Archives work, seemingly

I got the archives to work. That's good or bad, depending on one's opinion of this whole "blogging" thing.

Me, I'm in favor.

Nightvision: Step into danger!

"Hey, Dave," you may be thinking. "Is there a reason why you lately haven't been frolicking in the dark with your nightvision scope?"

"Yes," I may be responding in my head. "Yes, there is a reason why I haven't been frolicking in the dark. And here is a picture of that reason's feces."


Fig. 1: 50 meters from the house

"But, Dave," you may be thinking. "Are you sure that's not deer feces?"

"Yes," I may be thinking back atcha. "Here is a picture of deer feces."


Fig. 2: 51 meters from the house

"Oh," you may be thinking. "Nevermind."

"That's right, I will 'nevermind', Mr./Ms. Smartypants," I may be thinking. Jerk.

Theme bands: what's the deal?

The Dirtbombs show (or "the Dirtbombs' show", if you prefer) was awesome. I'd decree that every band could use two drummers, but then Mick Collins would probably re-form the Dirtbombs with three drummers (and three bassists, probably) and then the two-drummer rule would have to be amended and it'd be a huge hassle and who needs that?

My hearing is still a little fucked. I'm old, dude. My hearing was really fucked immediately after the show, so considering how much better it is now, I'm optimistic that it's only a matter of time before it's completely resolved. Positive thinking, that's the key!

Along those lines, let me say that I'm positive that the Knights of the New Crusade suck. They were the opening band for the Dirtbombs. They were Medieval-themed, what with dressing like knights and performing garage rock numbers on Biblical themes. Songs about the Bible are fine when you see the band playing them under a Hallelujah-palooza banner and think, "Oh, I get it, they're joking." But take away the visual and you're left with ... songs about the Bible. Woo.

The Knights of the New Crusade could probably get away with dressing like knights while performing non-Biblical songs. I mean, the Mummies dressed like mummies but didn't limit their repertoire to music about the Nile Delta, and Clinic dress like clinicians but refrain from singing about lab equipment and e coli.

"Ah, but what about Man or Astro-Man, Dave? They dress like astro-men and sing about astro-matters, and you seem tolerant of their music."

Yeah, that's true, but astro-matters haven't been covered to death by tiresome, humorless, proselytizing Christian rock bands and pro-lifers who love them. So I guess it's the subject matter, and the connotations of that subject matter. I'm not really anti-Christian; I'm anti- bad Christian. I'm anti- people forcing their beliefs on others. Except for maybe that two-drummer thing. There's something in that, I tell ya.

"Fuck hip hop, let's bring back RAP."

Someone once accused me of being overly fond of "funny" songs. Guilty. Can't help it. Rapper's Delight in German is terrific.

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I like to press wild flowers

I cut down another tree over the last two days. Yesterday was spent cutting down branches, then climbing up the tree with a bow saw and cutting down the top half. That was exciting and terrifying and ultimately pleasing. Today I attacked the 12-foot-high stump with a chainsaw. That sucker did not want to come down. I initially cut it at chest-height, and then further cut it at knee-height. The initial cut didn't cause a topple until there was only an inch left in the stump, and the second cut didn't cause a topple at all; I got the chainsaw all the way through the stump and then merely nudged the four-foot-tall log off the stump.

That had nothing to do with anything.

Also having nothing to do with anything, I watched Hot Rods to Hell this evening on Turner Classic Movies. It was pretty great. It's so old-fashioned in its acting, camerawork, and general denunciation of youth culture (read: hot rods and bongo music) , that it's hard to believe it was made only two years before Easy Rider.

Plot summary: Dad gets hurt in a car accident and decides to move the family to the Arizona desert, where he has bought a motel, sight unseen. As soon as he gets to town, he runs afoul of the local kids, what with their fast cars and syncopated music. Oops! It seems that Dad's new motel is the kids' hangout spot. Oh no! Daughter is attracted to one of the bad boys and dances with him. He puts the moves on her, but Dad comes to the rescue at just the right moment! That very evening, Dad packs up the family and starts to drive back to civilization, but those crazy kids in their hot rods insist on playing chicken with Dad in his station wagon. You've never seen such automotive terror! Eventually Dad just parks the wagon in the middle of the road with the headlights on. The kids come 'round for another round of chicken ... but "Dad" isn't flinching ... and the kids go off the road! Dad comes upon them and decides not to kill them, and then the sheriff comes by and hauls off the kids.

Remarks: Dad is played by Dana Andrews, who twenty years earlier was a dashing leading man in classics like Laura and The Best Years of Our Lives. According to his IMDB biography, Andrews was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1963-65, just long to speak out "against the degradation of the acting profession, particularly actresses doing nude scenes just to get a role". Boo-urns. Anyway, fast-forward from his earlier successes to schlock like Hot Rods, and it would appear that his best years were indeed behind him. Honestly, he looked terrible. IMDB indicates that he was an alcoholic, and it shows on the screen. In every frame of Hot Rods he looks like he's either just had a drink or is in desperate need of one. It's really kind of sad. He went from a square jaw and thin lips to wobbly jowls and quivering lips.

Poor guy. But hey -- maybe he successfully put the drunken moves on his comely co-star Jeanne Crain, which, assuming he could remember it the next morning, would make his career not a complete disaster.

I think I made a huge mistake

I was reading Wigfield last night and a particular passage struck me:

Dreams are funny things. Some say they are windows to our subconscious, others a foreshadowing of the future. Still others say that those first people were right with that thing about the subconscious.

That reminded me that I'd written a post that contained details of a dream I'd had. I felt lousy almost instantly.

To sum up: I really don't like it when people tell me their dreams. I'm in the "windows to our subconscious" camp of dream interpretation, and since you can never really know what's going on with someone, it's just silly to expect others to be interested in whatever personal weirdness is going on in your subconscious.

Don't get me wrong, I love people, and I love my friends, and I love a good story. But when people start telling me their dreams, I get really bored and frustrated. Usually when someone tells a story, it's something that's happened to them in the corporeal world, and usually the story has a beginning and an end and if in the story something really weird happens, you're like, "Whoa! Real life is crazy ... and I just made a Keanu sound!" But when someone tells me about their dream and something really weird happened in that dream, I'm like, "Yeah, it's a dream. Weird shit is the norm."

["the norm" is not to be confused with "the bomb"]

In defense of writing about my dream:

1. It was part of a larger post. It was roughly one-third of that larger post. If you go by the math that you spend a third of your life sleeping, then my post was a brilliant bloggerific microcosm of everyday life and the human condition.
2. I tried to add structure to the largely structure-less nature of dreaming by writing about all the elements of the dream in the same format, ie

   "Then [something happened]. That was [adjective] (parenthetical comment)."

   Of course, "trying" and "succeeding" are two different things.
   
3. My dream distillation (it's hardly lengthy enough to be called a "story") covers all the bases: familial obligation, sexual intrigue, and the Pinter-esque way people are unable to communicate with each other.
   
4. Wow, when put in those words, I am tempted to write about my dreams more often.
5. But I won't. My dreams are usually quite short and disjointed -- they're less like windows to my subconscious ("tap-tap-tap; what's going on in there?") and more like postcards from my subconscious ("Having a wonderful time, wish you were less fucked up") -- so any dream description I do is bound to be short. Good Lord, this post about writing about my dream is, like, a million times lengthier and more tiresome than any dream play-by-play I could manage.
   
6. Writing about writing about dreams is way too meta. I'll quote from Jack Kerouac's dream journal (published with the unironic title Book of Dreams) and get on with my day:
   

   At the present time I have nothing else to say and refuse to go on ...

   
   

What I learned at the movies: Never check into motels.

I'm annoyed that I can't get the archives to work, and since I'm on a dial-up it's taking me forever to do anything, so if it's OK with you I'll put off figuring out all that garbage until I'm back in Saskatoonland.

I went to see Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects this evening. It was considerably better than House of 1000 Corpses. In addition to not having annoying teens who deserved to die, it was lovely to look at: washed-out colors, creepy metal facemasks, gratuitous - though appreciated - shower scene, and PJ Soles! Sure, she only had a half-dozen lines and I didn't even realize it was her until I saw the closing credits, but ... PJ Soles! I like to imagine that the "P" is for "Peaches". And that she's married to me. And that we make lots of babies, but then they mysteriously disappear and we have to make them all over again. And that she's not, like, 50 years old or whatever she is now.

Which reminds me:

It was my mom's birthday today, as well as her first day back after my sister's wedding and her week in NYC. This of course meant that she wasn't taking any calls and I had to lie to her friends and relatives alike. I felt bad lying to my auntie, but I was already feeling bad for not going over to her place yesterday for raspberries. In my [admittedly weak] defense, I had a lot of laundry to do and I'm always conscious of my poor Ukrainian and the possibility of stopping a conversation dead in its tracks at any moment. I imagine the poor Ukrainian hurts her ears, much like my dad's poor Ukrainian hurt my ears.

Which reminds me:

I had a dream that my sister was getting re-married to her husband; the first wedding went so well, why not do it again? The buffet was awesome (again). Then I was conscripted into dancing, but somehow got out of it. That was pretty cool (hey, one wedding's worth of dances is enough). Then Colleen and her sister were there, and I almost made out with her sister. That was pretty inappropriate (and thus hot). Then I told my dad that it hurts my feelings when he teases me about being in school for so long. That was pretty emotional (I cried). Then I woke up and used a leather belt to lash myself as punishment for being such a sissy. Or at least I wanted to. Instead, for my punishment I ate an ice cream bar, which in a really, really, really convoluted sense is a punishment, but it still counts, dammit.

Which reminds me:

It's 3:17 a.m. and I should go to sleep.

In the opening to Monty Python's Flying Circus, I'm the big foot

Oddly, the worst part of today wasn't writing that big-ass check and not even getting a commemorative t-shirt. I've written plenty of big checks in the past and I've gotten used to the idea that big check recipients are stingy with the commemorative t-shirts.

Nah, the worst part of today was when I went to put on my sneakers for the second time this morning and noticed that there was a squished slug inside. Let me clarify: there was a pre-squished slug splayed on my arch support when I went to put on the shoe. This means that earlier that morning I'd been squishing a slug with my foot for a half-hour and didn't notice. And Mr. Slug was so brave! He didn't make so much as a peep as I squeezed the slug-juice right out of him. I was just squeezing ... squeezing ... squeezing ... as Mr. Slug merged with the infinite. I never even knew his first name.

Are slugs pseudopods? That was my second thought after discovering my liquidy invertebrate friend, and I never did get around to looking it up.

Hurray/boo!

We have a new roof!

I am $6714 poorer!

I know it's coarse to talk about money, but damn.

Booyah!

I'm working on making my blog archives accessible. I had no idea they didn't exist. Sorry 'bout that.

While I mess around with that, I will be warmly glowing as I anticipate going to a Dirtbombs show at Maxwell's on the 28th of July. On a whim I checked the Maxwell's schedule, and lo and behold: The Dirtbombs! $12! Plus $4 in fees! But that's still reasonable! The Dirtbombs at Maxwell's -- I am so completely jazzed.

On a whim following that whim, I checked some other venues --

• On the 22nd Lightning Bolt is playing at Tonic, but they would appear to be the bottom of the bill ... and Friday is so soon, and the audiences I've seen in concert footage of Lightning Bolt leave something to be desired. And I've never been to Tonic and I'm a massive coward, so maybe I should go. Fuck!
  
• On August 2 and 3, Olivia Tremor Control are playing the Bowery Ballroom. I haven't bought tickets yet, but I'm pretty jazzed at the possibility of seeing them.
  

Just today I was listening to Olivia Tremor Control (and the Dirtbombs and Lightning Bolt, coincidentally) and I was regretting never having seen them (or the Dirtbombs or Lightning Bolt) live. And now this happens. I was also listened to a couple Clash songs, but I'm not holding out hope for seeing them live. [sad emoticon would go here]

We'd adopt, but probably not right away

If I were gay and he were gay, I'd totally marry my roofer. He's so nice and reassuring (and manly and strong!) and when something goes wrong he takes ACTION and says "fuck" when the dumpster-guy or the lumber-guy does something dumb. He's like Vin Diesel with less bass in his voice.

So after I get the mail this morning I'm going to the Hooters in Albany to reaffirm my heterosexuality.

The call is coming from inside the house!

Around noon today I did three loads of laundry, washing all the sheets, towels, and pillowcases that had been used in the last couple of weeks. We don't have a dryer in this house, so laundry is usually dried on the line; in this case, however, I didn't have enough line to dry everything, and on top of that it looked like rain, so I decided to drive to Tannersville, the nearest town with a laundramat, to use the dryers there.

On the drive over I stopped in at my auntie's to see if there was anything I could get her. She was happy to see me, as she'd been trying to call me for a while in order to invite me for lunch. I was on the dial-up most of the morning, and thus did not know that my auntie had made schnitzels for me. I promised to stop in after my laundramat run.

[insert dramatic drying and folding scene here]

I did indeed return for schnitzels. They were delicious, as were the accompanying potatoes, cucumber salad, and raspberries and cream. I was given more schnitzels and potatoes to take home, along with three slices of rye bread. Old people love their bread, dontcha know.

My auntie was so sweet that I figured I should spend less time on the dial-up in case she called.

So what happened this evening? Aunt Racist's alcoholic sister called and wanted to talk to Aunt Racist. The problem is that I have no idea where Aunt Racist is. I think she was supposed to drive down to Florida, but I really didn't know or care; to me she's either "in my house" or "not in my house". I passed along Aunt Racist's cellphone number, and then spent the next twenty minutes trying to get off the phone. It seems Aunt Racist's sister is getting kicked out of her house in two days and has nowhere to go, which makes for delightful conversation. She was plenty drunk. She was incredulous that I'm 30, and then told me that she's 50 but doesn't look it; I thought, "Yeah, after all that booze you probably look 60." She did agree with me that her sister is a lousy person, but that might have been the booze talking.

I finally managed to get off the phone, and one minute later the phone rang. It was Aunt Racist's sister again, who had misdialed and completely forgot that she had just spoken to me for twenty minutes.

After getting off the phone again, I left a ten-minute grace period in case the old gal called again, and then promptly went online and stayed online. I'll risk not getting calls from my auntie (I can always call her) if it means not getting calls from drunk relatives-in-law.

PS - It should be noted that my auntie's (and mom's) schnitzels are made not from veal fillets, but from ground beef. They still call 'em schnitzels, though, and they're better chefs than I, so who am I to argue?

Good day, sunshine!

Dear Home-Owning Friends,

Before you do anything else today, buy sheets of high grade metal (preferably adamantium, though stainless steel will suffice in a pinch) and cover your roof with them. This will spare you the necessity of having your shingles replaced in the indeterminate, dystopian, possibly post-apocalyptic future. Please do not ever have to get your shingles replaced. Replacing the shingles will go badly. "$2800 extra" badly. "I don't know how the original builder got away with this" badly.

OK, perhaps I was being overly dramatic by saying "possibly post-apocalyptic". Though really, if you can wait to have your roof replaced until after the apocalypse, do it. Instead of "It'll cost $2800 extra," you might hear "It'll cost 70 bottlecaps, three plasma cells, and a couple vials of antidote for irradiated scorpion venom."

Admittedly, $2800 comes out to $700 per shareholder, but ... damn. That's like nine copies of the Alien Quadrilogy. But really: what am I going to do with nine copies of the Alien Quadrilogy anyway? I'd need an additional eight TV's and DVD players to get the fullest enjoyment out of them all.

But nine TV's ... chicks would dig that.

Damn you, roof! I could have had chicks were it not for you!

Left Behind (regarding rock and roll, not the Christian Apocaplypse book series)

I never "got" Oasis. From what I gather, they're a couple of Morlock-looking brothers and some spear-carrying supporting players who perform white noise disguised as arena rock. Sometime around 1997 an acquaintance was telling me that he felt old because his little sister was listening to his Oasis CD's. My response was a knowing, "Yeah, how about that," because I had no idea who Oasis were.

It's eight years later, and I still have no idea who Oasis are. I'm an old man and I don't have the time or patience to listen to whatever major label crap comes down the pipe. My friends are no help because they expose me only to music they like, for which I am infinitely grateful; my friends tend to have excellent taste. (Also, replace "my friends" in the previous sentence with "WFMU deejays", and it's still true.)

I tried reading a Village Voice review of the latest Oasis album and I'm no further along in my Oasis knowledge. To be fair, I should have known better; reviews in the Voice are usually just low-grade lit-crit wankery. All the same, I got suckered into reading this particular review because the Voice's front page was so damnably deceptive: there, the article was titled "Were Oasis Ever Cool?" See, that doesn't even sound like an album review; it sounds like an essay on how much Oasis sucks, has sucked, and will continue to suck -- that's my kinda article!

But noooo ... Go to the article itself and the title has changed from "Were Oasis Ever Cool?" to "Through Being Cool". It has gone from what sounds like a snobbish rhetorical question, to a totally ambiguous response to that question. Even the definition of "cool" is suspect in the latter title; it could mean "cool like Fonzie" or "cool like passionless" (they are English, you know). And further questions arise: does "through being cool" mean that the band has dropped its coolness (whether of the Fonzie or passionless variety) or does it mean that the music industry, fans, and/or critics have dropped them from the Grand List of Cool? AAAAHHHHHH!

Perhaps some of my issues with the title of the article would be resolved if I knew more about the band, but I don't, so there. I can't keep track of all the goddamn single-name ShitPop BritPop bands that popped up in the 90's (oh, aren't I the cleverest boy in school!). According to the article, Oasis has produced six albums. How about that. The only Oasis song I've heard is that fucking awful "Champagne Supernova" song. Where was I while you were getting high? I was ANYWHERE ELSE. Jesus, can you imagine how awful it would be to hang out with Oasis when they were getting high? I mean, it might be fun if you stayed sober and somehow got them to choke on each other's vomit, or stole their credit card numbers, or took photos of their wee English wieners and sold them to Hello! -- but barring those, it would be hell. Sheer, unadulterated, mono-browed hell.

But hey, at least you wouldn't have to worry about being cool. They're through with that. Thanks for the tip, Village Voice!

Internet Quiz time!

From "Which passage from the Book of Mormon are you?"

Pictures part 2: Mawidge is what bwings us togetha today

Fig 1: Getting ready

Fig 2: St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bound Brook, NJ

Fig 3: Mr. and Mrs. Dejneka

Fig 4: Happy

Pictures part 1: Bored in the Hotel

Fig 1: New shoes

Fig 2: An oversight, corrected

Fig 3: "Fear the hot sauce, heathen!"

Fig 4: "Is this a hot sauce I see before me?"

Backity back back

The last few days seem so surreal in hindsight. My sister got married! I've got a brother-in-law. I danced reasonably successfully. I held my own when discussing stocks with my grandmother. My grandmother and aunt told me a lot about my dad's inability to connect with me or anyone. I got really drunk on a 7 and 7 and half a Rob Roy, and then tapered off when I saw that my drunkenness may cause problems, and then was almost completely sober by the time the evening ended. And the BABS! All the BABS!

I did a lot of driving today and I'm little tired.

When I got home I saw that the dumpster-deliverer had delivered the dumpster, but he missed the target, the driveway, by a hundred feet and delivered the dumpster uncomfortably close to the structurally questionable lid of the septic tank.

Ulyana called me from the LAX Marriott to tell me which shows she'd like recorded in her absence. By this time tomorrow she and her husband will be in Hawaii.

Everything went really, really well. I couldn't be happier for my sister. And 7 and 7's are pretty tasty.

Saturday morning

Yup, spent almost all of yesterday indoors, which meant that I had no idea how hot it was outside, which meant that I completely overdressed for the rehearsal ceremony.

The rehearsal was fun, though. The practice priest was a fun young guy who reminded me of Assistant Professor Emeritus David Callele. At one point in the ceremony I have to speak ... out loud! ... to let the Ukrainian-speakers know that it's time to greet the newly married couple.

The church is nice. Little square-footage, but tall tall TALL! I'll post a picture at some point.

The Somerset Marriott (or Marriott Somerset, if you prefer) is currently hosting a conference of BABS -- "Big and Beautiful Sistahs" -- so the hotel is full of large black women and the men who love them. I was riding the elevator from the seventh floor down to the lobby when a guy got on at the sixth floor. He pushed the button for 4, then pushed it for 3. "So many single women here, it's hard to keep track," he said. Then he wished me a lovely weekend and went off in search of lovin'.

The post-rehearsal-ceremony meal was OK -- I had the roast beef and sat with my auntie and chatted her up. She used up most of her English last night at dinner, so as the only other Ukrainian-speaker at the table, it was up to me to keep the old gal entertained.

"But Dave, what about your cousins Luke and Adrian? They were at the table and they speak Ukrainian!"

I'd dispute that statement. They know Ukrainian, but they don't speak it. They don't speak English either. They don't speak at all. Having recently graduated from the Air Force Academy, somehow Luke has become the stereotypical cocky fighter jock despite not being able to string together three sentences interesting enough to form a conversation. He's cocky yet uncomfortable around people: maybe they'll cover that at flight school.

At the beginning of the dinner, Luke and Adrian's dad, Uncle Marine, gave me two heavy shopping bags laden with sausages that he'd purchased in NYC that afternoon. It was my job to take them up to my hotel room and set the room temperature to 65 degrees so the sausages wouldn't spoil. Predictably, on the way up a couple of BABS got on the elevator with me; carrying two bags of sausages, you bet I was scared!

Two hours later the dinner was over and my room smelled like a butcher shop and felt like an icebox.

Mmm ... $12 for Eggs Benny

Just accidentally deleted a very long post. This hotel sucks. This laptop is weird and wrong. Why didn't I bring a book? Why didn't I bring my own laptop? Can I just hide for the rest of the weekend? I hate talking to strangers, but I hate talking to family even more: how many ways can I couch my language to make them think my life isn't a complete failure? Is it possible to open any of the windows in this hotel? It's like THX-1138 in here! The outside air is natural but it's bad; the inside air is fake but it won't give me cancer. Is that a dichotomy or a paradox or just a "Go figure"?

I had breakfast this morning with my aunt and grandmother. They grilled me about dating in the age of HIV/AIDS. That was a blast. What do I know about anything? I felt like such a fraud, talking about relationships in front of a divorcee and a widow.

Ulyana and Bridesmaid #2 took off for some errand-running, as did my other sister, mom, aunt, auntie, and grandmother. I'm alone here for another four hours or so. My dad is somewhere in this hotel, but I'd rather be alone than force cordiality.

Having to share a room with Taissa means going to sleep early, means headaches when I wake up. Grar.

Wish I'd brought a bathing suit. Or a book. Or my own laptop. Goddamn. I'd watch pay-per-view porn, but porn is so boring. I'm tempted to watch other, non-porn, pay-per-view movies, but I already had the "too much money for too little return" experience at breakfast this morning.

If you loved me, you'd email me.

Although I suppose if loved you, I'd email you. So, uh, nevermind.

In addition to the Gideons' Bible in the nightstand, there's also a Book of Mormon. Neither book touts itself as being free for the taking (I could have sworn the Bibles used to be), but I'm totally making off with the Book of Mormon. Flipping through it I can't see any references to getting with lots of chicks at the same time, but it must be in there someplace. Usually you have to deal with actual Mormons to get a Book of Mormon, and in my life I've seen only one that was pretty and she probably didn't put out anyway. Gah! I'm so terrible.

Maybe a candy bar will lift my spirits. Candy is good for so many things!

And we're off!

In an hour or so we'll be off to NJ for Ulyana's Wedding Weekend. To do today:

• Pick up Auntie in Hunter, NY.
• Locate Marriott hotel in Somerset, NJ.
• Pick up tuxedo in Livingston, NJ.
• Pick up Aunt and Grandmother within twenty minutes of each other from two different terminals at Newark Airport.
• Shower/shave/nap/drink beer/drunkenly make embarrassing long distance phone calls to former-current-future loved ones/watch pay-per-view porn/pass out.

I don't even want to think about what I have to do tomorrow.

I hope tomorrow's rehearsal dinner involves actual food and not rehearsal food. I once had to make prop sausages for a play and I don't want to sit down to a big plate of panty hose and sawdust.

Have fun this weekend[, Dave]. Try not to get into too much trouble. Here's $50 for pizza or whatever. You have my phone number in case of an emergency, and you can always call the Porytko's if there's anything you need. Talk to you soon!

Who's the hero?

Me! I'm the hero!

Mom, Taissa, and I were arriving home from Kingston -- finally got a good pair of jeans -- and as we pulled into our road I saw an old guy in his backyard, on all fours. He appeared to have a shovel or something in front of him, maybe he was gardening, but he made eye contact with me and looked uncomfortable; it was hot today. After we got up the hill I walked back down to see if he was OK. Ends up it wasn't a shovel, it was his cane, and he'd fallen while out for a stroll in his yard. I helped him up and then walked him to the front of his house.

I sat with him while he rested on a bench. He was 77. His wife had died five years earlier and "it's all been downhill since then." They'd been married for 52 years, together for four years before that. The kids these days make him sad, what with their sexuality at 13. Finally, here's someone who'd appreciate the fact that my first kiss was at 20! (Dares at oceanography camp doesn't count.)

He said he'd met my grandfather several years ago. They talked beekeeping. My grandfather offered him his beekeeping supplies, an offer which was politely refused. We talked about old age, and not dying too old so that you still have living friends who can attend your funeral.

After a bit he was recovered enough to be escorted to his front door. I could hear the tv -- his daughter, he said. He invited me in, but the house smelled like animals, lots and lots of animals; I declined.

OK, maybe technically it's more "being a good person" than it is "heroism", but I'm in a sullen brat phase right now, so it's nice to do something for someone else.

I'd still like to poke animal feces with my uncle-aunt-cousins' toothbrushes, but that's a different kind of "doing something for someone else". I'm not sure what kind; I'm still disappointed that Nietzsche never published "Beyond Good and Evil Pranks".

Can't talk long ...

I think my uncle and aunt are starting to figure out why I'm spending so much time in the basement.

Oh, Jerri Blank ...

Following the previous post, I had to go to the IMDB page for quotes from Strangers With Candy. So goddamned delightful ...

Jerri Blank: Shazam. Look. Drake Rogers. Mmm, he makes me all puffy down there. I'd love to tame his blue vein swayback throbber.
Tammi Littlenut: What do you mean, Jerri?
Jerri Blank: Take him backstage behind the meat curtain, know what I mean? I'm talkin' about pounding out the veal.
Tammi Littlenut: Are you thinking about having sex already?
Jerri Blank: Does a pimp carry a razor?
Tammi Littlenut: I don't know...
Jerri Blank: Trust me, they all do.

It's not about making mistakes, it's about making choices, and I choose to make a mistake

The White House press corps finally grows a pair and tries to put the screws to Bush's press secretary.

Coke Zero is tasty. A pound of chicken nuggets for breakfast is not. Now is probably not the time to look at close-up pictures of eyeballs thoughtfully submitted by our Saskatonian readers.

I've blissfully got the house to myself for up to an hour. So exciting! I'll probably spend it on the living room floor, wailing in chicken nugget overdose agony.

Oh, this is exciting, too: for lunch my aunt bought a bunch of hot dogs and buns. My mom made baked lasagne on Sunday for our guests, and they're returning the favor with hot dogs. I think that's sweet.

Did I say "sweet"? I meant "rather insulting". Don't get me wrong, I know I'm the biggest freeloader of them all. As such, I can smell my own kind, and I think this stinks.

In equally pointless news:
Today's subject line is a quote from an episode of Strangers With Candy; I'm not altogether certain how, or even if, it applies to this post. I've just had it kicking around in my head for a while, and now you can, too!

Senses-shattering sullenness, in the great Dave tradition!

Oh my God, I'm 17 again. It's this house full of unwanted guests, it's making me mentally devolve. I spent 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., ie now, hiding in the basement.

I went up around a half-hour ago to go to the bathroom (outside), and as I headed out the door my mom was heading in. I could hear my aunt in the next room.

[this is all translated from Ukrainian]

Aunt [loud voice]: Dave knows how to play poker, don't you, Dave?
Dave [loud voice, lying]: No, I don't know how.
Mom [whisper to Dave]: Don't know how to do what?
Dave [whisper to Mom]: Whatever it is they want me to do.

Zing! Ukrainian-to-English zing!

I went out for pee-pee and stayed out for fifteen minutes. It was a lovely night: bright stars, quarter-moon, just a little cool. I saw a shooting star and made a wish out of habit, but then remembered that falling stars aren't even stars: they're meteors, or pieces of Skylab, or Major Tom.

fig. 1: Major Tom

I was suddenly in the presence of several fireflies. It was lovely. And then I heard what sounded like a dog with emphysema, and then I heard it again, and then I thought I heard it coming closer, so I went inside posthaste. Upon returning inside I was informed that my extended family has eaten all the leftovers (lasagne, sandwiches, two types of pasta salad, hot dogs). I'd tell them to bite me, but then they actually might.

I'm intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

The best part of Saturday's streetfair on Broadway between 9th and 14th Streets: There was this handsome, muscled young guy with purposefully messy dirty blonde hair, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, plaid tie, and burgundy leather vest, holding his hands clasped in front of his chest, flexing his biceps, saying in a thick Irish accent to no one in particular, "Blessings be upon you. Blessings in the name of Yeshua. Blessings. Blessings be upon you. Blessings in the name of Yeshua...."

If I were going to be in town for longer, I would have tried to talk to him. Or I would have liked to. Muscled crazy guys tend to scare me, and if they're Boondock Saint wannabes that's like exponentially scarier.

But Yeshua totally blessed me by proxy! Suck it, Buddha!

Subway crime, high five!

Borat is back ...

From New York Magazine:

Ali G On Da 4 Train
Brooklyn busts Borat

Can Ali G fool anyone anymore? Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, star of the HBO series in which he dresses up as several characters and hassles people, showed up wearing a snug beige suit and clutching a weathered tan suitcase on a moderately crowded 4 train in Brooklyn recently. As he moved down the car, lunging in to kiss surprised men and introducing himself in broken English as “Borat from Kazakhstan,” he was recognized almost instantly. He quickly got off at Borough Hall after one man asked, “Dude, why does your briefcase have a camera lens?” An entourage of about ten men, dressed to blend in with jeans, T-shirts, and nondescript backpacks or briefcases with camouflaged cameras, then shuffled Cohen away down the platform. An HBO spokesperson denied that the network’s in production with Cohen right now, though he has a new film in progress, reportedly about a Kazakh immigrant’s experiences in the U.S. Cohen’s spokesman, Matt Labov, wouldn’t confirm what Cohen was up to in Brooklyn, either: “You will see it when it comes out.”

Ass-bastard cousins

Actually, it's not the cousins -- they're just inconsequential bores -- it's the uncle and aunt. My mom's brother and his wife. They storm into town and cause me and Taissa to have to pack up our stuff and move out of the bedrooms and into the loft, so that our esteemed family guests can have the bedrooms. Fuck that and fuck them. All of my stuff is now in two piles in two places and I have no idea where to find anything. Get a fucking motel, you fucking freeloaders.

My own revenge is to be passive aggressive. Clever, I know! I spend all of my time in the basement, coming up only for food and bathroom breaks. And last night I almost bypassed the latter. I had to "do my business" but didn't want to go upstairs, so I looked around for a container into which I could urinate. The only suitable vessels I found were still-sealed beer bottles, so I considered drinking a beer and then immediately urinating into the empty bottle. That was a bit extreme, I thought, so instead I ducked upstairs and went outside and relieved myself near a tree.

(I, uh, appear to have gotten into the practice of urinating outside if I'm alone at the house and/or it's dark out. We're secluded and I don't need to waste the water that flushing requires. It's really quite enjoyable -- last night the stars were out and there was no moon ... it was lovely.)

As sad as it sounds, the "drink beer / piss into bottle" was the thing I forgot last night. I might still do that tonight, though. My cousins (read: uncle and aunt) aren't leaving until we are, on Thursday for pre-wedding stuff, so I'll be spending lots o' time in the basement. I'll be in their vicinity until Sunday, so the chances of me blurting, "Why don't you get a motel?" are pretty good.

(The "you" is italicized because this sentence will obviously be in response to something Cousin A, Cousin B, Uncle Marine, or Aunt Racist will say. Duh. You thought I didn't have this planned out? Oh it's planned, baby.)

(Come to think of it, I doubt it will be in response to something Cousin B says. That boy's a goddamned mute. See, I think that's the reason I like my Bushnell-side cousins: not a mute among 'em. Lives of their respective parties, it's like the Fourth of July when you get a few in a room together.)

Argh!

I totally forgot what I was going to say. Admittedly, I was going to say it two hours ago but got sidetracked, but that's little comfort. Using "but" twice in one sentence is even less comfort.

But oh, here's something for the kids: I'm returning to Saskatoon at 6:42 p.m. on Wednesday, August 10th. I'm going the long way, Albany to Toronto to Calgary to Saskatoon, because I hate the Customs officers in Saskatoon. And Saskatoon doesn't even have CanPass, so there's no avoiding them unless I fly in the long way.

I checked out the Customs Canada website, which indicated that milk and meat are unwise to bring across the border. Amy Sedaris's cheese balls are in between milk and meat (they've even got A-1 sauce in 'em), meaning that my Canadian pals will have to do without for now.

"Argh" indeed.

wow

My aunt really hates Mexicans.

Another good day in the city

I'll spare you the details, Online Diary-Substitute, but let's just say that the falafel combo pita at Falafel King is a big fat double-handful of Lebanese heaven. Falafel, tabbouleh, babaganoush, hummous + some tahini, hot sauce, and tomatoes ... I salute you, Falafel King.

It's on St. Marks Place -- I think the jury is still out on whether it's "Marks" or "Mark's", or maybe it's not, I don't know. Anyway, you'll know you're at the Falafel King when you see the awning that says, "TASTY FALAFEL". That's some good marketing there. I usually go to the place that has the "REPACKAGED VOMIT FALAFEL" awning, but lately I've been expanding my falafel horizons.

Falafel King is my regular falafel fling, and by "regular" I mean that I haven't been there in a year or more. It was the place I went for a late night falafel after the Moldy Peaches' set because I wanted one of their giant pitas so badly that I could care less about the headlining band, which was called "The Strokes" or something ridiculous like that.

As I ate the falafel combo, I thought, "Yes, I would skip a Strokes show for this pita." Of course, that was my only opportunity to see the Strokes, so I don't know, maybe they're really good live, but I can't imagine they're better than that pita. Double-handful of Lebanese heaven, I tell ya.

In other "Day in NYC" news:

• Trish called just after I'd taken my first bite of the falafel combo. She was going to a barbeque in Far Rockaway, and my schedule was such that I couldn't tag along or meet up afterwards. There will be other hangouts in other cities.
  
  
• In the middle of convincing Tower Records that I was entitled to the sale price of the Stereolab box set I'd just bought, I realized that the fine print indicated that sale tag expired June 16, not July 16 -- I always get the "6" and "7" months confused. They didn't notice or didn't care, and gave me my four bucks. I illegally download more music than I can listen to in a lifetime, but I feel vaguely uncomfortable with mistakenly getting four lousy bucks. Then again, I felt somewhat foolish buying the box set in the first place -- but the [sale] price was right. And it came with stickers! Stickers!
  
  
• What with not meeting Trish, I had a few hours to kill so I thought I'd check out the Alexander Archipenko show at the Ukrainian Museum. The problem was that I didn't know where the Ukrainian Museum was. I walked up and down every block in the Ukie 'hood and then found it on 6th Street. It was an OK show -- the art was great, but the presentation was scattershot. I mean, if you're going to have text that describes the last two great pieces of the artist's life, consider having them in the same room, not in totally different, decontextualized areas. Maybe. Maybe.
  
  
• I never thought I'd get the chance to say, "Could I get an extra-large 'New York Fuckin City', please?" but going to the big city is all about new experiences, right?
  
  
• Damn I love all the tall buildings and all the tourists and the tall ships in the water and the view of the Statue of Liberty from behind my sister's building. I was just about bursting with love today.
  
  
• (It might have been a symptom of the dehydration.)
  

According to this previously-linked-to page, the Falafel King is in fact the Falafel House -- but I could have sworn a sign inside referred to the Falafel King! Maybe the actual business is called the Falafel House, and the Falafel King just works there. That would have been a bonus when they were hiring, having the same first name of the business and all.

"I actually thought they were real!!! It was the most fun I've ever had doing a shot!"

That's from the testimonials page for Hooter Shooters. If I bought a set of Hooter Shooters and a matching Whizzinator, I could make some of the best porn movies ever!

Damn me and my sense of dignity!

Hey, hurray

I should be getting to sleep because it's 2 a.m. and mom, Taissa, and I are driving to NYC in seven hours, but I'm such a slow email writer that I may be up for another half-hour. Yargh.

I don't even know what I'm going to be doing in the city tomorrow. I'm most assuredly not going to hang out at the bridal shower, but I don't know when Trish is going to call, and I don't know how long the bridal shower is, and ... these are trivial matters. I should hurry up and finish writing this, then finish writing email, then go to bed. Zip zip zip, easy-peasy.

Here I go.

Right now.

This is me going.

Watch me go.

Schoen von hinten.

"As heard on Late Show with David Letterman," read the cheeseball sign

The NYC trip was pretty great. I'll write in more detail in a little while but I'm a little lazy today, so here's the summary:

Fancy Italian lunch with a view. Yo La Tengo, Stephen Malkmus, and Laura Cantrell: free show, Battery Park. Hanging with sister's fiance. Two Yo La Tengo shirts, one Laura Cantrell shirt. Matador Records magnets. Almost perfect pizza for dinner. Part of The Thing and first thirty minutes of Conan the Barbarian before sleep.

Next day: bagels and newspaper with sister. Four cd's from Other Music: Laura Cantrell x 2, Guitar Wolf, glam rock compilation. Two hot dogs and papaya drink from Gray's Papaya. Film Forum series,"Paramount Before the Code", 2 movies for one price: Pick-up (1933) and Ladies of the Big House (1931), both directed by Marion Gering and starring Sylvia Sidney. Delightful old folks in the audience. Walk 42 blocks to Port Authority bus terminal. Pass Gourmet Garage. Suddenly remember what one buys at Gourmet Garage.

Buy two. Spend hours trying to figure out if I can bring them over the U.S.-Canada border (dairy foodstuffs, I don't know). Buy old-but-new-to-me Evan Dorkin comic book. Buy bus ticket to Newark Airport. Kill time at internet cafe. Buy shredded beef bowl. Ride bus. Wait at airport. Make tacky mental jokes about tacky Russian women in International Arrivals waiting area, eg "Are the mail-order brides waiting for their mail-order bridesmaids?" Meet up with mom. Meet up with other sister. Drive everybody home. Get to sleep at 2 a.m.

It was such a fucking great trip. The music, the movies, the walking, owning cheese that was handled by Amy Sedaris ... goddamn. Dave = one happy fella.

Today? Today's another story. General humidity and timidity and and and ... argh. But oh! I did get the soundtrack cd of The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 in the mail today. So that's pretty good. But damn do I buy a lot of shit.

Wait, don't tell me

Mom and her pal went to the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown today. Before they left, mom told me, "[You're going to NYC tomorrow to see Yo La Tengo in Battery Park and then spending the night at your sister's apartment.] Why don't you buy Ulyana a bottle of that wine she likes?"

"Sounds good[, Mom]. Where can I get it?"

"At the liquor store in Hudson[, which is forty miles away]."

So that was my day, going to Hudson for wine. I figured that as long as I was there I might as well go the movies. I went to see War of the Worlds because A) it was a matinee; B) I didn't think it would look as good on a TV as it would on a movie screen; and C) I'm a glutton for punishment.

[I'm also a glutton for cliches, apparently.]

The movie wasn't very good. For maximum enjoyment, leave the theatre as soon as Dakota Fanning takes off the blindfold, and make up your own ending. Try it, it's fun!

On the drive home, I had the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah caught in my head, except my brain substituted "Hallelujah" with "Maso Poli". It was ... annoying.

That was the wine: Maso Poli. Guess I forgot that part. [Sorry.]

"Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not", written by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert, is insanely funny. It's a moderately difficult read because there is a lot of wordplay, much like an episode of Strangers With Candy. Not, like, Oscar Wilde-style wordplay ... just ... bah, nevermind.

To distract you, here's an excerpt from an interview Amy did with herself for Show People magazine:

Can you talk about your theatrical background?
Well, Amy, I could, but I'm afraid that might be a little dull.

Trust me, Amy, nothing you say will ever be boring or trite.
Thank you. I started in Chicago doing improvisational theater with the Second City. We performed improvisation, which can be very hit or miss. So I learned to not be afraid of failing on stage. I learned to embrace my failures.

I was wrong. You can be boring.
Really? I wonder how that's possible given the incredibly dull questions you're asking.

Hmm

I am attempting to create an RSS feed for this blog. This is a handy feature if you're running Firefox. I don't know how handy it is if you're running not-Firefox, but if not-Firefox is anything like Internet Explorer, then nothing is handy.

Anyway: the RSS feed. It's going to take me a little while to figure it out, so please be patient.

[EDIT: I think I got it working. Or at least working for Firefox.]

A bird just flew into the window

It fell to the deck and sorta flopped around for a bit. Then it coughed up blood and eventually stopped flopping. Great.

Last night I finally got around to watching Wonderland, in which junkie pornstar John Holmes (played by a cipher-like Val Kilmer) double crosses his small-time dealer pals, then to make amends with them he double crosses a big-time dealer, and then to make amends with the big-time dealer, he double crosses his small-time dealer friends. The big-time dealer sends his goons to the small-time dealers' apartment in the middle of the night, and bludgeoning occurs. It's based on a true story,

[you know what, I gotta take care of that dead bird]

[OK, done]

... so during the bludgeoning sequence the director was inspired to insert actual crime scene photos of the aftermath. That was fucking cheery. And me being innately curious, I had to rewind and freeze frame on the photos, and I was thoroughly disgusted and saddened. The played-by-Janeane-Garofalo victim looked somewhat like a woman who worked in my high school, but I guess a perosn who's had their skull crushed by a lead pipe can start to resemble anyone.

I tried to tell myself that these four victims (a fifth bludgeonee survived) were junkie scum, but the film does a disservice by not portraying them as such. You don't think, "These people were junkie trash, and their eventual ugly end was a certainty," you think, "My, what lovely blue eyes, clear skin, and lustrous salon-quality hair you have, Mr. Junkie." The big-time dealer was lent no such sympathy, as he was played by the gifted actor/playwright/creepy fucker Eric Bogosian.

Aaaanyway, after thoroughly creeping myself the fuck out and doing some Wikipedia/Crime Library research, it was time for bed. And hey, what's better than a white chocolate/macadamia nut cookie before bed? What's that, you say? A cookie will only serve to give me a mild sugar rush at 3 a.m., keeping me awake longer in the fucking pitch blackness of my room, leaving me prey to the memory of the awful images I witnessed just a half-hour previous? And every few minutes I'll have to reach over to the other side of the bed to make sure a bludgeoned woman isn't lying next to me? And my mom's houseguest is a snorer, so she may be moaning as if being murdered in her sleep, but just ignore it? Oh, OK.

I dreamed that I got a girl pregnant after the one time we had unprotected sex, and that was like a trip to Disneyworld compared to what I could have dreamed. And now there's this dead bird sitting in the branches of a pine tree, because my shovel-flinging sucks.

Cheers, everybody.

Take care of yourselves ... and each other.

Whatever's clever is totally whatever

Mom and I went to the Dia:Beacon museum today Or maybe it's a gallery. Hard to say. It's a converted box factory, and it's bigger than what my conception of a "gallery" is, but it's smaller than a "museum". Let's go with "gallery".

Either way, it was great. I'll go out on a limb and admit that I know next to nothing about contemporary art, but I could only imagine that the Dia:Beacon's permanent collection is a pretty good sampling. Just about everything there was really interesting. There was an exhibition of early Warhol work: small, but nicely done. The fact that Sylvester Stallone was the subject of a Warhol portrait is just wrong on so many levels. (Perhaps someday I'll tell the "lick the balls" story. Sadly, like the best celebrity blowjob stories, it's apocryphal.)

I really wish I could have taken Matt Killen, or photos. Walking around inside the Richard Serra ellipses under natural light while the MetroNorth train rumbled by ... that was a unique moment that cried for photographic memorialization!

The place was staffed with black-clad artgirls. They were so adorably sullen! I don't know if they're imports from NYC or if the gallery dug them up in whatever coffeebars are found in the surrounding town; artgirls are kind of universally similar.

"Dave, you dilletante fuck, that's all very well and good; now tell us about the fucking gourmet hot dogs!"

OK ... the gourmet hot dogs were delicious but the promise of "gourmet" ketchup was a promise broken, unless Heinz packets have some cachet of which I'm not aware. I opted against samplng the pineapple relish, and instead went with the pickles, tomatoes, sylvetta arugula, and a packet of mustard. I could easily have eaten more than one hot dog, but "Gourmet hot dog" + museum food = $4 per wiener. Ah, but 'twas the most delicious of wieners, curved at the end and too large for the buns!

Yeah, I think I'm done with frankfurters now ... unless it's a pretty girl from Frankfurt, in which case I'll make an exception.

[upon further research] A Google Image Search for "pretty frankfurter" yielded disappointing results, so let's go back to the original declaration: I'm done with frankfurters now!