Well. Look Who Showed Up at The Olympics

Gold Medal goes to Matthew in the sport of DREAMY!!!!!

Goals. I Have Them.

I'm seriously considering changing my ringtone.

The Greatest Song Ever

WITH Paul fucking McCartney!!!!!!

one day, Op will tell you how I gave up tickets to see the Pogues with Kristy McColl...which ended up being her last appearance....I was wrong....

BUT. This might be the greatest song ever. Period. It's okay, but the backups in the end send it thru the stratosphere. The backups are heartbreaking.

Sad Songs

Via HERE:

I was watching the video for “Sad Songs (Say So Much),” which I think of as Elton John’s In the Ghetto/Suspicious Minds/Kentucky Rain period, and I started thinking…what IS the saddest song there is? I got as far as Many Rivers to Cross. Gotdam. Anybody?

ps - name a sadder song than Little Drummer Boy. Can't do it.

VP!

Dick Cheney has come out and admitted that McCain picking Sniffy Wiffy as his vice-president might have been a mistake:

I like Governor Palin. I've met her. I know her. She [is an] attractive candidate. But based on her background, she'd only been governor for, what, two years. I don't think she passed that test … of being ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake.

Hey, let's be honest - if there's anyone who knows what it's like to pick an incredibly awful vice president, it's Dick Cheney.

Sorkin.

I like Will McAvoy's bodyguard, Lonnie. I liked him better when he was played by Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon's son, but hey, whaddya gonna do, right?

Sorkin.

I really liked this week's episode of The Newsroom.  I liked it better over a dozen years ago when Will McAvoy was played by Josh Lyman and the shrink was Alan Arkin's son, but hey, whaddya gonna do.

Torture Is

One crossword puzzle. Three pens. None work. Grrrrr.

Olympics

I'm not a Star Wars geek, but I got a kick outta this. And why is more not being made of this being the XXX Olympiad? I mean, really? I thought the internet was supposed to take our porn innuendo to the next level?

The Kinks

Whats lost in the usual Beatles vs. Stones argument is the fact that The Kinks were a better band than the Stones anyway, so at what point can we start doing a Beatles vs. Kinks thing?

Video Showdown

When I was 10 years old, both of these songs came out, both by Elton John, and I love em both. Which one do you like better?


I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues


or

Sad Songs (Say So Much)

Williamsburg

There is an Oral History of the Music of Williamsburg being put together:

“Whether or not you can say that Williamsburg 1995-2005 was a historical art movement,” says Todd, “It certainly had that sprit and that potential that you think about for SoHo in the late 70s, or the Lower East Side in the 80s, or Greenwich Village in the 60s. That spirit is what has made New York City an attractive place to live for a lot of folks who have talent. It’s an exciting place to live because exciting things happen here.”

So far the guy hasn't reached out to ask about Hayday's legendary 2003 summer residency at the Charleston. After all, as the owner told me, "my 70 year-old  wife digs your sound."

BREAKING NEWS: Sarah Palin Being an Asshole to Stay in the News

Can't wait for her to dye her hair orange tomorrow in solidarity with the NRA.

Sure. Why Not..

In Idaho.

Robert Montgomery

When Bobby Knight got fired for choking Neil Reed I was all like "fuck Neil Reed", cuz I'm a Bobby Knight guy.

Anyway, Reed just died yesterday, so.

Sad Bruce

Sully points out Bruce The Boss Springsteen's using self-loathing as a muse from the massive New Yorker article everyone's talking about (YES, me!):

As Springsteen sees it, the creative talent has always been nurtured by the darker currents of his psyche, and wealth is no guarantee of bliss. "I’m thirty years in analysis!" he said. "Look, you cannot underestimate the fine power of self-loathing in all of this. You think, I don’t like anything I’m seeing, I don’t like anything I’m doing, but I need to change myself, I need to transform myself. I do not know a single artist who does not run on that fuel. If you are extremely pleased with yourself, nobody would be fucking doing it! Brando would not have acted. Dylan wouldn’t have written ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ James Brown wouldn’t have gone ‘Unh!’ He wouldn’t have searched that one-beat down that was so hard. That’s a motivation, that element of ‘I need to remake myself, my town, my audience’—the desire for renewal." 

I wouldn't say you hafta be miserable to make great art, but I have found you have to be really, really willing to strip yourself down and come face to face with what a shitty loser you are to make honest art. Which, in the end, is what makes great art.

Interestingly, he posts it along with the Dancing in the Dark video, which is funny since as surely there's nothing he can hate more about himself than that goddam video.

Dream Team Answer

When I was living in Oxford with my buddy Ryan, we prided ourselves on going out of our way to never use our dishwasher. Then one time we mentioned this to somebody who asked us "why?", to which we were rendered speechless, "wait - what?"

This is what I thought of when I read this Mike Wilbon article on something I've wondered about before, ie why so little was actually written and filmed about the original Dream Team. Unlike me, Wilbon actually has an answer:

It's surprising it took 20 years to thoroughly examine the 1992 team, which Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum did in his book "Dream Team." One big reason, unfortunately, is because Olympic beat writers of the day at the biggest newspapers in America held entirely too much sway with their editors. A half-dozen or so weren't shy about expressing how much they hated the very existence of the Dream Team, of having NBA players in the Olympics, of having attention taken away from gymnasts and swimmers and rowers. Those writers fixated on the fact that the most famous athletes in the world at the time (Jordan, Magic, Barkley and Bird, at the very least) were going to stay in a luxury hotel with security and not in minimal dorm rooms in the athletes' village, as was Olympic tradition.

Though the Dream Team had the greatest appeal to readers/viewers/listeners going into the Barcelona Olympics and remained the biggest story at the beginning of the Games, the beat writers bragged openly about never once seeing the team practice or play, which should have been embarrassing behavior for any journalist if only for the alarmingly poor news judgment it displayed. This, remember, was before 24/7 coverage and the Twitter age, before many cities had viable sports talk radio, before any alternative sources for Olympic news other than big city newspapers.

The reality was, at the time, the Dream Team was relatively ignored even though the basketball writers covering the squad were staying in the same hotel during training camp and often had unchecked access to every player and coach. Barkley, who had none of the, um, swing issues we know now, was actually available for golf himself, and McCallum, if memory serves, teed it up with him at least once. Yet, the greatest team ever assembled was back-burner stuff to the people. The rest of the world, nevertheless, was paying attention, sometimes fanatic attention.

Mountain Ministrelsy

There's no way I spelled that correctly. Anyway, after their awesome 2010 album Life is a Problem, which featured one of my candidates for song of the year, I find myself waiting for the next Marah record, which is coming out sooner than later. Keep yourself updated at their website:

I miss my old friend Bruce Langfeld. He played all the steel guitar and some mandolin on our first record "Let's Cut The Crap..." He died. He would have loved this record we are making now.

Today I drove to a local Amish greenhouse to buy some plants, and on the drive back I spotted "LCTC" on the dashboard of the van, so I popped it in and skipped ahead to "Phantom Eyes." It sounded magical. it was the very first thing we tape recorded for that first record. Bruce Langfeld took it to a level we couldn't have reached on our own. He was older than us and more accomplished at playing stuff, but mostly he was a big fan of what we were up to.

I remember sitting with him in the Morning Glory Diner in South Philly after completing the album and he was going on and on about how my brother and I couldn't possibly understand our own unique chemistry and our ability to get other players to follow our vision and create eclectic, original R&R music...he was right (about that being lost on us.) At the time I thought I must be high or something. At the time we felt far from "good." We felt sloppy and out of tune and inconsequential.

London Opening Ceremonies

Hey fucking Jude.

I realize that I am an unapologetic Beatles freak. But sometimes I feel like the end of Hey Jude is a gift to humanity. Bigger than The Beatles, bigger than us. Bigger than any god.

Olympic Opening Ceremonies Question

Odds of Obama being Photoshopped into the Kenyan Olympic Team strolling into the Stadium somewhere between 99.9 and 100%? Or greater?

Memphis, TN

Memories, longer than the road ahead:

When I was living in Oxford we went to BB King's restaurant up in Memphis, and when I looked at the menu I saw a section titled "Samitches." While I'm sure I'd used that for "sandwiches" in conversation before, I'd never actually seen it in print and got a tremendous kick out of it, repeatedly laughing about it as the pitchers of what I'm sure was crappy Michalob Lite kept coming and coming. Finally the band goes onstage, and the front man shouts out "What d'yall want?" The response was supposed to be "the blues!", but before everyone could shout that I yelled "samitches!", which cracked up the old, fat black ladies a few tables away. "Get that white boy over here!" they yelled, and I spent the next two hours eating and drinking all I could for free, with everything I said totally cracking them up. It was awesome.

Opening Ceremonies

Some Angliophilia Xmastime memories:

Some of you know that this year I allowed myself to become a bit of an Angliophile, fueled mostly by my falling in love with Gordon Ramsay (see HERE and HERE for two examples.) So how refreshingly odd was it to end the year with a group of British people? There were about a dozen at the wedding I was at last weekend, and as they were in town for almost a week and spent most of their days hanging around the bride's house, I came to learn a few things about our friends to the east. Or west, if you wanna go through Indiana.

First of all, they all looked like they were straight out of central casting from 1970's BBC - the uncles who look like they're in the middle of a drinking session at that pub in An American Werewolf in London and only say things that are hysterically funny, and an aunt anchored in the kitchen who doesn't smile while shooting both deadpan insults and wildly funny shit barely above her own breath across the room, all while baking rack after rack of cookies and boiling water almost constantly. She was my favorite, everything she said cracked me up while making me think "oh, come on...she's a little TOO dead on, no???!!" I kept expecting her to introduce me to Kitty Kelley while declaring war on France.

One thing I also realized is that even though I'm 36 years old I don't think I had ever actually MET British people. No matter how much I'd heard it on tv etc, those accents up close are something, right? I found myself thinking "hey guys, it's just me, you can stop acting." Right? As if whenever I was out of the room they lapsed into gnawing on Big League Chew while weeping over Dale Earnhardt, then "Bald Eagle's approaching the room - let's DO this, guys!" as I walked back in. And then when one of the kids started piping up, I was really thrown for a loop; my first thought was "wow, how'd she learn that so young? awesome!" as if she was Rich Little doing Paul McCartney, some parlor trick meant to be rolled out for weddings and bar mitzvahs. It was a weird thing - I think I'd be less surprised if all of a sudden a dog started talking to me as I was when a child started speaking with a British accent in front of me. Awesome.

Also, British people know every word to every verse to every Christmas Carol ever written. Like any American I'd MAYBE make it through a first verse, add some zeal to the chorus so everyone thinks I knew the song, then mumble the rest. Not the Brits - they'd go on and on through verses I didn't know exist. All the lords a-leaping, all seven verses of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Rudolph annoying LC on The Hills, they knew them all. Fascinating.

I gotta be honest, having British people hanging around during Christmas really adds something, some weird cheerful cozy Dickensian thing that's hard to describe. Although, I guess I just did (NAILED it!) There must be some way to rent them out for a few days, just have them walking in and out of the room as you're decorating the tree, right? Is there a service for this? Or....am I about the make a BILLION farthings?!??!?!!

Question

Why is the handicapped space at the 7-11 by my house the furthest one from the door?

Mittney Calling

Apparently Mitt Romney is stepping in it over in London.

Pretty sure there hasnt been an American hated this much landing on English soil since Jerry Lee Lewis.

Take 'Em as They Come

I understand that I'm already deep in the tank for Bruce The Boss Springsteen, and I know that like the rest of the world you're tired of hearing about his four-hour shows over in Europe, but this video of Xmastime superslice Take 'em as They Come encapsulates rock:

1) it was a request...what bands do you know take requests?
2) the song never made an album, despite being a superslice
3) just before the 2-minute mark you can see Bruce nodding to Little Steven re: "gee thanks for finally picking up on singing the goddam third line of the verse, fuckhead!"

Ameriphilia May Destroy Ya

The Tea Party rather famously constantly tries to align itself with the Founding Fathers, none of whom were they alive today would deign to cross the street to spit on them; in particular, Thomas Jefferson would be horrified by their ignorant parasitism.  And nobody has taken more frustrated pleasure in pointing out the exhausting, idiotic irony of their historical musings than myself, so it is with hat in hand that I humbly admit to you that FINALLY one of their heroes has gotten it right, and maybe I should shut the fuck up since it turns out that Rick Santorum really IS a modern day Thomas Jefferson:

“You cannot produce a dark enough chocolate for me not to like,” said Santorum. - XMASTIME

Interesting post HERE about how shitty America would be if we hadn't pretty much blatantly copied Europe as much as possible before we decided that being "American" was more important than being "great."

RIP

George Jefferson.

Really, there's no more doubt re: our third president banging Sally Hemmings, is there? I mean camon.

Yes, This DOES Make Me Better Than You

Who Said It: Sheldon Cooper or Stephen Hawking.

Road to Ruin

In listening to Road to Ruin right now I'm baffled as always re: why this is put up as equal to the first three albums.

I will now list the songs in order of Xmastime Slicedom:

It's a Long Way Back
Questioningly
I'm Against It
Needles & Pins
I Wanna Be Sedated
Bad Brain
She's the One
I Just Wanna Have Something to Do
I Wanted Everything

I Don't Want You, Don't Come Close and Go Mental all equally suck balls.

Hey, whaddya know, it's Sniffy Wiffy's favorite album. Of course.

Gaslight Anthem, Whoever the Fuck They Are

I don't listen to bands that formed after 1980 and so I have no idea who the Gaslight Anthem is, but this article ripping the guy for drinking too much Bruce The Boss Springsteen Kol-Aid nails this:

When Fallon sings, yet again, about feeling big feelings while flippin' around the radio dial, like he does in "Mae" and the zippy title track, it fails the bullshit test. Sorry, dude, but you grew up during one of the worst eras for rock radio ever. There's no way you romanced Mary or Betty back in the late '90s to the dulcet sounds of Mudvayne. It's more likely you fell in love with Mackenzie or Taylor while downloading a torrent of Rancid albums.

Of course its each generation's god-given right to proclaim the next generation's music to massively suck, but in this case he's right. I feel like I've written the exact same thing befroe on Xmastime. Probably. But I'm too lazy to look for it and besides, as I mentioned here, I'm trying to self link less. Grows hair on your palms, for fuck's sake.

"Ahhhhhhhhh...what the fuck are you playing, son?"

Exactamundo

"One reason, I think, that the American mood is so sour is that most have internalized that those in authority can get away with anything. But black teenagers caught with a joint in their pocket? The jails are full to bursting." - Sully

Born in the USA

Gotdam...that was such a great guitar break by Bruce I wish he did it more often!

Let Her Dance

I still can't find the version by the Stepmothers  oh wait I fucking found it! that introduced me to the song on one of the most influential records of my lifetime, Battle of the Garages, but this is a pretty good version of my superslice.

Ain't as good as Bobby Fuller, but still.

Sally ride, RIP

Five Things You Didn't Know About Sally Ride.

Journalist Michael Ryan recounted some of the sillier questions that had been posed to Ride in a June 1983 profile for People. Among the highlights:

Q: “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?”
A: “How come nobody ever asks (a male fellow astronaut) those questions?”
Forget going into space; Ride’s most impressive achievement might have been maintaining her composure in the face of such offensive questions.

Aurora, Cont.

Anyone who is wringing their hands re: "NOW we're finally gonna change the gun laws!" should remember that it was only 18 months ago that a member of the United States Congress got shot in the fucking head and nobody has bothered doing anything about it, so. Good luck.

Brucuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuze

There's a 17,000 word article in the New Yorker about Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen, whom I've met btw, in which the author drops such bombs as:

1) Springsteen plays long shows
2) He always has
3) He's probably playing one right now
4) His band is a collection of fellow Jersey rats
5) He was close to someone named Clarence Clemons
6) Jon Landau once declared that he saw the future of rock n roll, and it was Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen
7) Born to Run was a make or break album for Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen
8) He had a somewhat uneasy relationship with his father
9) Springsteen is a man of the peoplezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I man for fuck's sake, the only interesting note in the whole thing is that the author for some reason drops in print the town of Middleburg, last noted here.

To be fair, his openness about depression is somewhat new. Well, if you haven't already read about 60 books about him, I reckon...

Doug Springsteen is described with adjectives like “taciturn” and “disappointed.” In fact, he seems to have been bipolar, and he was capable of terrible rages, often aimed at his son.

[Bruce] Springsteen was also experiencing intervals of depression that were far more serious than the occasional guilt trip about being “a rich man in a poor man’s shirt,” as he sings in “Better Days.” A cloud of crisis hovered as Springsteen was finishing his acoustic masterpiece “Nebraska,” in 1982. And he could not let go of the past, either—a sense that he had inherited his father’s depressive self-isolation. For years, he would drive at night past his parents’ old house in Freehold, sometimes three or four times a week. In 1982, he started seeing a psychotherapist. At a concert years later, Springsteen introduced his song “My Father’s House” by recalling what the therapist had told him about those nighttime trips to Freehold: “He said, ‘What you’re doing is that something bad happened, and you’re going back, thinking that you can make it right again. Something went wrong, and you keep going back to see if you can fix it or somehow make it right.’ And I sat there and I said, ‘That is what I’m doing.’ And he said, ‘Well, you can’t.’ ”

Extreme wealth may have satisfied every pink-Cadillac dream, but it did little to chase off the black dog. Springsteen was playing concerts that went nearly four hours, driven, he has said, by “pure fear and self-loathing and self-hatred.” He played that long not just to thrill the audience but also to burn himself out. Onstage, he held real life at bay.

I asked Patti how he finally succeeded. “Obviously, therapy,” she said. “He was able to look at himself and battle it out.” And yet none of this has allowed Springsteen to pronounce himself free and clear. “That didn’t scare me,” Scialfa said. “I suffered from depression myself, so I knew what that was about. Clinical depression—I knew what that was about. I felt very akin to him.”

Penn State

Part of the punishment is a $60M fine, which was decided upon because it equals one year's revenue for Penn State football.

Anyone else mildly surprised Penn State football only brought in $60M per season? Kinda like hearing Shaq only averaged 32ppg in his senior year of high school, no?

Ichiro

I like that the Yankees traded for Ichiro while they were in Seattle. "Oh, we won't hafta buy him a plane ticket to NYC? Okay fuck it, we'll take him."

"While I'm Doing Upside-Down Keg Stands and Dragging My Nuts on Joe Pa's Statue, Bitches!!!"

WELL, Well, Well

The hottest show of the summer is....reruns of The Big Bang Theory.

Penny: Can I ask you a question?
Sheldon: Given your community college education, I encourage you to ask me as many as possible.

Dang

Sally Ride, the first woman who went into outer space, has died. Like anyone my age, I remember that being a big deal at the time. The only other woman anyone's heard of since was of course Christa McAulife; a few years ago HERE I stumbled on a doc about her backup, Barbara Morgan.

Out of 11,000 applicants, Barbara Morgan was named the runner-up to New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe and trained alongside her. But after McAuliffe's death on the shuttle Challenger in January, 1986, NASA cancelled the Teacher-in-Space program. 

"It looked to me personally that Barbara Morgan would never get a chance to fly," said Bill Harwood, a veteran CBS space reporter.

But history would dictate another course. Using rare footage, photos and internal documents, as well as interviews with Morgan, her friends, colleagues, students and family, No Limits shows how Barbara became a full-fledged astronaut, and then overcame additional challenges, including the loss the crew of the shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003. Morgan had been scheduled to be on Columbia's next flight later that year.

Wait, What?

This is a Mitt Romney ad I just caught on tv. If you're gonna base an entire commercial on the premise that Obama's evil because he thinks no man is an island and we all owe our success at least partly to others, how the hell can you open with some guy who while outraged at Obama's comment comes out and says his own business was created by his father, which he presumably walked into when he chose to? What the fuck? Does nobody see these things before they hit the airwaves?

Surprise du Jour

Although we think of the US Men's Basketball team as having rolled through the competition with no trouble at all, it wasn't until the 1992 Dream Team that their record within my lifetime went above .500:

1972: "lost" to the Russians (check out the great HBO doc :03 From Gold)
1976: Won the gold
1980: boycotted. Thanks, JC!
1984: won the gold
1988: stunk it up so bad they finally said fuck it, let' send in the pros
1992: won the gold

So it took til I was 20 years old for us to get to 3-2. Wtf!

Something I Thought I Just Overheard a Girl Say Which Cannot Possibly Be What She Actually Said

"If it's a cock ring? Then sure."

Question.

How long will Aaron Sorkin make us wait before we get the inevitable flashback episode of how Jeff Daniels' Will McAvoy handled 9/11? I man, the odds of this happening are somewhere between 100 and 100%, right?

The 90s

Via HERE

"Mothahfuckahs had to get film developed!"

My "I'm #1!" Empire Is Still Growing, Kid by Kid

Aurora Question

Shouldn't anyone who dismisses gun control under the maxim of "they're gonna find a way to kill anyway" also hafta be against limiting Iran et al from getting nuclear weapons for the same reason?

Oh My God.

M. H. Abrams is still alive. Wow.

Founding BS

From Taxation No Tyranny, Samuel Johnson points out the hypocrisy of the American Revolution:
"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"
Of course you remember Johnson as being the original gangstah, so.

"Nobody puts Brucie in a corner!!"

Jon Stewart on the Bruce/Paul fiasco.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Shootings

My thought on the Columbine Paducah Va Tech massacre Gabby Giffords VA Tech again whatever the next one is Aurora, Colorado shooting is that I’m not surprised at all, other than to be mildly surprised this doesn't happen way more often. To now start the standard post-shooting ritual of wondering if we’re gonna have serious change re: gun laws is silly. So let’s stop with the “national grieving”, and enough with the "shock." Let’s go about our day, shrugging our collective shoulders “well, that’s the price someone else pays so I can stockpile my house with guns." I don’t want one politician on tv squeezing out some tears about this “tragedy.” I want Charlton Heston on the screen with an AK-47 shouting “from my cold, dead hands!!”  My getting blown away in the street by anyone who can crack the riddle of getting their hands on a gun is worth it so that we can all fortify ourselves in preparation for some military takeover that would be possible if we were any other country at any other point in history other than our present-day one. Hey, if we ALL were armed to the gills, that guy would've only gotten off a few shots, right? Don't like it? Move to Canada, you fucking pussy. I'm buying a gun store.

Aurora CO. Question

Wasn't The Dark Knight Rises the very movie Rush Limbaugh's been saying has something to do with two decades of the Democratic Party's engineering propaganda of some sort? Or something?

43 Years Ago Today

We landed on the moon (waving big foam #1 finger.)  See every picture taken from Apollo 11 HERE.

We still need to get all of these dudes together, along with Apollo 8, while they're all still alive.  Let it be on Inside the Actor's Studio, whatever.  Anything.

THIS is still funny:

Gaylord Perry popped up in the Uecker interview re: how much shit he took from his teammates after giving up a home run to Uecker ("Uecker can't pick up a ball, much less hit one out of the park"), so I Wikipedia'd him for no real reason, but saw this:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

If it ain't true, I don't wanna know. Incredible.

ps - according to BaseballReference.com, it is true. Box score HERE.

Is there a reason HBO isn't running From the Earth to the Moon all day?  Grrrr.

10 Things you didn't know about Apollo 11 HERE.

Curiously, Rex Chapman came out of Apollo High in Kentucky, and that motherfucker had some crazy hops back in the day.

Rancid

It's the most derivative album of all time, but it's also an album I fucking love: And Out Come the Wolves. Now this shit takes me back...


ps: they had the most uniquely great bass player they coulda ever had.

Why is This News?

People seem shocked that the president of Chik-fil-A is anti-gay.

What?

Ummm, HELLO, Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays, because they're such great Christians!  Which means that just like Jesus, they fucking hate fags! Grow the fuck up, America!

Great fucking ads, though.

Link This, Beeyotch

Post here about linking to yourself:

[M]ainstream news outlets were philosophically much more open to linking anywhere. But in practice they linked internally 91 percent of the time. In contrast, independent bloggers linked internally 18 percent of the time. Ninety-three percent of news outlets’ links were to other news outlets, while indie bloggers linked to mainstream sources only 33 percent of the time.

As you know, I can't make it through ten minutes without self-linking (yes, it grows hair on your palms.) Like HERE, FOR INSTANCE. This is partly due to my "LOOK AT ME!!  LISTEN TO ME!!" personality disorder, and partly because I am not a news organization merely reporting the news - if I don't connect some sort of personal story/connection to whatever it is I'm talking about, what's the point of Xmastime?

GOP Convention Will Be the Event of the Year

Mittney hasn't asked Sniffy Wiffy to the prom yet, and so scorched Earth is being predicted via Sully's readers:

The caricature of Romney as inept, weak and easily pushed around is growing. I am no expert on conventions and nominations, but I would not be surprised to see a Far Right revolt in Tampa. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is mad at her convention snub and the meme that she'd be able to fight back plays right to her hands. Trying to somehow seize the nomination at the last minute plays to her role as a savior. Throw in her devout followers and it makes for an interesting convention. To me, it not only shows her ego, but her laziness, too, not willing to do hard campaign work and get the prize at the last minute. A true Twitter candidate. I'd be shocked if she were somehow able to wrangle the nomination, but I'd bet on some form of Far Right split in the coming weeks.

Oh, MAN this shit's gonna be fun to watch!!!!!!!

First Avenue

Soul Asylum for some reason putting out a new album coincides with this video clip of Dan Murphy talking about First Avenue and what the club has meant to the cultural history of Minneapolis.

But as far as being the nexus of the Minneapolis music scene, nothing about First Ave. has changed. When we talked to Dan Murphy, guitarist for Soul Asylum and a guy who’s been coming there for decades, he remained as in awe of its power and importance as when he first attended as a teenager. These days, Murphy is on a first-name basis with seemingly everyone who works at the club, introducing us to Sverkerson and staff photographer Daniel Corrigan (whose iconic shots fill the next-door Depot Tavern), and recounting the many times he watched bands like The Replacements and Hüsker Dü tear up the club’s punk-friendly front room, The 7th Street Entry, then sneak into the main area to swipe drinks abandoned by disco dancers.

Also, it's nice to see someone else admit out loud that Purple Rain is a terrible, unwatchable movie.


The club that launched Purple Rain, The Replacements and Soul Asylum

What the Hell Took So Long?

The New Yorker is running Elaine's cartoon!

This cartoon was used in "The Cartoon" episode of Seinfeld. You know the one where Elaine accidentally steals a Ziggy. Well, now the New Yorker is actually planning on running it but it needs a caption first. You can submit your best quip here until July 23rd. 

Driving Miss Xmastime

Sully is pleased as punch over his own never learning how to drive.

Must say, there was about 15 years during which I never imagined driving again, and was perfectly fine with it.

Now back in Virginia, after only a coupla weeks of driving I can't imagine not driving.

But then, I never woulda bet a nickel I'd ever go to Mass again, so who the fuck knows with me. Seismic shifts in my life. If it wasn't for that warm comfort blanket of knowing for sure that my not getting laid will never change, I'd have nothing left to cling to, would I? Shew!!

It's Not the Heat, It's the...Oh Wait, It's Totally the Fucking Heat.

Today is the 110th birthday of air conditioning, which ironically is doing as much to increase global warming as anything else, but I could give a shit, I'd rather the planet burst into the Sun 200 years from now than go one minute not in absolute comfort....nay, extreme comfort.

It was a world-changing innovation. “Air-conditioning, in the broad sense, had a profound effect on the way people lived and worked,” said Bernard A. Nagengast, an engineering consultant who specializes in the history of air-conditioning and heating. “It allowed industry to operate in ways it couldn’t operate before, in places it couldn’t operate before.”

As you know, a/c was a big deal when I was a young buck  and every single moment of my fucking life since:

My parents being from Massachusetts meant that I inherited the complete pussy gene when it comes to the heat; even as a young buck I was a pansy about it.  So while logic would dictate that the greatest day in family history from the 80's be the day we added illWill to the lineup, I hafta admit I was just as thrilled the day I came home from school and the central air conditioning had been installed.  May 12, 1987: Never Forget.

Also, if he had been my kid Joe Girardi never woulda made it to the big leagues since there's no way in fucking hell I'd forgo a/c for some stupid kid.  Oh, and the next time people try to bitch that we should defund NASA because it's "so expensive", remind them of this.

Strike Two.

Then I heard the kid talking. Anyone else slightly surprised whenever they hear a little kid with a British accent? Always seems odd, no? I don't know what else I was expecting. I guess in my mind you get your British accent when you graduate University, when they put on your first tweed coat. Til then you're Buford Pusser. Kids with British accents, how bout that. Almost as funny as when a black guy starts talking and he's got a British accent. I have a lot to learn, people. - XMASTIME

Looks like London, which already fucked up big time this week, is fucking up some more.

The organization in charge of issuing media credentials at the 2012 London Olympics, which begin in 10 days, has denied the request filed by Great Britain’s oldest black newspaper, sparking outrage across the country. 

I mean, blimeyrizzle, right? Right? Amirite?!?!

Leroy

Like any young buck of my generation I spent hours pretending I was Encyclopedia Brown, poking around my yard for mysteries to solve, none of which ever appeared. Or, rather, that I fucking noticed. Looking back, I'd love to know how many cases in the book I'd smugly solved on my own before turning to the back to see the answer; right now I'm guessing that number is "0", although to be fair I can only put the odds of that being correct as being somewhere between 98-100%, so.

If You Ever Wanted to Hear What an Atomic Bomb Sounds Like

You're in luck! Via HERE:

The U.S. National Archives has digitized footage of an atomic blast which took place at Yucca Flat, Nev., on March 17, 1953. The footage has just been uncovered by science historians, including Alex Wellerstein of the American Institute of Physics.
He explains that the video is remarkable because it is one of the only archival videos of a nuclear blast in which the audio has not been edited or overdubbed with stock sound of an explosion.

"Most films of nuclear explosions got dubbed. If they do contain an actual audio recording of the test blast itself (something I'm often suspicious of -- I suspect many were filmed silently and have a stock blast sound effect), it's almost always shifted in time so that the explosion and the sound of the blast wave are simultaneous," he said.

Dream On

Ty Cobb in 1959, when asked why he'd said he would only hit .300 against today's pitchers:

"You've got to remember - I'm seventy-three." 

The other day Kobe Bryant said his 2012 Olympic Team could beat Jordan's 1992 squad, to which Jordan replied:

"For him to compare those two teams is not one of the smarter things he ever could have done," Michael Jordan said.

This is disappointing because what MJ SHOULD'VE SAID was "I dunno, maybe they could, it'd be close, real close...but of course, we're in our 50s now, so."

I mean, camon! Kobe laid it on a tee for you!!

Salad du Jour

Boiled eggs, tuna fish and onions.

Sorry, office!

Famous Meals In Literature

THIS IS really cool. Yes, they obviously took the idea from me, but still, they did actually make the meal, I suppose. Say, I wonder what the Ron Jeremy bio meal would be? Sweet, sweet stank?

RIP EB

Three years ago I posted:

Well, now he's dead.

Countdown for my main man Robert Newton Peck is on, I reckon.

The Ship's Mast

The Ship's Mast was three blocks from my building in Williamsburg but it was locked up the entire time I lived there, so I only ever got to hear Rrthur (YES ladies, that Rrthur) blather on and on about what a "magically wonderful!" place it was, blah blah blah. I did always like the way it looked though. It was on my regular route to the train, as I'd go up Berry and cut across North 5th, prolly in my skinny jeans. Via here:

One Scouting reader says the Ship's Mast "made Turkey’s Nest look like a Starbucks," while another refers to it as being straight out of a David Lynch film.

I believe it was at The Ship's Mast when Rrthur met our friend Wild Bill, at whose funeral

1) I walked into the wrong room and found myself alone with a dead body
2) someone brought in chicken mcnuggets, and of course the only thing one can smell in a room that has chicken mcnuggets in it is chicken mcnuggets
3) while standing in front of the closed coffin with The Barber, I had one of those existential moments you have at these things and mused aloud "gee, is he really in there?" to which The Barber replied "oh, sure...(long pause) swelled up and purple as an eggplant."

Poolio

McCarren Park waited for me to leave before finally opening up, and then everything went to hell because there were fights, and HERE'S some of the inside dope from a lifeguard:

One of the lifeguards called me over while I was watching the baby pool the other day. "There’s poop in the pool,' he said. 'It’s scattered everywhere." I saw one kid step on a piece. I tried to tell the parents to get out, but no one listened to me. I had to yell at them that there was feces in the pool.

We cleared out the pool and made everyone stand on the sides. The rule is five minutes for poop and 25 minutes for throw-up. Luckily, there were two new lifeguards, so we made them clean it up.

Why do they need 5x as much time for throw-up than shit? I'd be WAY more outraged to find doo doo floating in the pool. Wtf?

Marley Quote du Jour

Via an email discussion on Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom:

That's a good point about The West Wing - it was all liberal soaring stripes and treacle, but since you liked this strange brew of homos, it was watchable.

Dying!  :)

An Open Letter to 103.7 FM:

Your spending time between songs blathering on and on patting yourself on the back for not playing commercials during hour-long blocks of music is no better to me than simply playing commercials. In fact, I'd prefer commercials - at least they're less self aggrandizing, and there's the hope they'll be funny. I mean, for fuck's sake already, it's like this fucking shit:

7) I don’t know about your computer, but mine has some super-active software shit that blocks pop-ups. And it’s so proud of its work that it CONSTANTLY lets me know about the pop-ups it’s blocked with…pop ups!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!! Fucking hell. This would be like me proudly announcing every day that I didn’t sexually harass you by writing “Hey, I didn’t sexually harass you!!” on my dick and showing you every 5 minutes. Thanks Norton!!!!!

I remain,
XMASTIME

Leaving

The only problem with living in New York City is that the only stars you ever see are on the ground. - XMASTIME

This guy HERE on leaving Brooklyn:

A lot of kids, me included, aspire from early on to live in New York because the crushing smallness of their birthplace pains them. They're the town faggot or the town dreamer and they stand in their backyards and look into miles of desolation and quiet, knowing with bitter certainty that nobody—at least nobody they think of as significant—cares about them. They feel trapped in a tiny town beneath a massive sky full of stars, and they know they'll be gone someday.

In New York you can't even see the stars. And not only do you feel like hot shit because of all the big things going on around you, the city itself makes you feel literally large, like you're living in a filthy dollhouse. Your feet hang off your too-small bed. Tourists and brown nannies with white babies are constantly in the way of your giant steps, keeping you from getting to all the great readings and gallery openings you need to attend (often it seems as if New York has no parties, only "events"). On a nice day, even massive places like Central Park can feel downright claustrophobic, cluttered with Frisbees, joggers, and more nannies. In your home, your concept of "alone" changes, as even while naked and masturbating in the shower, you can hear people fighting, cooking, crying, watching Maury, playing guitar, fucking.

His ticking off the very bars and streets I once roamed does not ease my slight homesickness.

Hmm.

In the first scene of Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, Jeff Daniels' Will McAvoy, setting up the entire basis of the show existing, has an "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" moment during a heated political panel discussion wherein he snaps out of his cozy web of neutrality and starts dropping bombs about the reality of America's global standing. The thing I don't understand is that if McAvoy is considered to be by definition a man "whose success is largely the result of never offending anyone," why the hell would he even be on such a panel in the first place? Hell, the first thing we hear the moderator say to him is that he doesn't expect anything mildly interesting from him one way or the other, that he is the "Jay Leno of the news." It's not as if we're led to believe McAvoy planned on the event being his coming-out party and he asked to be on the panel, and yet for some reason the event's planners, when putting together a rabidly partisan panel that would generate YouTube heat on college campuses, ie create the very media buzz for it's own sake that McAvoy later rails against, said "hey you know what, let's get that guy who has built an entire career on getting paid to say nothing and perturb nobody, and stick him right in the center of things!" It'd be like suggesting they put Derek Jeter on The Jersey Shore: you should be laughed out of the meeting.

Faux Fries

Apparently, GrizzaDay is also National French Fry Day, so I was all set to enjoy A Hamburger Today's list of the best fries in the country, but I must take issue with this entry.

Umm...what the fuck - of COURSE they're amazing if they're fucking covered in pastrami!  Hey, you know what else would taste great covered in pastrami? My nuts!! Shouldn't the fries have to stand on their own to be on such a prestigious list? I mean, for fuck's sake - this is like having a fat & ugly girlfriend, but getting to throw Jessica Biel into the mix when it comes to fucking. Grrrrrrr.

Good News!!

NYC politician Anthony Weiner is sniffing around getting back into politics.

As you know, I hollered at the dude to not fucking quit in the first place.

Meanwhile, David Vitter is still in the Senate, and he broke the law while being proven a giant hypocrite.  Gingrich gets to run for president, and if Bill Clinton could run for president he'd get about 65% of the vote.  If Weiner just waits it out a bit he'll be fine.  One day, he'll be pissed he got into this mess without actually having sex with anyone (as far as we know.) Politicians getting in hot water about this shit nowadays is like waiting for a bus: just give it a few minutes, and another one will come along.

The point is I hope he runs, so then he's outta the damn house and I can focus on getting my snout up in his wife's rim. I mean, llllllllllllllllookit them chompers! Nom nom nom!!!!!

Bruce Still Hates Rex Ryan

A few weeks ago HERE I noted the article about  Rex Ryan  Chris Christie thinking he and Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen would be BFF, if only it weren't for that pesky little fact that Bruce can't fucking stand him, perhaps due to Bruce being a normal human being, and today Eric Alterman expounds on the article:

Undoubtedly the most egregious aspect of Gov. Christie's self-justifying analysis is his attempt to reduce Springsteen's principles and politics to pure pop psychology. "He feels guilty," he says. "He feels guilty that he has so much money, and he thinks it's all a zero-sum game: in order to get poor people more money, it has to be taken away from the rich."

This is actually a slander of Springsteen, who, though self-educated, has gone through a long process of reading American history, together with philosophy, literature, and political tracts as a means of connecting his political life with the feelings inspired by his music. As I noted in The Nation, Springsteen began to ask questions of himself about what really determined the contours of the lives of the working-class characters whose tribune he had become:

'A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean? "Promised Land," "Badlands,'" he would explain in 2009, decades after the transformation took place. 'I've seen people singing those songs back to me all over the world. I'd seen that country on a grassroots level…. And I met people who were always working toward the country being that kind of place. But on a national level it always seemed very far away.'

As a result, he spent much of this period, as he put it, "tryin' to figure out now where do aesthetic issues that you write about intersect with some sort of concrete action, some direct involvement, in the communities that your audience comes from."

This is exactly the opposite reaction to hard times evinced by Gov. Christie and Tea Party conservatives, who seek to separate themselves from the masses of Americans who have been victimized by a political and an economic system tilted toward the very rich. The governor fools himself into believing, "If Bruce and I sat down and talked, he would reluctantly come to the conclusion that we disagree on a lot less than he thinks."

This is self-serving nonsense.

The JFK Took My Baby Away

Great article on the effect of JFK's being almost as much of a tailhound as I am had on his presidency, and the warped way it filters how we looks at him:

As for John Kennedy—what did he do for us? He started the Peace Corps and the Vietnam War. He promised to put a man on the moon, and he presided over an administration whose love affair with assassination was held in check only by its blessed incompetence at pulling off more of them. (“That administration,” said LBJ—painted birds long forgotten, the mists of Camelot beginning to clear—“had been operating a damned Murder, Inc.”) He fought for a tax break the particulars of which look like the product of a Rush Limbaugh fever dream, he almost got us all killed during his “second Cuba” (writing of JFK and the missile crisis, Christopher Hitchens noted: “Only the most servile masochist … can congratulate [Kennedy] on the ‘coolness’ with which he defused a ghastly crisis almost entirely of his own making”), and he brought organized crime into contact with the highest echelons of American power. More than anyone else in American history, perhaps, he had a clear vision of what his country could do for him. 

John Kennedy was the kind of guy who could get his PT boat rammed in half by a Japanese destroyer, losing two of his men, and end up not with a court-martial but with a medal. He was a winner, and we like winners. He’ll get out of every scrape history can serve up. All the aging hookers and cast-aside girlfriends with book contracts better take notice: We don’t care about you. JFK is more important to us than you can ever be, so you might as well keep quiet. The cause endures, sweetheart. The hope still lives. And the dream will never die. 

Arer You Fucking Kidding Me?

Remember me blathering on and on about what a great run London's been on? Yeah, well, now that's come to a screeching fucking halt:

Bruce Springsteen had been waiting for this moment for a long time. "I gotta tell you," he said to the 65,000-strong crowd, "I've been trying to do this for 50 years." For the finale of his headline slot in London's Hyde Park on Saturday, he'd arranged a very special treat: An onstage collaboration with Beatles legend Paul McCartney.

But the rock megastar hadn't banked on the local London council deciding to show him who was boss.

At the climax of his three-hour set, Springsteen and McCartney, backed by the E Street Band and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, played a storming rendition of "I Saw Her Standing There" to a rapturous crowd. Springsteen's delight was palpable: He grinned throughout, his face lit up like a child with a super-sized Christmas gift.

The supergroup then segued into a sizzling version of "Twist and Shout" -- but as the night peaked against a backdrop of fireworks, a drably dressed man with sensible hair could be seen waving frantically at the back of the stage, indicating the rock legends' time was drawing to a close.

Then, at 10:40 p.m. local time, as Springsteen and McCartney were winding up the extended "Twist and Shout," the sound suddenly dampened, and went quiet.

First of all, I'd like to thank Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen for bringing McCartney onstage as a birthday gift to me. Bruce, I appreciate it.

But seriously, how fuckin square do you hafta be to pull the fucking plug on this?!?!  Oh, wait - about as square as the cops who pulled the plug on The Beatles' rooftop concert, for fuck's sake.

When Bruce Springsteen and Paul MCCartney show up on a stage together in front of you, the words you're looking for are "thank you Jesus," not "Yes Marley, I will make them stop playing."

Grrrrr.

"Great - more time for us to go out on the town & check our traps, Boss!"

Moi

For some reason there's almost nothing I find funnier than whenever someone is walking towards me with at least two dogs on leashes; as we're passing each other I solemnly nod my head at them and say "Fellas." I crack up for the next coupla blocks.

On Wearing Glasses

I guess I just went so long being blind as a bat, but I refuse to believe that people actually see this well. I cannot fathom that seeing this well is what is "normal."

The Big 4-0

Well. I made it.

I Melt with You

Got in my car after work, guess what came on the radio...AGAIN?  I mean, wtf?

Fuck This Guy

The thing about sharks is that, just like snakes, they're especially scary because here's something that could kill you and it doesn't even have arms and legs. Normally you'd think "well, this guys got no limbs, this should be no problem" but next thing you know you're shark doo-doo. The difference being, of course, to get eaten by a shark you hafta make the effort to go to the shark - unlike a snake, you pretty much know that sharks are in the ocean and that's it. You're not gonna find a Great White curled up under your sink, waiting for you like a snake would. - XMASTIME

THIS JERKOFF rolls his eyes at people being scared of sharks dismissing such fears with oooooh, numbers!!!

Zero people were killed in the United States by a shark in 2011, while only 10 people in the United States have been killed by a shark in the last decade. More people, 16, died in the United States on the beach by tunnelling in the sand and having it collapse on them than were killed shark attack, 12, from 1990 to 2006.

Oh, fuck you, dickhead. No, on any daily basis I am not scared of sharks. Not in my bed, not in my car, not in my office and not while eating green eggs and ham. If I'm in the river, I am not scared of sharks. But if I'm in the ocean and find out there's a shark in the water then I reserve the right to be scared shitless like a normal human fucking being even if I know that gee, sharks don't generally go around ordering egg foo Xmastime, for fuck's sake.

Pictures Online

Twenty years ago today was the first time a photo was ever uploaded onto the internet, featuring some singing gourp of hot girlies, nom nom nom! THE HORRIBLES CERNETTES of course translates into "I got into some bad stank, baby."

What was the first photo ever uploaded on Xmastime, you ask? CLICK HERE!

Cool Things I Did in My 30s, Part VII

Had the privilege of adapting a friend's true-life "Brown Thursday" into words. Dying.

Bill started working for some lady as her personal assistant. Kinda went over to her house, she was some hotshot insurance woman, go over to her house and kinda do whatever she needed. One day down in her basement he discovers the septic tank is fucked up, and there’s a huge backload of shit, literally, and fucking used tampons. He’s fucking gagging. Tells her about it, and she decides that the next day he’s gonna come in and shop-vac it all, clear it up. This way he can go home and get some clothes he can immediately burn, knowwhatImean? So the next morning Bill gets up to go to work, and he’s got to shit. Really bad. So he’s about to explode, but our other roommate is already in the bathroom, and Bill knows he’s in trouble cause this motherfucker had a morning routine like you wouldn’t believe. Once he’s in there, forget it. You can fucking watch Shawshank, he’s still in there. And you can time his fucking segments. 15 minutes, brushing teeth. 30 minutes, still fucking shaving. Then finally the water’s running. Shower time, that’s another 30 minutes. For his sake I hope he was rubbing one out. But knowing this brain-dead fuck I’m guessing staring at the tiles for a spell. I’m telling you, weird dude. OCD. Then the shower turns off, you think you’re in the home stretch, right? Not even close. Cause now it’s hair-drying time. He was a lot older, from the 70’s. Back then dudes blow-dried their hair. You could blow dry your hair back then without being a woman. So once the fucking hair dryer turned off that was almost it, except on Tuesdays. Tuesday’s nail-clipping day. And unlike a normal person, he wouldn’t just do it in his room or something, watching tv, he’d do it in the can, hogging the joint up for another 15 minutes. So now Bill’s about to shit himself as our roommate is fucking clipping his nails, just as easy as you please. So at this point he’s so desperate he climbs onto the roof of our building, climbs over to the building next door which they were demo-ing. Dude climbs on a rusted out fucking rafter, looks down at the demo and the rats and takes a fucking squat. Unfortunately, that would not be his worst shit story of the day. So he shits, now he’s gotta get to work. And it just so happens that the bus he takes to work every morning, driver’s a black dude who HATES white people. Sometimes he pretends he doesn’t fucking see Bill and drives off. And of course this is one of those mornings, Bill said he could actually see him laughing at him as he sped by. Next bus ain’t coming for an hour, so now he’s gotta walk to work. So he finally shows up and of course he’s late, and his boss goes crazy, just screaming at him. She’s screaming at him and screaming, and all Bill can think of is this bitch is bawling me out, chewing my ass and whenever she finally gets done screaming at me I have to go down to the basement and suck up her fucking turds and bloody tampons. Jesus fucking christ. Can still hear him describing the vacuuming sounds to me: “thoooomp! thoooooomp!”

16,977

Is the number of Xmastime posts I did before owning a car.

Not My Proudest Search Item Ever

"turds"

Oh, HELLZ No!

Chris Rock was asked about Eddie Murphy, who is ten times funnier than Chris Rock (and I like Chris Rock):

DETAILS: Does it bum you out to see him in less-than-successful films?
Chris Rock: We all do stuff that doesn't work. It bums me out when I'm at his house and he's making a bunch of people laugh and it's so effortless. His Obama impression? Amazing.

Ummmmm...hello, pot? The kettle is asking you to be Facebook friends, for fuck's sake!!

Cool Things I Did in My 30s, Part VI

Finally took some initiative re: trying to get laid.

Tickity Tock

I think I've accepted turning 40, but the clock countdown to midnight has me feeling like Clyde fucking Griffiths walking down the hall for the last time. Yeesh.

More Shit About My Birfday

I just realized that the date of my first birthday I celebrated in Brooklyn was 7/14/98, and 7 x 14 = 98. Interesting. That won't happen ever again unless I live 'til 2098. Which, judging from the three pieces of free meat lover's I inhaled a minute ago, might not happen.

HAPPY GRIZZADAY!

GrizzaDay (n) - July 13, the day between Mamalizza and Xmastime's birfdays. Also: an excuse to eat a whole ice cream cake guilt-free.
Memories HERE and HERE.

Cool Things I Did in My 30s, Part V

Came up with my "Greatness is calling...will you accept the charges?" riff for a softball pre-game pep talk...back in the day, I guess, that collect calls actually existed.

This post dedicated to Kdawggy, ie the only person who ever thought that bit was funny. Here she is trying to get me shitfaced so that she can take advantage of me. That made me sad :(

Woody Guthrie

If this motherfucker's 100th birthday tomorrow steals any thunder from my own 40h on a national basis, we're gonna have a fucking problem. Bet on that, jacko.

The Universe is Trying to Tell Me Something

The only time I ever got lucky at something like this is when my high school girlfriend heard our song on the radio as a “dedication” and thought I had called it in. Which I hadn’t. Did I take credit for it? Umm…am I retarded? Of course! Maybe that’s why every time since I’ve tried to woo a girl with romantic moments they have failed miserably, or never even happened due to bad sequences of luck/timing. Is there a volcano I can sacrifice my “I Melt with You” cassingle to in order to lift this dang curse???!! - XMASTIME

Look, I ain't saying my high school girlfriend and I are getting back together. She's happily married with a coupla kids. Alls I'm saying is, the very first song I heard in my  1999  brand new Toyota Corolla, which is the same make of car that we first kissed in all those years ago, was I Melt with You. I mean, camon. Something's happening here. And when it does, baby, can you please bring my letter jacket? Thanks!

12 Hours Left

Getting my hair cut tonight for the last time in my 30s.

Sigh.

My life in haircuts HERE.

Cool Things I Did in My 30s, Part IV

I put out the third-greatest (told you I'd be humble in my 40s!) record in the history of rock, fuck you very much.

Cool Things That Happened in My 30s, Part III

Banged an Asian softcore porn star in the vestibule of the building next to the Turkey's Nest. Did I stop when the owner of the Nest squeezed by? Hell no.

"Brooks was institutionalized"

Interesting read from David Brooks today on "Why Our Elites Stink", the main gist hitting:

The corruption that has now crept into the world of finance and the other professions is not endemic to meritocracy but to the specific culture of our meritocracy. The problem is that today’s meritocratic elites cannot admit to themselves that they are elites. 

Everybody thinks they are countercultural rebels, insurgents against the true establishment, which is always somewhere else. This attitude prevails in the Ivy League, in the corporate boardrooms and even at television studios where hosts from Harvard, Stanford and Brown rail against the establishment.

When I was back in my mid-to-late 30's I wrote a very similar thing about successful people needing to be okay with being successful and quit trying to win public relations battles that don't exist. Not everybody can be a rags to riches story.

Brooks is also a well-versed Xmastime fan, as his bit about

If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership. 

The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.

Mirrors my own

The reason people will still be talking about the Kennedys a century from now is that they were a part of the ruling class that tried to act in public service for "the people," and the reason nobody will remember the Bush dynsty a century from now is they were part of the ruling class that tried to act for the ruling class. The joke is that no matter what side they chose, both families stayed a part of the ruling class that was insanely wealthy.

Maybe I'll spend my 40's learning humility  hahahahahaahahahahaah good one, Xmastime!!!!