Knowledges during month of November spent in Thieveland:
1. Drew Gooden is half-Finnish. This explains his affinity for Saarinen-themed facial hair? is Eeaaro Saarinen even Finnish?
2. i read Anna Karenina. The train wins. it’s a good book, i guess that’s why people like it so much. i could do without the crap about pan-Slavism.
3. i’m getting a cavity filled in two hours. i’ve had this cavity for two years.
4. please to call my telephone or e-mail for edutainment in chicagoland in forthcoming days
the russo-slavic mouse your author has escaped the gangs and slum babylon of the east side of manhattan. this is a complicated way of saying i’ll be in chicago on nov 30. dust off your best bonnet. we are going for a hayride.
several things to keep an eye on in upcoming news cycle:
1. People villainizing Ron Artest for lashing out at bitches who throw soda. Look, maybe Ron Artest shouldn;t have used hulk rage on a dude (PS ron, it was the 13 yo girl in the pistons jersey who threw it, not don yuppie who you shook) but so what. Stephen Jackson was the one who went in swinging. Ron Artest played the right way. When attacked, merely shake your assailant by the lapels until he confesses guilt. Brent Musberger already conflated Ron Artest’s rap album with his assault on Auburn Hills. Ron Artest is awesome. Do not shit in Ron Artest’s house. Why does everyone insist on acting like players brawling with fans is a bad thing? Also, Horacio Sanz got shitbeat by Jermaine O’Neal when he went on the court. We’re living in the end times, so I see no reason why there can’t be healthy brawls between athletes and fans. Also, somebody call me when something is more disgraceful than Ty Cobb beating the shit out of a guy with no arms and or racebaiting elevator attendants. I will wait by the phone.
2. Apparently people I know got to drink beer with William T Vollmann on Friday. This is god punishing me for something i guess. Possibly for not living in chicago, or for the self-doubt, or for the (deleted).
3. Fuck the entire state of Michigan: you can buy Maurice Clarett, but you can’t buy backbone. Wait does that make sense in this context. I’m not sure. But the point is, Troy Smith knows: Hit L2 to pull down the ball and scramble. Blarrarpht.
4. I don’t know where we file this item but I think Crystal’s Cleaners on First Avenue in NYC fucking stole one of my pairs of pants. And at least one pair of gray sox. Something had been picking at the back of my mind for several weeks and I finally realized that it was the stolen pants. If you don’t know, now you know. Also, somebody mail me $50,000. i won’t spend it, i just want to touch it.
5. My dentist mentioned hitler twice during a routine examination yesterday. He said that when people tell him that they are vegetarians, he tells them that Hitler was a vegetarian. And that he doesn’t mean to imply that they are as bad as hitler, but he claimed that in this small way he staves off the advances of moral absolutist guerillas who lay in wait for him outside his offices. I saw things. There was a pile of bleached skulls. I have to go again.
Who’s excited for tonight’s premiere of House MD! Blarrrrpth. I surrender.
acceptable themes for future novels:
1. “moral ambiguity”
2. game theory
3. how to reconcile spiritual and mechanical world
4. paul giamatti
5. lee ving / fear
6. Spiderman India
7. ” man with too much love” ?
I went to see Sideways, which was sort of depressing, except for the parts where they threw in potty-talk and sexual depravity to keep Theiveland Heights film villains subdued, which brought chuckles and an awareness that everyone else at the 1:55 (why not 2, or 1:50?) p.m. was at least 132 years old and probably drunk on a breakfast of metamucil, acorn squash and brandy (a cocktail known as the Matterhorn in these parts), and they wanted to see Lowell from Wings get real live. I haven’t seen any of dude’s other movies except for Election, but I offer the following insights:
In re the score: guitars. have you heard of them. blink once for yes. the 1% milkfat small curd jazz is no longer an impact player for team. mostly this film was a showcase for Paul Giamatti and that weird thing where the inside of his mouth is smaller than the outside of his mouth. keep your eyes peeled for A. Bartlett Giamatti cameo. As for the movie, you get your paul giamatti’s long dark time of the soul combined with the sexual escapades of Lowell from wings, who deserved (slightly) better than the lot that befell him. i think. don’t quote me on that. i have to go.
As with 95% percent of things appearing on this entertainment, what follows probably sprung from some sort of larger thought about something– and the point, if there was one, was to bend what might have been meaningful commentary about the world as far towards mild obscenities and weird in-jokes as i felt comfortable with. i already lost my thought. my bullet points for today are that for the second time in as many months, i’ve watched the last 45 minutes of Save the Last Dance and secretly reverse fake secretly enjoyed it A LOT.
Some questions I have about this text:
1. at various points it is claimed that the primary black guy (i forget his name) is going to become a surgeon, or go to georgetown, but there is also direct evidence that he is some kind of ballet-hip-hop-dance fusion pinball wizard. please to explain.
2. why is terry kinney is this movie, and why does he seem so tired? is this part of the backstory that i missed, like he had his enthusiasm amputated after his wife left him?
3. in the credits, is Sticky Fingaz from Onyx credited as Sticky Finga (from Onyx), or did he give it up? also, why does the trunk of sticky fingaz’ car explode when shot at by the rival thugs?
4. when exactly did it become ok to say bitch and ass on tv?
5. did she fail to get into julliard before? how do you study being good at dancing? are the homework assignments like “don’t eat ANYTHING” or “be 5% better at dancing in two weeks”?
one of you is going to deny me and one of you is going to betray me:
my other main news from the past two days is that i’m ready to sign off on the LeBron James era, so long as Z Ilgauskas remains prominentally pictured on all 2004-5 NBA championship memorabilia. i have to go, i’m in my underpants and it’s very cold.
mostly i wanted to post a comment to the words/deeds of ben and others. the main purpose of that comment was to point out that ny times editorial writer bob herbert and former new orleans saints QB bobby hebert (not pictured above) have very similar names. which would have been a smokescreen to my secret, ultimate reason for a comment: to complain that you can blame the weird values point (1), or you can say that all evangelical christians are OK with lying, or don’t know the truth, or insert dead-horse-beating here. but the fact of the matter is that bush kicked the shit out of kerry. you can’t say that everything would have been different had the weather been better in ohio or if young people had actually voted (i think they did, actually). then we would have had a president who lost the popular vote by four points– which would have been better, probably, but sort of the death knell of representative democracy. people are always going to buy into labelling, and the suggesting to just find a bigger and better candidate (read: have bill clinton grow old-timey beard, claim his name is phil clanton from two towns over) with a “better message” is not the answer. that the’s goddamn gil thorpe answer– the other team is cheating, so let’s us just commend ourselves to god and try harder. now it’s time for liberals to learn how to fuck with people. when the going gets weird, the weird go pro, or whatever HST said. first thing we need to do is fire the NY Times as the party organ, or sort-of-organ and hire the NY Daily News.
i’m just piling on here, and it’s easier to criticize bobby hebert and company’s mopery than it is to develop some kind of viable political strategy. so it’s a good thing that’s not my job, because i have no intention of spending any more time thinking about it. but my main point still stands: being a sore loser in defense of liberty is a vice. and frankly, i’m starting to think nader was right? i can’t defend myself anymore.
also, when i was looking for a picture of bobby hebert, i was reminded that i really, really liked the saints when i was a kid. mostly because of the cajun-themed hebert. and rickey jackson’s non-standard spelling and facemask. and pat swilling. and ray zellars. and craig heyward. and jim mora. i remember they finally made it to the playoffs with steve walsh at the helm and then the late-neal-anderson era bears just shitbeat them. maybe steve walsh was on the bears. what was supposed to be so great about steve walsh anyway? all i remember is that he had an arm like tom goodwin. i have to go do something. but save a prayer for the 1989-1994 New Orleans Saints tonight. They would do no less for you.
End Notes
1. If the morals gulf was the mark of cain or whatever on the Papist candidacy, and if anyone wants to claim credit for that, why didn’t that question get more heat in pre-election poll results? well, because people have to say somethign was the reason they lost, which i guess was the point of the whole post.
Sources
“Sensational Saints” http://members.tripod.com/ ~nflimages01/saintsimages.html, American, c.2004
i think i stayed subverbal long enough for the election shit to boil over, crust to the bottom of the pan, go through the “in four years…” and “democrats must do ___” and “insert name of cycle” cycle, et cetera. here’s what i can tell you: i’m registered to vote in ohio and i didn’t vote. did this wind up mattering? yes and no. do i feel bad about it: only sort of. i can get in to that in greater depth at a later date (translation: either i feel guilty or i don’t care. ask me in person to find out).
one of the few things that i am proud of in ohio elective democracy: Berea OH was one of two westside suburbs of cleveland/voting wards to rejekt issue one (gay marriage ban– which passed statewide by a wide, wide margin). word to berea and bay village on that one. i would also point out, as the plain dealer’s article did, that wards of east cleveland where kerry support was over 90 percent in favor of an unnecessary, hate-driven ban on gay marriage. i try not to be political. and i succeed for the most part, but the superfluous gay marriage ban in 1/5 of the US thing makes me want to vomit up my asshole. WHY CAN’T GAY PPL GET MARRIED? first person to satisfactorily explain this gets nothing at all.
what else: so i’m in kleveland momentarily pending triumphal chariot-mounted return to chicagoland area. i have perpetual moments of doubt about these sorts of decisions, moving from place to place. reality or remembrance thereof indicates that i would probably be amenable to living in any city where i have a full-time job that doesn’t make me want to die; remembrances of history indicate that those preconditions have never successfully existed. nonetheless, the underlying reasoning is still that of striking out for the main chance– if somebody else builds it, i’ll come. obviously i’m climbing out of some kind of toilet-looking drain of despair in recent months; i like NY a lot, but not enough to put up with retarded prices and a lot of scum. i define scum broadly, incidentally. we’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about things here until i can get back to living the lifestyle to which i’ve become accustomed. so either prepare or opt out. or neither. i’ll likely forget the pledge. alls i know for tonight is that i was probably the first person in a long time to drive through thugcentric east cleveland listening to “planet earth” by duran duran. this fact is of little comfort. i’m going back to reading.
