Festering Carbuncle

End of Year Lists: Best Deaths of '08

Earlier today I was looking at a slideshow of photographs of people who died in 2008.  They were all, of course, famous people who had been photographed hundreds of times throughout the course of their lives, and in almost every instance the photo they were memorialized with in this slideshow was one depicting them during the prime of their lives.  With only a few strange exceptions, the photographs, even when the subject wasn't terribly attractive, were characterized by beauty, the kind of beauty that appears at a moment in time when one understands that they have had a positive impact on the world, or somebody therein, and, emboldened by that knowledge, has finally allowed their self to just enjoy the moment.  I know that no such photograph of me exists, but I find the prospect that it could yet be taken, that I could,  in the future, have such a moment to be a touch inspiring, or, at the least, something less than unbearable.

To be honest with you, there weren't that many deaths that really did it for me last year, so this is essentially just a thoroughly incomplete list of people who died placed in an ordered list.  I suppose it would be more interesting to say that some of these deaths make me sad and others make me glad:

1. Harold Pinter
2. Studs Terkel
3. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
4. George Carlin
5. Bobby Fischer

Like I said, it's not the greatest list, but at least we have a whole new year of deaths to look forward to.  Incidentally, the photos linked to are not necessarily the same as the ones in the slideshow.

Charmander, I choose you!

If I were a family man this song could be my life. Not because I am such an alcoholic, but rather because I derive so much pleasure from abject failure when juxtaposed with the hard work and sacrifice required to not let others down. I guess it's just a matter of taking control over your own life, choosing your failures rather than risking a stab at success only to be stabbed back.

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chlorofluorocarbon

The current batch of mix cds are all sewn up. It's a shame, really, when one considers that this popped into my head tonight. It's such a beaut, really, a song worth of creating an entire mix cd around.

This, if memory serves, is one of the first songs from Ugly Beautiful to catch my ears. The line, "have you ever wanted to kill a screaming child" is the kind of thing that makes me abandon whatever it is I should happen to be doing, look around to make sure no one is watching, and smile. Then later on, when the immediate pleasures of infanticide pass, lines like, "Have you ever sat down and started to smile, at the old man who got up & danced his way for a good course to France" start to make me smile the empathetic smile. It is only later still that the verse, "I've got no one to blame except myself and that's selfish" makes me smile the wry smile of semantic satisfaction.

Noun 1. kiss curl - a spiral curl plastered on the forehead or cheek

Possibly worthy of note is the fact that this little number is available only on the American version of Ugly Beautiful, the UK version instead includes a wonderful song called King Bing. Both songs are essential Babybird, making this one of those rare times when owning both the import and domestic versions of an album just makes good sense.

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Happy Endings

One of my favorite things is to wallow in the misery of doomed or otherwise foiled love affairs for, say, eighty-five minutes or so at a whack. It has all the charm of one's own misery, but it seems more efficient, somehow, when you watch it in the movies. Perhaps it is the case that, as with colours, the emotions of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the big screen. What makes it all worthwhile, though, are minutes eighty-six through ninety; happiness, certainty, resolution, credits. Tears of sorrow become tears of joy as separation becomes reunion. It's heavenly.

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keeping faith in unrealistic expectations

Occasionally it is going to happen that you will be sitting at home, rum drunk, when the least competent person you know will call you on the telephone and let you know that you have obligations for the current week.  A lesser man would take this as an indication that they have lost all control of their life, and that they are spiraling towards the rockiness that is rumored to exist at the bottom.  Fortunately, being the greater man, you realize that the situation indicates that you, in fact, had the foresight to surround yourself with people, the least competent of which having the presence of mind to not only recognize those times when you are unlikely to meet any obligations you might have, but more importantly having the couth to prod you along, electrically if necessary, towards meeting obligations that seem insignificant and inconvenient despite your protests indicating a desire to do nothing more than suck down more hooch.  It will be during these moments when you will realize the true vastness of your competency, and most importantly, how much better you are, as a human being, than your friends.

Here's to 2009, I'm sure it going to be one hell of a good year!

Ho Daddy

So, funny story. This one time, when I was, like, a little kid, I watched this movie with my dad. There was this scene in the movie where this dude has a face painted on his chin and sings a song. That scene like totally creeped me out. Then a few days later I started singing the song to my friends little brother but I changed the words to "Ho Matty" cuz his name was all like Matt and such. He got all mad and it was totally funny, so I kept singing it and he kept getting madder. It was so funny. Then, after like four hours he started doing it to me and I was all like, "whatever, it's not even funny anymore, dork" and that was like way funnier so me and his brother high fived.

So, it's crazy cuz I was just like thinking of this scene the other day for like no reason and then this morning this jerk says " Found this while searching for 'Krebbs'" So I check it out all thinking it's going to be this hilarious video of some guy scratching his crotch real hard but instead it's this crazy ho daddy thing I was just thinking about the other day! It's still pretty creepy, but it would like be totally cool if you were all high on like acid and ludes and ether all at the same time like I was the other day cuz I'm fucking hardcore, punk.

081607

Although nothing seems right

When you take a step back and examine your life it looks pretty good, right? Well, maybe "good" is overselling it a bit, but everything is working out pretty all right, all in all, you're pretty content. You're also pretty miserable. That's how these things work, the human condition, etcetera...

Being miserable isn't all bad, though. It affords us the opportunity to pinpoint that one thing that we need to make our lives completely perfect. For example, I simply need to find that one woman out there who has a crippling obsession with cleanliness, and you, well, you should probably lose some weight, don't you think? If you and I could just accomplish these simple goals we could say "hi" when we bump into each other on the top of the world. It's comforting, in a way, to know that we are so close to perfection. We can take solace in the fact that there is only one major hurdle left, perpetually.

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How can something be so much damn fun

 

If I ever had a first date that went much like this song I would get married the next day. Every year on the night before our anniversary we would initiate another flying jelly bean attack. We would be the happiest people in the world, even when it got dangerous.

I'm gonna eat jelly jelly jelly jelly Jelly jelly jelly jelly beans You're gonna eat cherry cherry cherry cherry Cherry cherry cherry cherry drops I'm gonna eat jelly jelly jelly jelly Jelly jelly jelly jelly beans You're gonna eat cherry cherry cherry cherry Cherry cherry cherry cherry drops

Ooh, flying jelly beans, throwing them to you Ooh, crashing cherry drops, breaking right in two

When it gets dangerous Call out for rescue Somebody might hear you calling And come to help you soon

Ooh they crash into each other, jelly beans Eating them and throwing them forever cherry drops

070307

got no time for farmer's daughters

I never really had anything I wanted to be when I grew up. The closest I ever came was when I realized science was really cool and I declared I wanted to someday be a scientist. In a conceptual sense, scientists are pretty fucking cool, but when you get right down to the reality of things they're just a bunch of dorks in lab coats. I guess, then, I am pretty happy the whole scientist thing didn't pan out.

062507

And now if everyone would please rise for the singing of our national anthem

Nobody posts about Polysics, but everybody loves them. It one of those weird things like the way nobody talks about how great it is to breathe, even though each one of us loves breathing with all of our heart.

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