Awe-Style

We are not going to lie, the Winter Olympics register a high 8 on our excitement meter here at the blogspot. We get in on the whole international scuttlebutt, the debate over whether the Italians are correct in the pronunciation of their own city. Is it in fact “Turino”, as the natives call it? Or do we go with the more American-sounding “Turin”? My father sides more with the American pronunciation. “It’s the ‘Shroud of Turin’, he tells me, “not Turino”. Whatever. We love these fiery debates. All of it. The insane opening ceremony, with its pyrotechnic display. The Italian gymnast who pounds an anvil-looking device which creates fiery blasts to fly up and into the air while throngs of insane-looking Italians in costume do acrobatic exercises. It elicits in us here at the blogspot a reaction that is best personified by red haired American snowboarder Shaun White, who stands with his mouth agape for a full 40 seconds while the camera does not move from his stony visage. What is still undetermined, however, is if he was looking at the crazy Italian artist on a motorcycle doing donuts or if he was just in awe of the choice song selections that each country marched out to. Albania arrives to “We are family”, while meanwhile the Ethiopian delegation marches out to “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer. You wonder how the Ethiopian athletes interpreted the lyrics to that song, I need some hot stuff baby tonight. And just what all that was about. The all time greatest moment occurs when the Slovakian delegation marches out to “YMCA”, which confounds just about everybody in attendance. We here at the blogspot are still trying to figure that out, all the while maintaining our poise, Shaun White-style.

We are digging deeper, though, too, trying to further understand our own love for these crazy games. It was something imbued on us circa 1987, no doubt, when we broke our kneecap falling from a sleigh. We were insanely standing up on the sleigh, parodying our best Shaun White move, before very anticlimactically falling and shattering our kneecap. We lied in the snow for a full ten minutes looking up at the gray sky, the various tendons and ligaments in the knee pulling at different places in our leg. The white-hot feeling of heat at various points along the leg where the knee was cracked. Wondering at how we were going to get home, just how we were going to explain to our parents our precarious predicament. And hoping they would not spazz out on us. Our Olympic dreams shattered. It could be, too, just the Norwegian heritage talking. Growing up, there were always the stories about my Norwegian grandfather doing ski jumping back in his native country. The romantic notions of crazy sweaters and skiing down big slopes. Something like this. More predictably, we conjecture that it’s probably just the whole insanity of the sporting event. The flying down hills at 60 mph on two fiberglass boards, the bobsledding, the skeletoning. The cross country skiing while brandishing a rifle. We love that up here in the B-rist. And we will be watching the proceedings in Turino, holding our knee, and thinking about how if only we maintained on the sled that one day. Because we are pretty much sure that we could rival Shaun White in our awe-style.

Very 10th Grade

jumping jack
n.
1. A toy figure with jointed limbs that can be made to dance by pulling an attached string.

2. Sports. A physical exercise performed by jumping to a position with the legs spread wide and the hands touching overhead and then returning to a position with the feet together and the arms at the sides.


“This is going to be the coldest ten seconds of my life,” someone has told us today, before running out of doors with no jacket. We thought of that statement, the hyperbole implicit in the passing sentiment. We’ve known colder days, we thought. But it is late now, the night air permeates the room, and we here at the blogspot feel that now. The heat here at the B-rist is turned to low, and we are cold. We think, even, about doing some jumping jacks and appreciate the peculiar name of that exercise. Jumping jacks, we say out loud, wondering where that comes from. It is, I imagine, some derivative of something else which is totally divorced from its original meaning now. The guy who came up with that exercise was named Jack, maybe. He had a strange proclivity for this behavior. Hey, what the hell are you doing, his friends would ask. What is that? Who could say where that comes from. We google jumping jacks and inexplicably get a porno site for women doing this exercise, pointing out that the name is now synonomous with naked women jumping up and down.




We are bored here tonight at the B-rist. And we are thinking things through to their logical conclusions. When the bass lines have left from our head, and the crunchy guitar parts, we are left with little to block out the passing thoughts. And we do gravitate towards the larger implications, let us tell you. Very 10th grade, we know. Thinking of things. That is the level we operate on here at the B-rist. 10th grade-style. And do we ever need some distraction from all this. We are so cold now that we are actually doing the archaic exercise. Just like gym class: arms akimbo, legs apart, and hands touching overhead again. You can almost feel the cold leaving, and the blood flow. It feels alright.

A Total Square: I Am

I’ve recently considered having a square tattooed onto my arm. I’m into right angles, I would tell people. Really, though, it wouldn’t mean anything in particular. Because meaning something in this late day context, with its inherent bus stop straggler reverently giving you the back-story on his vapid armband tattoo, is just really passé. Secretly, though, it would mean exactly what it purports to meaning: I am a total square. As evidence of this total square-ness, I would probably have to site being into the TW3 local access show MasterMinds as example number one. It is qualitatively the greatest piece of programming ever to have come from public access, and if you do not believe all it takes is five minutes of MasterMinds’ host David Guistina to realize: this guy is fucking insane. Let’s play MasterMinds! he tells you, garishly winking into the camera, starting the game. It’s like his sole aspiration in life really was to be the mascot for that southern no interest car loan place, but since all that didn’t work out, he knew that MasterMinds' game show host would look comparitively spiffy on his resume as runner up. An air of such painful professionalism does David Guistina exude. The whole premise of the show, basically, is to see if some high school from Berne-Knox-Westerloo can beat out a school from Berne, New York in the battle for superior periodic table knowledge. “What happens when you mix h2 with O2 ?” he asks them. The elected leader of the team slaps the buzzer. Wrong answer, spontaneous combustion. David Guistina’s head inexplicably does not come detached, although it does come dangerously close to resembling a bobble head in certain situations. Or at least some crystal meth.-laden monkey who has definitely not been without for some time now.


The best part of the show precedes the actual playing, when David Guistina asks the players of each team what they’re into. Which, if you know anything about game shows, is invariably the best part of any show like that. Typically, on something like Jeopardy, you get to hear the grating story of some Louisiana housewife and how a rodent snuck into the house one day and they called pest control. “That was a memorable one,” they nervously chortle into the microphone, the studio audience audibly quiet, the contestant wishing— praying—that the cameras would move on to the next person, wondering ignobly at the gall of the person who devised this ridiculous part of the show. An old pro like Alex Trebec, though, so graceful in his recovery of these stories, spinning like a CNN news analyst, always knowing just what to say. Cradling in his palm almost this televised moment of pure social akwardness and watching it fly from his hand like a now uninjured bird.

The dynamics of a show like MasterMinds is all changed around, though, because basically, the kids are not yet versed in social graces, and even if they were they make no attempts at disguising their collective disdain for the host. “I like playing Mortal Combat and never go outside,” some kid says. “Haha,” the answer is greeted, the characteristic gregarity in full effect. “I like Dungeons & Dragons,” some other kid offers, “and my monster name is Dash.” It’s sad, though, too, because in this host you see all of the same characteristics of the substitute teacher, ignobly trying to laugh off the wisecracks. Except, because this particular host seems to be residing within the confines of some entirely other solar system, he has no idea he’s being dissed on. And the condescension does abound. “Well, I study Greek,” some girl tells him. “And I want to teach,” she adds. “Kind of a dead language,” he laughs, “Don’t you think?” The girl just stares back at him deadpan, not too cracked up by all the shenanigans. That’s OK, though, because there happens to be a balm for all of these awkward moments: “Are you ready to play MasterMinds?” he screams in perfect synchronicity with the audience. The insanity continues.

I find consolation in getting a few of the answers right. The easy ones, which have nothing to do with anything. And it kind of boosts your ego a little bit. I like to think, anyway. And I’ve even conspired a way to get more answers right. Just don’t be asking me about the freaky periodic table tatoo on my arm next time you see me at the bus stop, because that might command a longer answer than you’re willing to hear.

Unemployment

Is the temp agency ever hip to us now. They are hot on our tracks and we here at the B-rist intend to kick it to them wholeheartedly. We intend to take our late day version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off all the way to the top.

In a strange twist of fate, the temp agency is now calling us every hour, with some spectacular new job scenario, because they have realized that we have filed for unemployment, are frittering away the days here at the B-rist, veritably getting paid to blog, while they are footing the bill for us to do so. Spectacular. Now, instead of us having to call them every hour and get turned down, in some spectacular turn of the tables, we are now doing the turning down. Oh, can’t get to the phone right now, we are preening over our blog at the moment. Sorry. –Yeah, well we actually don’t do warehouse work, so what do you know?

A big moment transpires this afternoon, when they threaten me by saying that if I don’t get over there to take some mandatory typing exam, it could well in fact jeopardize my unemployment situation. “Just letting you know,” Sarah ominously intones into my voicemail. We will not lie: that kind of threat does send a wave of panic over us here at the blogspot, and we do in fact phone her back immediately. But only for correspondences’ sake. Because even though we can type—are typing like a motherfucker right this very moment—we tell her it’s no use, because we haven’t used a computer in years. Have been living on some hippie commune, actually, and don’t even know how to turn one on. Oh, is it ever a banner day here at the B-rist. We are sticking it to the man and we are proud. For another ten minutes, we presume, until they send the truancy officer to arrest me and send me back to class.

They Don't Make Lies Like They Used To

The temp. agency would like to see me this morning. Despite working for them on and off again for numerous years, they have forgotten who I am, have lost my resume in the gigantic refuse pile which constitutes their filing system, and would like it if I checked in. They want to make sure that I’m not fashioning a beard or have developed some nervous tic which might prevent me from using a copying machine. This is how they do it around here.

You can pretty much determine their estimation of you by the kinds of jobs they end up offering. Sometimes they send you to a higher paying position for a few weeks, and you pretty much know that they liked your shirt that day. You have convinced them that you are a civilized human, and that you will not be putting the supervisor in a headlock when she gives you some papers to collate. I’ve worked at jobs, too, where they didn’t like my shirt that day, and I can pretty much assure you that there are specific destinations for the uncivilized: "Check this out," a fellow temp. tells me one day. "As an act of revenge for giving him shit, John jerked off all over that chair over there." I cannot believe this story, but on further inspection there actually really does appear to be some strange-looking substance all over the chair in question. I tell them I will be standing for the rest of the day.

There is just no end to the strangeness of the temp. world, with its inherent miscreant faction and weirdo populace. And no specific workplace is absolved, no matter how good it seems to be. I try and figure out just what camp they’re putting me into. "Have you ever worked on an assembly line?" they want to know. I'm a little amazed to realize that they are actually serious. I swear I thought I saw the hint of bemusement on their faces. Oh, well. The results are in. You can pretty much rest assured I won’t be adding this to resume any time soon. Not this one. "We’ll call you if something comes up," they let me know. OK. I just don’t know how comforting all that is.

Super Bowl Sunday

We are just hanging out today. The Super Bowl is on, and although this may excite many of our constituents it hardly registers a passing notice from us here at the blogspot. We know, we are not like others. We honestly do not even know who is in the big game. Are prone to facilitating mass hysteria and ass-beatings by pointing out the jingoistic nature of this sport. We are, in a point of fact kind of way, prone to being called a real homo. No matter. Let it be known that we here at the B-rist do not give a fuck.

Things we do give a fuck about are increasingly limited but are likely to include any combination of the following: pretty girls, alcohol consumption, and feeling you up. Also added to that list might be any variety of worldly cuisines. But then, I guess that last bit is the cloying attempt at getting invited to your Super Bowl party. We know, though: you were already convinced.

Let me fill you in on a little secret: we here at Belletristica Internationale do not fuck around. Our ostensibly slack lifestyle is in fact machine-like in intensity, and is fueled by coffee that is rumored to be delivered via one of those beer can-type helmets you see people wearing in the crowds of football games. We will not confirm that rumor, but nor will we deny it. There is nothing which may not be true here at B-ristica, except for the conjecture that we may have had sex last night---which is definitely not true. Has not, in fact, been true this side of ‘06.

What is unglaringly true, however, is that in the last four days, we have loaded thousands of songs onto our device. We have loaded and loaded. Would probably even go so far as to say we would fight to the death if someone tried to take it away from us. Would scrap like a wildcat. So do not even try. And besides, one would probably be filled with massive chagrin after an effort like that (if one were even to be successful). The superiority of our musical predilections is totally unrivaled. So towering, in fact, is our superiority in generally everything here at the B-ristica blogspot that we can hardly make eye contact with the average American. The iPod is now brimming with the greatest sub-cultural cornicopia even conceivable, and we are proud.



As further evidence of our awesomeness, we would also like to note that one Kristi Gustafson of the Times Union has contacted us for quotability in a feature article about 20 somethings. She has come to the right source, we have assured her. We are evocative of a Bartletts’. So quotable, in fact, that we have suggested being paid in burlap bags full or cash, or alternately by plugging the B-ristica blogspot in her article (or even, as a last resort, an endless supply of vegan dip). The reply, it could be said, was less than receptive. We shall see in the coming days how she doubts her decision to alienate us. We shall see.

Life Force

Chickadee little infant family walking through the superstore tonight. "That’s kind of nice," I tell Kari-Ann. "In order to have a family, I think you have to entertain the possibility of hope," I continue, "and I think that’s a beautiful thing." Kari asks me if I’m ever going to have kids. I don’t think so, I tell her.

It’s kind of weird, but I feel absolutely no urge to perpetuate life. I feel many urges, but that is not one of them. Some guy on television last night explaining the life force to me. "You have beat out millions of sperm to get here," he says, "and so you mine as well celebrate that victory." I think about all this as I’m standing outside today, the mud-encrusted grit of the ground and snow turning my hair into icy tendrils. "Life force," I think facetiously. He’s right, though. It’s just some arbitrary propulsion on the pinball machine which has lead me to this specific spot, at this point in time. I explain this same epiphany to AL in the Taco Bell parking lot last week. "I was getting coffee in a MacDonald’s resturant the other day," I told him, "and I was completely horrified by the life form inside. And it’s just so random that I’m here, on this side of the counter, when I could have just as easily been standing on the other side, serving you coffee" (a probability which is actually not too far off, given my recent employment situation or the startling lack thereof). But it’s true that people have their sense of social equality all mixed up.

I hope a little bit for the family I see tonight. The little girl with the bulbous eyes, and her brother. That they entertain the "life force". And I hope a little bit, I think, for me, too.

Greetings from Albany, New York

Lunchtime in North Albany. The unseemly section of Broadway by the Miss Albany Diner. I have to drop something off at the Arnoff Building and have no recollection of where this place is, suddenly remembering, Oh, yeah: that’s the building with "Nipper", the RCA dog on top. Circling around, looking in the sky for the majestic dog, trying not to hit pedestrians crossing the street. Actually, though, that’s a pretty safe bet. There’s no one around. This part of town is totally sketchy. Some remnant of a William Kennedy novel, with all of the lifeblood sucked out of it. One in a succession of decaying teeth within the overarching framework of a mouth full of rot (sorry, William Kennedy; I know that probably eats you up, dude. You and me, both).

I buzz EASSE at the Arnoff and am greeted with someone talking back at me in a shrill hiss that sounds a lot like a Jimmy Hendrix guitar solo. "What?" I say. "I can’t hear you." They buzz me in. There’s no directory and so I just wander around the hallway. Irish American Historical Society? What’s that? I think, simultaneously walking right into the office. Two pasty-looking women want to know what I am doing in there. "Uh, do you know where EASSE is?" I ask them. "Well, there are only two floors, and since there is nothing else on this floor, I would suggest it’s on the second floor," I am told in the didactic voice you use to talk to small children." OK. Well the elevator seems to go all the way up, and since Nipper the dog resides way up above, what of those other floors? I decide not to push it. I am clearly a disturbance in the very important affairs of whatever it is these two women do at their desks all day. I have no proper business in here. Decide not to ask anymore questions. "Thanks, though," I tell them. Penny greets me in the hall. "Are you Penny?" I say. Yes. Here you go. This is for you.

Back out into the world. A nice day for once. Back up Broadway and over to S. Pearl, bustling with action this time of day. Throngs of state employees are hustling around on a thirty minute lunch break. JC is probably at work right now, serving these same people martinis. That sucks. No constraints and just driving around, rolling down the window for effect. A good hair day for once, I reflect, looking in the mirror. The stars have aligned in our favor. Up State to Eagle and past the Egg, shooting over to Madison by the State Museum. Hey, look: there’s Kristen, our ex-coworker on one of her lunchtime power walks. I park illegally by the museum and say what’s up. "Hey, Kristen! What’s going on?" I gesticulate from the curb. She has no idea who I am from the distance, probably thinks I’m one of the vagrants who resides in the concourse, totally misinterpreting my good-hair day. "Hey, Ry!" she greets me, finally recognizing. "How are you?" She has to get back to work, though, and so she’ll see me around. OK. See you later.

Back in the car. I’m listening to a cd copy of SY Dirty at full volume. Good sunny-day weather music. Not too many Lee songs on here, I reflect. That’s cool. Some people like them. It’s a matter of preference, I think. Something more deeply encoded in your DNA. My pen pal, for instance, she’s a Lee-song person, from what I could gather. Hey, Joni: put it all behind you. That’s a good one. Gets stuck up in your cranium, doesn’t come out for a while. I listen some more as I continue up Madison, driving by the college. Perfect little student archetypes crossing the street there. Flip-flops in winter, I muse. Doesn’t seem like very functional footwear. Oh, well. Albany is looking ugly as ever today. Hey, Joni: put it all behind you, I think to no one in particular.

From HQ

It is a banner day here at B-ristica Internationale: surely there must be some mistake, some glitch in the numbers which has caused the "profile views" section to jump into the seventies. No matter, we are breaking out the champagne anyway, throwing a veritable party, to invoke the song. Because, realize: that is not even the official tally of who has visited or demonstrated some interest, which is way higher. Amazing.

In any case, as promised, we here at B-ristica Internationale will settle for bringing you no less than the absolute best–or worst, as the case may be. It was a mundane weekend. The most mundane of mundane weekends, really. That’s the way we kick it, sometimes. You hang out with people who have colds, you get sick. That’s how it goes. And besides, was I not looking out the window this morning and thinking profound thoughts. A contemplative look, you might imagine. Stroking my chin. This is life, I said to myself. It is comprised of these moments, drizzle coming down. Sure, you go to a party once in a while, work it out. But really, those are just things you tell people about later, which is totally different from actual living. Never mind, though. Forget I just said that. I see you giving me weird looks, B.; yeah, I’m looking at you. I never should have taken that philosophy class in college. One book into the semester and years of indoctrination and social training are thrown out the window.

Getting a little heavy there. Sorry. The rest of the weekend was spent in the gluttonous fashion of putting as many albums onto the Ipod as humanly possible in a day. Something akin to the chubby kid in a Ponderosa Steakhouse, with no parental supervision and full-on access to the salad bar. That pretty much typifies my relationship with music. Yeah, I’ll probably never listen to this Dinosaur Jr. import I just found under the bed, but fuck it because there’s pretty much room there for whatever. The attendants come over and I have ice-cream all over my face. "What?" I yell from behind the headphones. "I can’t hear you." That’s pretty much apropos, though, because remember: we are having a party.

Adventures of McBean and Co.

Walking McBean around the suburban neighborhood. He hustles along in haphazard patterns without a leash, running all over lawns as I contemplate my life. It's kind of a nightly thing. McBean used to be named Cody, but I have changed his name as I sometimes do. McBean cannot talk and so I realize I can pretty much just project onto him whatever, and that happens to include a name change. That’s all animal people are, I realize, people who cannot own up to the fact that human beings have fundamentally let them down in some way. They end up projecting all kinds of things on to their animals, taking them around, substituting them for actual people. It’s completely insane. I would only consider myself a partial dog-person.

And besides, McBean is probably projecting so many needs on to me. "Isn’t that right?" I ask him, walking around the neighborhood, making sure no one’s around to hear me talking to the dog. McBean used to be my uncle’s dog, and when he opted out of being an American in favor of living the superior European life, supping up on fine wines somewhere, my grandmother inherited McBean. She’s pretty much in the habit of being an elderly person, however, not prone to Homeric treks through the neighborhood, and so I took over the daily activity of walks. He relies on me like that. In as much as he can even walk at all. Still, though, there he is everyday, wagging his tail like a motherfucker. It's kind of endearing.


In return for my stoical subservience as dog-walker extrodinaire, McBean pays me back by pissing and shitting on every available surface along our walk while I slowly contract frostbite which will require the amputation of limbs. He’s old, I guess. Forgets that I do not posses a fur coat like he does. What can you do? Just tonight, in fact, he has gone the extra-measure of darting straight for the most manicured lawn in the neighborhood, an all-time favorite trick. He despises these people, maybe, thinks their petty concerns and nice lawn deserves fertilizing. Who could say what McBean is thinking? He is, though, invariably shitting on the nicest lawn in the neighborhood, and of course I do not possess a bag in which to pick up the shit (do not actually go the extra length of bringing the precautionary measures of shit-picking-up-material). The inhabitants of said house have taken notice. Realize there is a renegade dog within the neighborhood, have gone so far as to set up an encampment in the window of their house. Are camped out, in fact, nightly. Lying in wait, in their secret encampment. "Don’t let him go there!" some woman shouts at me out of nowhere. I feel naked out there, on the middle of her lawn, at a time when I thought most people would be inside eating Cheetos, watching T.V. I almost want to duck for cover, crouching down a little as I hear her yell at full volume. McBean and I have been spied. I have no idea of how to respond to this situation, have not been versed in the etiquette of shit-picking-upping. I can see she has left the window encampment in which she is yelling from and is in all probability in the process of coming out to greet me--where she will find no one, however. As I am hauling ass down the road at top-notch, McBean in pursuit a little slower, having just finished his business.

Deerhoof at Skidmore

Clunking and clunking away.
Deerhoof at Skidmore and random philosophical musings afterward in a Taco Bell parking lot. There's nothing like whipping out your western constructs in the parking lot of a Taco Bell. Can I get some Fire Sauce with that, please? It was a good time, though. Deerhoof are awesome. They set up these nicely melodic parts and then proceed to totally destroy them with these completely retarded thumping sections, which evoke cartoons so perfectly. "More bands need to wreck their songs," I say. Which, I guess, is the parting sentiment.

They have taken my favorite television station TRIO off of the air and have replaced it with something called Sleuth. Instead of getting to see your favorite indie rock videos interspersed with old-school favorites like Mr. Bill, you now get unfathomable programming choices, like marathons of Knight Rider (leaving you only to contemplate the powers that be. Is there some demographic out there really that bent on nostalgia programming? I cannot believe). While I may have liked seeing Hasselhoff drive around in a car with his bouffant blowing in the wind at age five, even going as far as to request his presence on a birthday cake, it seems all changed around now. I take it all in, just to be sure.

Today’s episode reveals that Bonnie (the mechanic) has been indoctrinated by some “intellectual” group, and now the powers that be want to use K.I.T.T. (the uptight, Trans-Am manifestation of Alex Trebek—which is definitely some kind of oxymoron, totally oversought by the writers of the show) in some kind of heist, which will earn them money to carry out other nefarious acts in an overall plight for world dominance. “Pull over to the curb,” they tell K.I.T.T. “This seems highly irregular and disconcerting,” K.I.T.T. replies. Can you believe? I almost laugh out loud. The sides have been drawn, though. The archetypes of Good vs. Evil present—the same kind of worldview perpetuated by my grandmother. “What if they come and get my information?” she asks you. They? You question her, all of the sudden remembering those Knight Rider episodes, the shadowy element of evil. I can’t really tell you what happens next, but it seems fairly predictable. It’s some kind of inverse fantasy world vis-a-vis Stanely Kubric in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and you know that the producers of Knight Rider were smoking a whole lot of weed and watching that same movie some years earlier. They pretty much knew that it would appeal to a whole bunch of 8 year-olds, because basically, who doesn’t want to see a jacked-up car who talks like Alex Trebek totally whip ass of the bad guys.

I just don’t know, though. K.I.T.T. really annoys me. It may just be my neo-Luddite stances talking, but I hope for a car crash. Something. I want the bad guys to win and for K.I.T.T. to be subverted. I will go so far as to admit that those people were not dumb, though. There’s some pretty intense stuff going on there, underneath the surface. You kind of have to look. It's all there if you aren’t just totally distracted by the insanity of their hairdos.

The Most Depressing Day of the Year

Ting-a-ling, motherfuckers. What’s going on? It is probably verging on the 25th or later by the time you’re reading this. That’s good news for you. NPR relates that scientists have determined January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. How they figured this out, I have no idea. That’s what they have decided on, though. Apparently, most people have given up on their New Year’s resolutions and are totally catatonic and depressed by the 24th, when their credit card statements have started rolling in, revealing the excess of holiday revelry. This revelation thus provides the suicidal urges that have people calling in to work or driving into to trees (or icy rivers—as pointed out by the nightly news: “I heard the car revving up,” some random bystander reports, “and then it just took off over the embankment and into the water”. They then cut to footage of a Ford Taurus bafoonishly floating in the icy water, the driver rescued).

Personally, I had a pretty rad day. My holiday stoicism and meager present-giving circumvented the whole January 24th depression day. Instead I shambled around all day, trying to find people who would share in my intense enthusiasm for getting drunk and going sleigh riding. I wasn’t very successful. People responded predictably, with wrinkled noses and contorted faces which suggested that either I am totally insane or they’re no fun. It’s cool. I don’t mind. Be depressed if you want to. What, you can only sit around when you’re getting drunk? Drinking Gin out of a brown bag while sleighing is sketchy? The last time I checked, there was no law against it.

I kind of like the idea of a national depression day, though. One day in a year where we would recognize the forces conspiring against us. You would be able to take that day off work and just do whatever, because hey, man, things are pretty fucking crappy. It’s all pretty much relative, though, I imagine. I’ll get mine, I’m sure. Just don’t be wondering what the hell is the matter with me next time you want me to hang around in Lark Tavern, scowling at the proliferation of bearded men in there. Because that just really bums me out.

Industrial Earplugs-Style

Anyone out there ever listen to the radio? Plenty of people do, I know. The car I’m borrowing this morning only happens to get two stations, Fly 92.3 or The River. I have to decide. Nickelback or Lionel Richie? Listening to Fly 92 at least offers me the chance of hearing the Kanye West song, and so I decide to chance it, on the 90% chance that I’m going to hear something bad. And I mean terrible. I know from past experience that this particular station has a play list of the same four or five songs, periodically interrupted by the radio DJ coming on to announce the latest in celebrity affairs. “Can you believe,” she intones, “Brad Pitt and Angelina?” At which point she segues back in (you’ve got to love the segue, like they do it on the nightly news. They will segue anything if you give them the chance), “Well at least these two won’t have to worry about what Kanye is singing about here.” She plays the prenup song and I’m getting all into it. Getdowngirlgoheadgetdown. People are taking sidelong glances at me from their cars. I try and wrap my brain around just what it is it about a skinny white kid brandishing freaky dance moves to a song about conjugal arrangements while seated in a rusty Buick that elicits all out derision from passers by, but people are totally spazzing out. It’s like they just cannot believe. Kind of a weird part of town, I decide. What can I do?

I listen some more. “Nickleback,” I say derisively underneath my breath. All dancing has come to a halt. I cannot believe this kind of subservience. It’s terrible: the equivalent experience of looking at the place where you live, the junk-strewn living room and declaring, this is just not working here. We’ve got to do something about this. The weird thing about most pop-cultural stuff, though, is that people never make those kind of deductions, they don’t really care. It’s just kind of there, like the weather, and you just kind of deal with it. And this is a point which extends well beyond music to a myriad of subject matters which I contemplate on a daily basis. Walking around the grocery store the other day. Is there anything in here which won’t kill me? Something which doesn’t extend the package life of a particular product to beyond infinity, which won’t give me a heart attack at some later point. Listening to Fly 92, actually, is the musical equivalent of the various toxins in most of the foods at your local grocery mart. I try and be discerning but what can you do. You find yourself in a borrowed car and all there is to eat is some candy bar that you find in the dash. It’s a heart attack all the same.

There’s this guy at some venue of “entertainment” that I sometimes go to, and I notice he wears what appears to be headphones. On closer inspection, though, I realize that they are not actually headphones, but in fact industrial-sized earplugs, like the kind they give to construction workers who have to deal with insidious noise all day. “Hey, why do you wear those for?” I ask him one time. “Oh, I just can’t handle this radio station in here,” he tells me. It seems totally insane, but then, I understand, too. You have to keep your guard up. And I kind of feel like, optimistically, we’re all just drowning out the din, industrial earplugs-style, like that guy. In fact, I like to think of it as a conceptual steel-plated suit, like a medieval warrior. You can almost imagine. So next time you see me, don’t ask me why I’m dressed so weird.

Clean Your Hands of Me

Virgin blog. Trying not to fuck it up. So sparkly and new. I feel like a four year-old with a magic marker in an empty room, and I will probably live up to that reputation, besmirching the walls every which way, slashing of the color pallet. Parents will make an entry and everything will be redecorated, ink on my hands.

This is the degeneration of my longtime aspiration of making fanzines. I was going to do that for ten years and just never got around to it. And so I’m getting around to it, I guess. Finally. The end result won’t be as cool, though. And if you have the time and patience, I suggest you check out actual ‘zines, as they’re way cooler and less sterile. Not a very good case I am making, I know, contributing to the cultural degeneration. But what can you do? I happen to live in Albany, New York. I never knew of any kind of cultural contingent happening around here, and so the prospect of doing anything just felt to me like it would have fallen on empty hands. I could be wrong. There are some creative people who live around here, I know. Maybe I just never met any of them. I don’t know. This whole thing will come unraveled, possibly; the next time you see me, I’ll be situated in an all-night copy center with paper cuts on my hands, cursing myself. Who could say what’s going to happen? I like to stay upbeat like that.

I should also probably preface all this by saying you should definitely not read this blog. It will only corrupt you in some kind of way, spiny tentacles reaching out and wrapping around your brain. Things I have written in the past have caused loss of friends, derision from strangers, and alienation from certain area bartenders. Not a good track record. I should probably stop now. It’s not even the third paragraph and I already have ink all over everything. But really, though: be warned. I’ve got to go wash my hands now.