Better Late Than Never

It's not really the new year 'til we've heard from Jib Jab.

Further Complications

Francophile Takes Piss. (Rock 'N' Roll Snob Pick of the Week!)



All gather round now, I'll tell you what it's all about
You find a good woman and then you fuck her 'til your hair falls out
A round of applause, please, for the totally clapped-out
You got them Caucasian Blues again

And don't wave your cash around, it cannot buy you into this
'Cause you're a waxy-legged, tacky, meat-faced fool and your money is just cowardice
No sense of rhythm and your name's not on the list
You got them Caucasian Blues again
Oh yeah

And so you finally took the plunge and got into blues rock and you like to give to charity
Because it's easier to patronise than face the facts and now
I've heard it said that you are hung like a white man
You got them Caucasian Blues again
And again
Oh

And now you're asking me to sympathise and let you off
Because the climate is a-changin' and the times are tough
And you took all that you could but it was not enough and now
I've heard it said that you are hung like a white man
You're yesterday's news, you've got so much to lose
You got them Caucasian Blues again
Oh!

Caucasian Blues, yeah
Caucasian Blues, yeah
Caucasian Blues, yeah
Caucasian Blues, yeah
Caucasian Blues

Stewart vs. Cramer

Part 1 of the pants-down-spanking The Daily Show gave the CNBC network last week. Jim Cramer, the ridiculous screaming asshole of Mad Money, just looked like the pathetic ignorant loser he is. The other 2 segments are linked so please check them out, serious stuff.

Best Description Of Nostalgia Ever

Yep, it's another quote from Truck. The set-up: Michael Perry travels to New York to meet with editors and publishers. While there, he makes a pilgrimage to the Whitney Museum of American Art to see Edward Hopper's Seven A.M., a painting that makes Perry ache with nostalgia. A photo from a truck brochure from 1950 has a similar effect, which is where today's reading picks up:

Not all the neural paths fire in such obvious sequence. The first time I saw those sun-blasted palms backdropping the yellow International, I thought immediately of chase scenes in The Rockford Files ... The theme music, ongoing answering machine joke, Jim's put-upon wit, the way he ran like a stove-up ex-jock, I am fond of the whole package. But whenever he is in flight or in pursuit, my eye is drawn past the Pontiac Firebird into the background where California lies apparently lazy and hot beneath a sun whiter than the one we know here in Wisconsin, and beyond the set I see the new highways and the bare hillsides and I think of the subdivisions and teeming engines to come, and I become petulant over the fact that I can't wander in there. Never mind that the series was shot between 1974 and 1980 and we're hardly talking about garden of Hesperides. It's not about the preservation or the loss. It is that I have been cheated of that place in that moment. This is something beyond nostalgia and verging on saudade, a Portuguese word I first encountered in a Jim Harrison essay in which he spoke of obtuse sentimentality, childish melancholy, and a sense of life irretrievably lost.

A Forkful of Crow...

Washed down with a swallow of pride.

Question Of The Day

I was talking to the wife last night about a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed in the theater but had no interest in seeing again. That got me wondering why some movies that we LOVE we watch repeatedly, while other movies that we LOVE get one viewing. Any thoughts about why that is?

And by way of example, what are five movies you really enjoyed that you never want to see again and five that you could watch at least once a year for the rest of your life?

Never Again:

1) Schindler's List
2) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
3) Gangs of New York
4) Capote
5) King Kong

Repeat Viewing:

1) Blade Runner
2) Empire Strikes Back
3) Godfather, Parts 1 & 2
4) Breaking Away
5) The Matrix

Who Remembers?

Ah, the series that reminded us that most truck drivers are sexy, scantily-clad women and that anyone in America can own a chimpanzee. What a wonderful role those old '70s shows filled, showing us what the world was really like. No wonder we're all so well-adjusted. Or is that the result of our perfect fathers?

Joe Posts A Secret

Yikes

Better add Amy Winehouse to your dead pool. According to the Daily Mail (which I assume is some British rag):

Onlookers said she appeared disorientated as she wandered around on the pavement for several minutes in the freezing cold before disappearing back inside.

"She came out of the house, walked down the drive and wandered around on the pavement for a bit.

"She looked upset and agitated but there was no obvious reason for her to have come outside. It was weird."

Maybe rehab wasn't such a bad idea.

Okay, Is It Me Or ...

Is blog interest waning? Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

I know peeps get busy and shit ...

Any Takers For Half-Life 2: Deathmatch?

Besides Lurker, I mean? (He's already in.) A friend of mine at work thinks he can finagle a game server, so we could password protect and keep out the unwanted.

More than you ever wanted to know about HL2DM here. It's $9.95 from Steam ...

Killing and being killed by your friends is more fun than should be legally allowed. What do you say?

Unprecedented 26th Relaunch Of Subteens Site

Why? I guess I got tired of looking at the test pattern.

Up close and personal here.

Today I am Forty

Another milestone reached, and a time for reflection:

At 40, my dad had raised three children, the youngest aged 12
I have no kids.
At 40, my dad had owned 3 homes.
I pay rent.
At 40, my dad owned and operated his own business.
I am a journeyman teacher.
At 40, my dad was well-known in the community.
I am rootless at the moment.
At 40, my dad had prepared for his (and our) future by saving and investing.
For the most part, I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

By the standard measures of 'success'and 'accomplishment', it is tough to compare. However, the following facts, much more important to me, are also true:

My dad never played in a rock and roll band, wrote songs, or recorded them. My dad never went to Europe. At 40, my dad had never lived in amazing places like Memphis, New Orleans, and New York. He had never been to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Mobile, St. Louis, Columbus, Natchez, Boston, Berkeley, San Antonio, Kansas City, Jacksonville, Nashville, Knoxville or Little Rock. He had never stayed out all night in the French Quarter or on the Left Bank. My dad had not read Chabon, Irving, Dickens, Proust, or Camus. He didn't have a college degree, nor did he and three of his idiot friends have a blog.

I am glad that he has always supported me in every decision I've made and I think he's been a little envious of my lifestyle from time to time, even if he didn't understand what in the hell I was doing sometimes.

Lurker, I think you've hit this particular milestone already? And Jay and Joe are close enough to kick it in the crotch. Today, I woke up the same as any other day, stretched, and felt glad to still be processing oxygen. Drink a 40 for your homie today y'all.