good.” Indeed! In this film, Bobcat Goldthwait stars as a multihyphenate Terrorist-Sexual-Predator-Republican-Senator who accidentally gets caught in D.C. terrorizing and predatoring and Republican Senatoring, and thus steals an inconspicuous purple HumVee and speeds out to the wastelands of Northern Indiana to attempt to tuck himself away amongst the simple, rural folk. Concealing himself in what, at first, appears to be a giant, decrepit barn caked in owlshit, he discovers himself inside a particularly unfortunate caricature of an Amish house, and embraced by a family of twenty-three children (half boys, half girls, and one undecided, played by Shit — oops! — Shia LaBeouf), all of whom he takes prisoner even though they’re, like, totally nice to him. (In a surprise bit of stunt-casting, Larry “Lana” Wachowski plays one of the daughters.)
Larry “Lana” Wachowski (left), with brother Andy
Meanwhile, their father — a short, bald, angry widower who is bald and short (Ben Kingsley) — attempts to kill him with antiquated farm implements.
Sir Ben Kingsley
I won’t give away the twelve surprise endings of You Only Lick My Daughters! (which is altered slightly from the forthcoming Jane Smiley novel, Yet More Cows, upon which it is based) — but basically its title hinges on an agreement wherein the bald, short, Amish widower — whose politics are far from progressive — eventually agrees to allow the Goldthwait character to molest his daughters, but not his sons, because, “the Lord sayeth that’s icky and wrong.” I don’t think it’s a spoiler to add that, by the end, everyone has learned a little something, and grown as a human being. The ghost of short, bald Kingsley’s dead wife is played, of course, by Cate Blanchett.
The audience at Cannes loved You Only Lick My Daughters! — affording it the customary fifty-minute standing ovation — and since it’s the first and only movie we at Team ÜberCiné have viewed at Cannes this year, we unanimously confirm that it’s the very best movie we’ve seen here thus far.
Of course, we’ll be attending the Kung Fu Panda panel on Friday and the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull panel on Saturday, but, as serious cinéastes (some might say ÜberCinéastes), we’re actually hoping to find even more significant and important cultural and socio-political events to explore.
Case-in-point: Mud, the new film from actress-turned-documentarian Hillary Swank.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank,
wearing Polish tablecloth, post Sno-Cone.
Like most fuckin’ actresses who screw and screw-over a bunch of people and become rich and famous and then pretend like they give a shit about suffering people in other countries, Ms. Swank (a former Karate Kid; rhymes with “wank”) was sitting around watching TV one night and suddenly…well, here’s a treat: We at Team ÜberCiné actually ran into Ms. Swank over by the Sno-Cone cart in Cannes, and conducted an impromptu interview re: Mud:
ÜberCiné: Hi. You’re Hillary Swank, right? Make that two “red” ones, merci. So what’s Mud about?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Well, back before I screwed and then screwed-over Chad Lowe, we were doing it in front of the TV, and there was this totally depressing show on, about, like, Southeast Asia and how, like, there’s, like, a big storm there every few days, and then everybody drowns, except then the people who don’t drown are all covered in mud, and I was all: ‘Aha!’
ÜberCiné: But the people who drown are also covered in mud, right? Gardez le changement.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: What?
ÜberCiné: What?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: No — what did you just say?
ÜberCiné: Oh, it was French.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Why the fuck are you speaking French here?
ÜberCiné: Forget it. How’s your Sno-Cone?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Cold and conical — much like me.
ÜberCiné: I don’t even know how to respond to that.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Check out that family over there! They’re urinating!
ÜberCiné: And smoking.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: When I saw Elisabeth Shue urinating in Leaving Las Vegas — and then she won an Oscar for it — I was all, “My destiny is sealed.”
ÜberCiné: What about Mena Suvari in Spun? She actually takes an on-screen dump.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: No Oscar, though, right?
ÜberCiné: Nope.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Well, that says it all. Obviously, dumping isn’t where it’s at.
ÜberCiné: Anyway, let’s get back to your amazing new documentary, Mud — which is narrated by Cate Blanchett and Samantha Morton. So tell me–
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Wait — who do you represent again?
ÜberCiné: ÜberCiné.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: What the fuck is that?
ÜberCiné: It’s an extremely popular and powerful website with millions of visitors each day. It’s also a way of life. I could teach you.
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Okay. My room’s, like, right there.
ÜberCiné: Wanna do it?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Sure.
ÜberCiné: Look, I sat through The Affair of the Necklace; I feel like you owe me something in return. Wait… “Sure”? That’s it?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: I’m an actress. Bang me. Whatever. But can I finish my Sno-Cone first?
ÜberCiné: You’re an actress. You can walk and eat at the same time…can’t you?
Actress-Turned-Documentarian Hillary Swank: Rad!
Obviously, we at Team ÜberCiné were even more slightly weary after doing it with a two-time Oscar-winner who isn’t as pretty as her ex-husband but boxes better — but in fact that’s a total lie, because we’re way above doing it with actresses, and in fact all we did was walk Ms. Swank back to her hotel, stand her next to some failed Eurotrash rock star with guaranteed magnetism for her limited sensory capacities, and then run away with our tape-recorder, giggling insanely. At this point — perhaps due to the mixed effects of three-days’ sleeplessness, slight weariness and drinking champagne from the bottle, we ran into acclaimed funnyman and pedophile Woody Allen, who toppled into a fountain and abruptly drowned.
French Mourners
Allen’s daughter, however — who is also his wife — was heard to say, “Oh, it’s okay — we were all getting sick of him making a mediocre new movie every year anyway,” and, feigning mourning whilst examining the contents of dead Allen’s wallet, offered us their free passes to the evening’s V.I.P. Opening Gala Event: A special advance screening of the remake of The Fat Boys’ immortal Disorderlies — starring Ryan Phillipe and Shit — whoops! — Shia LaBeouf in digital blackface as two of the Boys (the inferior actors perhaps taking their cue from Robert Downey, Jr. in this summer’s August dumper, Tropic Thunder), as well as Cate Blanchett and Samantha Morton alternating as “The Human Beatbox” — with Eddie Murphy playing all of the remaining characters. Truth be told, we didn’t even consider attending the screening — but we did go to the special Cannes Opening Gala V.I.P. Disorderlies buffet for something like five hours, and we brought large, insulated plastic cartons for transport of entire serving bowls of pasta and lots of mysterious deep-fried things back to our Motel 6. There was also something in there which appeared to be snails (!) — but these we gave to the gypsies in trade for a dance each with their women, and now — although it wasn’t as much fun as watching The Apple at midnight at the Nuart — I must say of today — Day One for Team ÜberCiné at Cannes! — simply “C’est magnifique!” — and, head full of ridiculous balderdash and tummy full of French grease, I hastily eye the ten-Euros-per-minute counter on the Motel 6 computer and bid you adieu! this lovely evening.
~Gregory
Permalink
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 10:42 pm by Gregory
Permalink
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 8:42 am by Gregory
Alas, no “time” to ponder.
Funny posts: Next!
Permalink
05.13.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 5:42 pm by Gregory
Oops, looks like somebody fudged the box-office returns. I don’t particularly care about opening week-end box-office (frankly, it’s killing Cinema), but $20.2 million (as estimated/reported) certainly is not the actual $18.6 million that Speed Racer actually pulled domestically over the week-end…
…which is about — what? — between 5% and 10% of its overall budget?
Correct me if I’m wrong, Hollywood, but doesn’t the concept of a Blockbuster involve making audiences happy and turning a hefty profit?
Third place, you played-out Wachowskis. Nice job. [Sarcastic golf-clap.]
Warner honchos: If you had given Speed Racer to me (and my friends), I/we would have made it for less than $20 million, delivered a classic, and sent a fun, exciting and lucrative franchise roaring into action.
Yes, really.
Really-really.
Incidentally, Richard Roeper and (unrelated, but equally depressing) Fred Topel are both total fucking morons who should be washing cars.
(Which is not to say that liking the movie is “wrong”; it’s to say that Richard Roeper and [unrelated, but equally depressing] Fred Topel are both total fucking morons — which is very fun to say, and recommended!)
Goodness gracious, I miss Gene Siskel.
But I must add that, given a quick jaunt around Rotten Tomatoes, I am delighted: I’m pretty sure that I’ve never seen Pete Hammond give a negative review to anything before! And a kinda funny negative review, at that! Nice going, Pete! You can be negative! It’s okay!
Now look out, Dr. Jones — I’m totally above being seduced by my affection for the first two movies (plus a glut of new toys and cereal and M&Ms). Thrill me. That’s it: Thrill me. Thank you.
Permalink
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 9:42 am by Gregory
Today’s random ramble has been superseded by desperate situations in need of immediate attention. While the writer here is a strong proponent of Individualism (usually to the point, ironically, that people don’t like him anymore; alas, it takes guts to think for oneself, about more than mere ego and money, especially), he nonetheless sees and comprehends that The World Is In Trouble, and, thus, dedicates today’s post to the following links. If any readers happen to have money or resources, please consider bringing them to bear via channels such as these:
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERS / DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL
OXFAM
CHINA LAW BLOG (interesting and direct)
CHARITY NAVIGATOR (useful appraisal tool)
…and let’s not forget the locals…
P.S. Yes, of course it’s The Union of Myanmar now. “Burma” is used in order to keep it familiar to Westerners (such as myself) who don’t go there a whole lot. Just so there’s a dab of levity for those who do not surf the web in search of philanthropical quests, it’s really a bit like Chevy Chase on Weekend Update, flatly stating, “The Central African nation of Chad has just announced that it will be changing its name to Brian.”
Anyway, if anybody has any further suggestions for helping — which do not involve religion or attempts at conversion — I’m open.
Permalink
05.12.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 8:42 pm by Gregory
Great song. You can get it as a fun Smiths cover on one of those Warner Bros. “obscurities” (Just Say…whatever) CDs that you can’t get anymore because mainstream pop music mostly sucks now.
Yeah, I went to work today. Like a normal person. It was totally weird.
Mind, since everybody “Googles” everybody now (Related evidence: I was just “befriended” on my fledgling MySpace Music account — TWICE! — by somebody I know personally — but who was probably simply “seeding” other musicians’ “friends” [I loathe that word being used out of context] — which indicates just how irrationally cozy all this online beeznuss is getting), I am going to go out of my way to mention that my current employers really are nice, and they run a nice business, peopled by nice people. I mean that.
I also mean it when I say that I ardently dislike MySpace: I believe that it cultivates terrible Falseness among humans. (But I’ll try it anyway, probably for the same reasons everybody else does.)
DISCLAIMER: This post is being crafted in the stylish “coarse” mode; no appy-polly-loggies are offered. (Stupid Burgess term used specifically so that Clockwork Orange fanboys will stumble upon this post at some point — perchance to nobody’s gratification whatsoever.)
Now…on with the frankness.
The day started badly. It was grey — which is good — but nonetheless, any Monday that begins with me having to get up early and go to work is not a happy Monday. Of course, I am awakened sickeningly early every day by Clompy upstairs STOMPING on my ceiling, and by the lousy adoptive mothers who cannot control their SCREAMING children — as well as all the SUV-Assholes who graduated maxima cum laude from Honking University — but that’s all a given by now. The getting up wasn’t even the hard part — since life has been such a total cosmic joke for me the past several years, I have become very proficient at pretending I care when I am, in fact, totally delirious. (This is why I don’t do or need drugs. People on drugs — I suspect — are simply in more desperate need of a chemical means of faking it. Or they’re merely lazy. Possibly both. I just fake it because this is Earth and that’s what is expected of us here.) So I was up, and delirious, and smiling as though I cared. Check!
The first problem was the big hole in the crotch of the trousers I needed to wear today.
Now, this is Southern California: Although faux-50s is still preferred, you can just about get away with having a chain linking your left nostril to your glans and still work at, say, the DMV. The Norman Rockwell artificiality by which the rest of America (well, white America, anyway) fakes its way through, no longer applies here.
But a gaping crotch-hole — that’s another thing. Not terribly professional.
It has happened to me before. Several times. I walk everywhere. Friction is incurred upon the fabric (bay-bee).
Was there time to go buy some crappy little sewing kit? No. I opted for Scotch tape.
The Scotch tape lasted approximately halfway to the bus-stop — at which point it made itself very well known to me. Hello. Nice social liability, too! However: Determined to go through with this “working Monday” business no matter what, I increased my pace and carefully recited the rap to Prince’s “Sexy Motherfucker.” (Sorry, lit-chix; this simply isn’t an environment that promotes recitations of Wordsworth.)
I then proceeded to miss my bus by approximately two seconds, or five hasty footfalls. It drove on without me. It seemed as though its driver saw me and drove on without me anyway; I often suspect this sort of thing from bus-drivers. Legal revenge.
I cursed the bus, using a medium volume, ridiculous tone, and inventive obscenities. Beside me exploded a chuckle; I had entertained one of those old homeless women who look like they’re going to expire within the next ten minutes.
Good deed for the day!
At this point, my mental process was as follows:
1. Don’t actually want job.
2. Humanity should have evolved beyond labour and money by now. (Seriously!)
3. Why are all these Mexican guys running these OUTRAGEOUSLY LOUD machines all the time? Especially early in the fucking morning? Destroying pavement, lopping off branches, knocking down walls, whatever.
4. Why is there an “emergency” (with BLARING SIRENS) every five seconds here? (That’s being generous; it’s more like every three seconds.)
5. Why was I born?
6. Would being dead just be like dreaming constantly and eternally? (Not a bad deal!)
7. Why does it have to be that voting for Nader would equal urinating?
8. This Orange-coloured VitaminWater tastes rather nice.
And then the next bus showed up. I decided that — cosmic-joke-of-a-life well considered — it would be more interesting to show up for my first day on the job with a ventilated crotch than to cower like a little bitch and go hide under a pile of books whilst waiting to be rescued by people who definitely don’t care about me.
En route, I noticed the bus-bench ads with Madonna’s new album on them. My reflection: “Why does a stupid old bitch like Madonna get to roll around in hundreds of millions of dollars with her English trophy-spouse while I’m riding on a bus, crotcho-ventilato, toward a job I already know I don’t want?”
Nearly an hour late, I walked into the establishment of my current employers.
Nobody seemed to mind.
The owners run a business, so I’m sure they both noticed and minded — but all was cool, all was cool.
Goal of the Day: Keep ass turned away from potential spectators at all times!
Mind: By this point, I was already feeling pretty terrible. Not lazy and not loathing of humanity — just: Why I am here and why would anybody care if I’m here or not?
It was at this point that a couple of rougher-edged guys sized me up, shared a comment, and laughed heartily. Then they decided to include me in their fun.
GUYS: “Hey, yeah, you know, you do! You really do!”
ME: “I do what?”
GUYS: “You look like Sam Kinison!”
ME: “Thanks. I’m going to go chop off my own head and chuck it into the toilet now.”
I didn’t actually say that. I did actually say this:
ME: Uh…he’s dead.
GUYS: [silence]
(I had intended this to mean: “Well, thanks a lot! Likening me to a long-rotten corpse! The nerve!”)
GUYS: [more silence]
GUY 1: You’re a little easier-going, though.
GUY 2: And a bit taller.
GUY 1: And not quite as fat.
ME: [stunned silence; going over the incredible, ego-salvaging power of those modifiers]
It’s a little blurry already, but I think it ended with me just staring blankly until they changed the subject.
I used to get “Kevin Bacon” — today I got “Sam Kinison” — not the most encouraging start (although, as with the blind men and the elephant, it must be noted that people perceive only what they’re capable of perceiving, based on their respective social vocabularies, and to these guys Sam Kinison = Way Cool.)
The only thing I ever liked about Sam Kinison (whom I always got confused with Gilbert Gottfried and Andy Clay, incidentally — the comedians I never liked one tiny bit) was when he shaved his head and mocked Sinead O’Connor’s version of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” That was amusing. Sad — but amusing.
(That’s three Prince references in two posts today. Two of which were not made famous by him, and were, in fact, recorded by female humans. Hmmm…!)
Following that, the rest of the day was as expected. There was a low vibratory hum which could be decoded into human language as, “He doesn’t really belong here, and we know it, and he knows it, but let’s just see how it goes, and not ruffle anybody’s feathers just yet. It is Monday, after all.”
I learnt everybody’s name and addressed them kindly, without getting all first-day-on-the-job weird-assed about it.
Some guy came in who was dumber than a rock; his only adjective — and he used it a lot — was “dope”.
A few little children came through. They all cracked up laughing at the sight of me. Their mothers noticed. I decided to take this to mean that — pre-verbal — they “get it’; and they noticed that I “get it,” too. Thus, they laughed their appreciation.
I ate my room-temperature lunch out of a plastic bag with a plastic fork.
Once again, the people surrounding me today were all very nice.
The most interesting aspect for me, however, was that “JACK-FM” was the station of choice, and throughout the course of the day I pretty much heard every single pop-rock staple of the past quarter-century.
It kinda blew my mind that I knew all of the words to all of the songs, all day long.
This proved, under the circumstances, more comforting than tedious.
Most comic moment: Listening to “Born in the USA” for the first time in years. That song is pure corn. “Corn in the USA”! Hilarious!
Happiest moments: “Buring Down the House” and especially “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)” (who the hell could have predicted hearing that on the radio ever again?)
My day ended with Queen/John Deacon’s “You’re My Best Friend” — which felt wonderful, because I love that song, and love what it means, and love the performances in it, and it always tugs at my heart that I’ve never experienced its meaning yet.
I have, however, experienced the meaning of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” — because not only is it the only song I’ve ever karaoked (in front of frightened old people!) — but freshman year in college — back when friends had fun instead of merely worrying and trading-up — my roommate (who was an actual room-mate) and I (mostly at my behest) sat with Document and patiently transcribed every single syllable of that song, start to finish. I’d never do anything like that now, because I’m certain that I’m smarter than Michael Stipe even though he’s craftier and wealthier than I am. But at the time, it was great. And now I’m feeling a desire to get it off my cerebral cortex or wherever it’s been hiding. Note: I don’t care what the online lyric-pages say; this is our translation of the song, rendered whilst we were still actual teenagers, and phonetically, and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who bothered to memorise this vital treatise:
That’s great it starts with an earthquake birds and snakes and aeroplanes and Lenny Bruce is not afraid; Eye of a hurricane listen to yourself churn world serves its own needs dummy serve your own needs; feed it up an ox-beat crime knows strength the latter starts to clatter with dinner fight down Hi! Choir in the fire representing seven days and a government for hire in a combat site; Lester was a-comin’ in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck; Team-my-team reporters baffle Trump traffic crop look at that low plane five dead; Uh-oh overflow population counter group a little due save yourself serve yourself world serves its own needs listen to your heartbeat dummy with the rapture and the reverend in the right flight; You patriotic patriotic slam-fight-bright-light feeling pretty psyched!
It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine
Six o’clock TV hour don’t get caught in foreign tower slash and burn return listen to yourself churn; Lock it in uniform and book-burning blood-letting every mode of escalate automotive ‘cinerate; Light a candle light a motor step down step down watch it heal crush-crush uh-oh this means no fear cavalier renegade and steer clear and turn ‘em in and turn ‘em in and turn ‘em into flies; Offer me solutions offer me alternatives and I decline!
It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine (plus backing vocals)
Repeat
The other night I drifted nice continental drift to find mountain sea and airline — Leonard Bernstein! — Leonid Brezhnev Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs birthday party cheesecake jellybean boom; It’s a symbiotic patriotic slam-butt-knack, right? RIGHT!
It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine (plus backing vocals)
Cool feedback thing
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
Fade.
So you got that goin’ for you; which is nice.
Actually — this probably won’t be interesting to you, but it is interesting to me — back when that song was new, I still harboured (and was ensconced within) dreams of Becoming Somebody.
I’m really no good at being a normal person who goes to work. If I could — and just have a honey, and watch Plasma with her — I’d probably do that. But I can’t, for some reason. Which is extra-weird in America — where workin’ men worship alleged “Workin’ Men” (who are really multi-millionaires with huge mansions) — but if you want to try to get away with Creativity, they’ll either stop you or ignore you. I don’t understand this, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t want to be an hourly slave, but I don’t want to aim for some ludicrous celebrityhood, either. What does one do in between? Is there a definition thereof? Would you like to insult me with it?
It may have been the folly of Youth, or perhaps it was the folly of Me, but when that song was new, there was that feeling that: Hey, we don’t just have to be the assholes standing around at the mall talking about the guys who do the cool stuff; we can BE the guys who do the cool stuff! We can achieve Somebodiness! (And then, perchance, parlay Somebodiness into Usefulness!)
Shit — Reagan was still in office when that song was new. And Elderbush slightly thereafter. Can you believe that!?
And all along, for a couple of decades, I’ve cultivated this desperate notion that perhaps I could cajole my friends to move beyond bad Beatles covers (happened only once; but they weren’t that bad, actually) toward writing and recording and sharing our own material!
Never happened.
Darn.
Fuck!
Why didn’t we?
Well, it’s not as though Pop Music is exclusively the domain of the young anymore. I mean, the young definitely produce enough shit to fertilise the Sahara, but just look at Queen: New album (The Cosmos Rocks) due in October, and those guys are sixty, and their most gifted member is dead!
So there’s hope.
But I don’t endorse hope.
Hm.
Anyway, here: This is a nice realistic-and-depressing note upon which to conclude this expulsion of work- and reward-related ponderings:
After work, I bought a burrito and put it into my stomach. I also drank a sweet liquid with no nutritional value whatsoever. And then I waited for the bus. As I waited, I tried not to annoy the elder Latina nearby (she didn’t need to watch my assless ass eating). Then, however, happened upon our little scene a third party, being a flouncy female with ‘tude. This flouncer looked remarkably like someone very nice whom I dated briefly in college when I should have mustered the courage to ask out somebody I really liked but the agony of being shot down would have been too terrible to withstand — so I looked at the flouncer a bit. She withdrew from her large bag a small white tube stuffed with carcinogenic leaves, lit one end of it on fire, and began sucking on the other end. This sucking continued until the bus arrived, at which point it began to occur to me: Her ‘tude, her cigarette, her oversized bag, her work schedule, and her general direction all added up to: Stripper.
About this, given where she got off the bus, I was correct.
The aggravating aspect of this observation does not stem from a moral judgment; rather, it emerges from the consideration that the flouncer will be earning at least ten times more money on her shift tonight — Monday night, The Night of the Depressed and Lonely Men — than I earned during my day of Honest Work.
Bleh.
(But at least today was grey…)
Permalink
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 9:00 am by Gregory
One of my favourite things to do is to sleep really late on Monday mornings; it’s my way of saying FUCK YOU! to a world I mostly dislike (that being the world of Up ‘n’ At ‘Em Go-Getter Shitheads). Plus it feels really, really good.
Not today, though. I’m working.
It just makes sense to me, though — if we break the profit-driven, work-week cycle, everybody benefits — except for greedy workaholics.
Anyway, wish me luck.
But wish a lot more luck to China today.
Permalink
05.10.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 11:42 am by Gregory
As I really am rather weary of living in a place where almost everybody is insane, and where Comfort, Pleasure and Security essentially do not exist, there are many things I could say. Tonight, instead, I offer these thirteen words. Drink something carbonated, and try them!
1. Azafata
2. Cuneiform
3. Uvula
4. Areolae
5. Duodenum
6. Poinsettia
7. Lichtenstein
8. Barbados
9. Wigwam
10. Filibuster
11. Pulchritude
12. Misérables
13. Obama
*
Permalink
« Previous entries ·
