Hrrrk.
That’s the first thing I said this morning, and I feel like it should go on here. I just spent a day dealing with children who did not want to be dealt with, and that’s still how I feel. It’s a somewhere between the sound of someone realizing they made a mistake and the sound someone would make as a slender blade slips between their ribs. A sharp intake of breath colored with the resignation of the trapped.
Not that life is all that bad. Just sounds good.
Onto the scraps!
1) Whilst watching the Australian comedy/news program “Good News Week,” I heard something that made my face hurt with laughter. It was a simple bad pun, but I feel the desire to share it here. Some oddball actor/comedian named Frank Woodley interrupted an otherwise focused segment to add: “You know how to titillate and ocelot? Oscillate its tit a lot.”
And I nearly died laughing. That’s all I can say. It could be that I just appreciate a turn of phrase, or possibly that the idea of small-cat bestiality is comedy gold. It also could be that Australian accents make really dumb jokes funnier. I also laughed, last week, at a reference to Madonna’s neighbors complaining about the “sound of her granny flange rubbing against her leotard.” Australia seems to have a way with filth.
For one thing, they’re not shy about making dick and fart jokes, dropping the F bomb, etc, on national television. This is likely because they were sent from England as debtors and whores, and did not willfully and puritanically go like early Americans. We were stone-faced high-horsers with noses in the air. They were dirty and laughed often, half-toothed grins and yellowing gums. We might have done better, but I bet they had more fun.
Aside from being thought of as drunken racists, of course.
2) A good friend of mine, Ed Giza, is undergoing a sort of… public self-discovery on his blog. Essays on self-consciousness in creativity and finding ones place in creative endeavors that are a joy to read. If nothing else, maybe he has a shot at writing about creating. If only there were a way to do that outside of the nefarious sweaty undercarriage of criticism.
At any rate, the highlights for me thus far have been numerous, but the topper is as follows: “Honestly, the idea of dumping the contents of my brain onto tape provokes the idea of dumping the contents of my bowels into my underpants.” Winner. Do yourself a favor and check out the two entries thus far titled “On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado.” Best of luck to him in figuring out what he should do and make, because it’s certainly something.
3) I’ve become strangely addicted to the band Muse recently. I fear slightly for my credibility as a hardcore rock ’ roll type, but frankly that was out when I started unironically listening to Darude’s “Sandstorm” and anything by David Lee Roth aside from his first solo album. That’s the trouble with irony. Whether you’re doing it as a joke or not, you end up doing it. And usually, liking it.
Regardless, apparently my life was had a hole in it the shape of melodramatic British art pop or whatever the hell you would call this band. Having it in your headphones adds a subtle gravitas to anything, from walking through a park to riding on an airplane, and that’s kind of nice. It’s also easy on the ears, melodic and unchallenging, to a degree. That’s important too. It can’t all be crazed time signatures and screaming.
If the 17 year old me met me now, he would try to kick my ass. But you know what’s great? I would win that fight every time.
4) A reply to my last post cited the gaping hole in the ozone layer as a reason for the sun’s strength in this part of the world. I knew that, but left it out. The sun is much more easily romanticized when we’re not constantly reminded that it is a ball of flames and plasma hurling carcinogenic particle/wave combos at us. I’m not saying I’m mad at her for pointing it out, just saying that it was my intention to omit the fact that along with this tan comes supercilious mole scrutiny. I’m watching those ticking melanin timebombs, no worries.
But there is a pleasure that comes from nutty brownness. Even an extremely blanco gringo like myself can imagine himself as looking healthy and let’s face it, handsome. That’s not something I get to do in my normal, indoor-bound winter life, so I’m enjoying my November bronze, consequences be damned. I won’t be here long enough to end up looking like a catcher’s mitt, or worse, Robert Redford, anyways. So leathery. His eyelids are like shaved bat wings.
5) 5 scraps! Ambitious! Admittedly they’re just half-developed thought fetuses, but left in the prom-night dumpster of the internet. So don’t get too excited. Shit, that’ll be thought of as a Family Guy reference if I don’t dig up a link to the original story. Here. Now get off my back.
Where was I? Right, the elusive 5th scrap. Truth be told I don’t really have one loaded up. I don’t have a topic that I can QuikRant™ about. Yeah, I’m trademarking QuikRant. I view it as being a “near-inconcievably quickly deployed, seemingly well-thought-out argument against an idea, object, product, or person, lodged on the internet with haste abated only by spellchecking.” One day, it will come in a can, and allow anyone to rail against the cosmic unfairness of something as simple as an infomercial. Or as complex as an infomercial. The socio-economic details in the marketing of products is actually kind of fascinating. It would be a hot-button issue if people weren’t already so worried about “President Osama’s Socialist Death Panels and Mandatory Sterilization For The Mentally Unfit” (POSDPMSFMU, for short).
Target demographics, with regard to informericals, come to one horrible conclusion. All those products are for white people with more money than sense. And since the American dream is essentially to accumulate property and thereby not have to DO as much: exercise machines and unnecessarily specific kitchen gadgets come to mind.
Actually what comes to mind is a topic. Steelcase, a company whose name indicates they are far more badass than they are, have announced a new office desk. Ready?
Now you can walk an abysmally slow 2 miles an hour (fast enough to raise the heartrate, but not leave your breath ragged and shallow for those office calls) while working. Thank God someone invented this. There’s nothing worse than sitting in an office chair, and finally someone has combined the two most important pieces of animal technology into one. The nobility and slow mental decay of existing as a human drone bee has finally met that paragon of recreational fitness, the hamster wheel.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this. Maybe people will buy them and get fit and do great things. Life will turn around, the sea level will fall, the Tasmanian Tiger will once again walk the earth. Oh but wait, it’s essentially a desk and treadmill combination that costs more than any desk or treadmill a normal person would own. The price tag: $6500. In other words, the only people who buy this will be white people with more money than sense. Stupid, stupid honkeys.
Right, that feels like a good stopping place. Hope all is well in all of your respective netspaces, and goodnight.
RJC
