I’m at a temp job. Which represents the first honest-living-sourced content in like four months. But this post is specifically not about honest living. It;s about, in theory, the books I read last year, but mightly principally turn out to be about how the guy who i’m supposed to be listening to and learning from as he fields phone calls from school administrators and teachers is working on possibly the biggest single-instance usage of smokeless tobacco i have ever seen. it’s really pretty impressive. maybe it’s not the kind of smokeless i think it is, because i think it’s dip. he just walked to the break room sink with the body language of a guy who reallys wants to spit something out immediately. my job is putatively making phone calls here but it has not even been suggested yet that i pick up the telephone. Can I take eight weeks of this? is it even eight weeks that I am supposed to work here? you can forget about the book list, incidentally. i should really od something else.
books i read this morning
The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches: I was not aware that we needed James Ellroy to save non-fiction. I’m not sure that we do. My initial enthusiams for this book cooled a little bit when i read the sentence “The night, motherfucker, was theirs.” but still, this is interesting shit, in theory?
I can’t remember what my goal was for this year, as far as reading books was concerned. I think it might have been 52 books, one for each week. Also attendant to this plan is that i have stopped reading the newspaper (not clear why) and also i am forsaking the internet completely. other plans on the table currently are to stop drinking alcohol and to grow at least four inches tall by summer time. I rode the green line past the loop for the first time in American history today.
I don’t want to listen to the Pixies anymore. i am aware of what the pixies have to offer at this point. can we move on. Please. Why am i here in this shithole. It’s almost fucking noon already. Jesus fucking christ. At least I don’t have to stay here until 6 pm like the job in brooklyn. is my macarthur grant ready yet. i’m like a genius, but dumber.
Whatever powers this bitch (steam, my failures) seems to flagging a bit in the past one to six months. We play with pain around here. I was eminently prepared and qualified to share with you, in the old manner, some of my grievances with the Chicago Transportation Authority. I was also going to make a list with all the books I think I read last year and some short, profanity-studded snapshots of me reacting to them (the books, not the snapshots). I think I still might get around to that shit. What I had been about to say was that I was going to do those things, but thenI found out that the Cavs were on ESPN. But then the game was just hitting halftime. So, fuck you is my point.
Some things to know about your hero’s recent battles against the
1. Fuck the CTA as a staff, a record label and as a major public transportationary
The 6 bus: You used to be cooler.
The 8 bus: Fuck you
The 9 bus: Fuck you
The 21 bus: You do not exist
The 28 bus: BITCH GET YOUR MIND RIGHT
The 44 bus: Fuck you
The 55 bus: You made me wait 42 minutes the other night . Fuck you
Green Line: I can’t get mad at you
Chinatown Red Line stop: Quickly becoming one of my least favorites in the city. After the Sedgwick Brown Line stop, which I think exists just to make people feel bad by swirling together the worst yuppies money can buy with a rugged housing project.
These are not substantial criticisms, I know. I’m going to bust out the books I read last year list soon. I promise.
I don’t want to hear any of this shit about how the city of Philadelphia needs ego booster shots. The Sixers won a title in 1983, the Eagles made the Super Bowl in 1981, the Phillies won in 198something, the Flyers were extremely good in the 1970s and made at least one Cup Final in the late 90s, Heather Mitts plays for the Philadelphia Freedom (named after Elton John song?). I don’t want to hear this shit. Also, if you were being extra inclusive, the A’s used to play in Phila and they are perennial playoff contenders.
Cleveland can’t even get the respect it deserves as the biggest municipal loser. If i might indulge in a recap:
LOST:
1986 AFC Title Game on “The Drive”
1987 AFC Title Game on “The Fumble”
1989 AFC Title Game on “Neither One Drive or Fumble”
1994 AFC Div. Game on “Having Vinny Testaverde at QB”
2002 AFC Wild Card Game (to the #$&*^# Steelers) on a brutal defensive collapse
The Browns have never played in a Super Bowl. Say what you will about the Eagles losing three straight title games: none of them were especially dramatic losses, they just got their asses handed to them. The worst part about the Browns’ title game losses is that they were much better than Denver in ‘86 and ‘87. Also THEY MOVED THE TEAM TO BALTIMORE.
Don’t even get me fucking started about the Indians. The 1997 World Series never happened. And I still maintain that LeBron is going to be on the Lakers or limping like Larry Bird inside of five years. Paranoia is my emotional inheritance as a Cleveland sports fan.
But hey, we’ve got the 1994 NISL champion Cleveland Crunch featuring Hector Marinaro and the mighty Dave Hoggan, right?
i apologize for this. regularly scheduled weird content to resume momentarily
I started to read Homage to Catalonia. I am forced to concur with vocalized sentiments about the spanish civil war being “the most interesting major-studio war of the twentieth century.” also, George Orwell sounds like he was kind of a wanker en vivo. Although you’ve got to give him the continuation on figuring out how, if not quite when (what’s 21 years between friends) everything was headed south. I smell incense. Am I in college here or something? I’m not going to indulge any further in George Orwell fanboy shit. I don’t think I even qualify for that stuff. I need to drink something that’s not diet coke or coffee so my insides dont turn into graphite soon. We will be better in the future. Mostly I’m waiting for the Lithuanian chat line to wrap up so I can resume my MarioKhart dominance. I am wasting my life, incidentally, if you were wondering how to answer that question.
That whole shit where people are writing novels entirely in Instant Message conversations or as Food Nutrition labels needs to stop. I dont know that this is actually happening. Can I have a sandwich.
One, how old is Brent Musburger and how much should I be required to use terms like “dignified” or “leatherfaced” when discussing him?
Two, raise your paw if you personally were certified in the use of Microsoft Word by a temp agency in the O’hare crater this morning/afternoon. Also, and less depressing, is that I got an internship working for Billiards Digest. I don’t know why you would be particularly interested in knowing that. I have to finish my speculative celebrity fiction if we’re going to have time to talk later. The devil lurks behind MarioKart incidentally. Also, I have eaten exactly one thing that was not rice or bread or potatoes in the last three days. That thing was seven slices of American cheese. I guess I could count mustard and instant coffee in the non rice bread potato category.
This town is worn out, incidentally. I’m going to search for the sunshine one of these days. What else did I do: I read all but the last 14 pages of This Side of Paradise. It’s not actually very good, although you can sort of hearing gears clicking in F. Scott’s head for the later arrival of less crap writing. My best advice, in re This Side of P. is to read pages 0-99, and then skip directly to 238-260. It would help if I told you what version I was reading, probably. I haven’t listened to or even considered new music in three weeks. I’m still gnawing on Honky Tonk Heroes. and by gnawing you can understand that I mean ignoring. Trevor Linden is still on the Canucks? More importantly, a baseball note: If being Roger Clemens, aged 42 and insistent on not traveling on road trips, live German Shepherd sacrifices, etc, is worth $22million, how is AL Cy Young winner Baron Johan von Santana only asking for $6.8mil? Is it because the Baron von Santana is negligent or is it because Roger Clemens is actually the Devil. Like he files his horns off and is a walking personification of at least nine character traits that you get sent to hell for (greed, sloth, not forgiving people, being on the Yankees, being from Texas, goatees, naming your children weird names that all begin with K, having a wife that gives me the creeps, being on the Astros, ransoming trades, hunting minorities for sport) Actually the Devil. Think about it. It’s frightening. I need a nap.
We shed tears for Marty Schottenheimer today. We also spend most of this morning reading weird shit about some sort of boring chef’s personal life and then about tectonic plates underneath New Jersey. I was working on some sort of high-flown theory on why the New Yorker is ultimately, double-reverse a wart on the eyeball of culture and needs to be firebombed back into non-existence with vast amounts of prejudice. As with most high-flown theories propagated, or alluded to, from this pulpit, you’re not ever going to see word one of that. Also compounding the problem is that I don’t think I actually agree with my own theory. More importantly, I’m going to stop writing now. My sister got me a membership to the Art Institute. Now I can go figure out who painted the weird colonial-era crazy giant-head tiny-bodies portraits of well-to-do Pennsylvania merchants. I’ve been trying to remember that for a while. I think the Colts just scored. No, “fucking amazing catch [unclear] ” acc to M. d.S. Pereira. “Dallas Clark”
I spent all of yesterday watching the playoffs. Actually I spent all of yesterday playing MarioKart and switching back to the playoffs in between races. I get angry at the MarioKart computer sometimes.
Ah, now I remember: I was going to sermonize against Joe Theismann/Paul Maguire and Phil Simms. I don’t understand how these three men (we might also indict Mike Patrick and Jim Nantz on lesser but still very serious charges) are allowed, and in fact specifically preferred, to serve as professional commentators. Never mind. God needs me on the floor
Some combination of holidays, watching the lost weekend , avoiding other people, and heroic failure to manage intake of Special Treats (across several categories, not just too many pops. Even like too much taco salad and not showering and mario kart) generated a recursive wretchedness lasting c. 72 hours. And so it was that I went out into the city and had bagels and felt better because I shaved and did not feel athletic creeping terror at the polite suggestion of being in the same room as other human beings. Remind me later that I need to wash my bath towel, please. Also, I ought to point out that the comments function on this blog is now more of a non-function, if you take my meaning.
Some media notes:
1. Two Brothers: I expected that a movie that promised to be little more than footage of two tigers walking around various landscapes (a jungle, a different jungle, -lateRaj-era India, a third jungle, at least one bathtub, at least one autobus) would be terrifically entertaining, i think because in the preview the baby tigers make noises that sound sort of like the noises former 1984produkts employee M. Wiry Cat used to make, when hungry or awake. As it turns out, the baby tigers are only in the movie for a minute, at the beginning, Guy Pearce is in no way an indicator of a movie being like other movies (LA Confidential, Memento) that had Guy Pearce in them also, and this movie: one of the most boring alleged entertainments of recorded history. on the other hand, i was put to sleep within 30 minutes. which sort of clouds whether or not i can rightly assess how good or bad this movie is. I’m glad i saw it though, because it fits into the burgeoning academic field of identifying advocated compulsory homosocial/sexuality in modern commercial art. How does it fit: Well, there is not too much evidence that Kumal and Sangha are actually brothers– in fact I don’t think you ever see them together with both parents at the same time, which I think opens the door or window for their reunion during the tiger fight sequence (which manages to indict specifically mediterranean-looking people as tiger abusers for i would say less than clear reasons. maybe I’m working too hard for that one.) to be construed as two boy tigers falling in love, or falling back into love. somehow this is related to my non-benighted enthusiasm at the idea of like militarized gay liberation in the US and how i want that to happen, while still being pretty straight, on that scale of 0 to 6 where one end is perfectly straight and one end is perfectly gay. it’s a lot like how i cheered on the side for the Red Sox from 2002 to 2004 because the indians were in no position to satisfy my needs and desires as a regular baseball-church-goer.
1a. Notable instances of commercials for homosexuality:
The one football commercial where the QB tried to encourage the hapless fat kid to score a TD because then he will receive a kiss from the peerless head cheerleader. his immediate and clearly nature not nuture response is to suggest that he is not interested in getting the ball on this play, which I have long maintained is pretty screamingly not entirely about football, if you know what I mean. Like I don’t even remember what this commercial was for or about because it didn’t tell you, because it was clearly funded by some kind of shadow hand organization. Now I’m fictionalizing things. Sorry.
The subway commercial where the security guard guy says he is going to get the Total Happiness, which turns out to be a meatball sub filmed in a mostly appropriate but still sort of lasciviously phallic way, which he then eats and gets some on his shirt, and then, out of nowhere, a woman, clearly cast as the secuirty guard’s emasculating evil bitch boss comes to the desk and says sneeringly, “you got some total happiness on your shirt” in a cruel manner, which the security guard protagonist reacts to in the way that people react to Ralph Fiennes’ character in Schindler’s List.
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Not actually good or about meaningful human emotion. I thought through this. And somebody needs to turn off the Jon Brion Totally Disposable soundtrack cyborg before it overheats. And Beck needs to stop covering Korgis songs.
