Festering Carbuncle

perhaps the perfect example of "greater than the sum of its parts"

There is a whole tumblr full of these, but I think this one most fully encapsulates the genius of Play Him Off, Keyboard Kat!:

As a friend said, "Ask not for whom the Keyboard Cat plays... He plays for thee..."

Also, while not nearly as epitomical as the first clip, I really enjoy how completely at the mercy of the treadmill this guy becomes. Ah, funny.

Come along wild flower child...

People will quite often exclaim, with the kind of passion and unbridled enthusiasm that can only be the result of insincerity, that there is nothing quite like a sunny morning in the early spring.  While I am inclined to agree with these phony pricks, I would actually take it a little further and assert that there is even nothinger like a sunny Saturday morning in the early spring.  There is just something about being up and enjoying the sunshine while everyone else is still in bed, still a little drunk, but not nearly drunk enough, and cursing that infernal heavenly plasmoid for turning the blackness to blood-red when they close their eyes.  And then there are the people who aren't so lucky to be restlessly tossing in their own bed, the ones on the sidewalks with their zombie-like shuffles, dried puke on their faces and rug burns on their backs, trying desperately to maintain the solace provided by an alcohol induced blackout...  Those walking the 'walk of shame.'

It reminds me of one fine spring morning, some years ago, when I stumbled out of the doors of the county lockup at six AM on a Saturday.  Four or five hours earlier, a police officer and myself had failed to come to terms on a slight matter of dispute between each other, and after soliciting the opinions of several other officers, it was democratically decided that, for the sake of expediently resolving the dispute, it would be best if I spent an indeterminate number of hours in the protective custody of some impartial county correctional officers.  If I recall correctly, I was the lone dissenter, although I nearly convinced a passer-by to join in a grassroots movement I had attempted to organize at the scene...

In any case, I wind up on the steps of the Multnomah County Detention Center, wincing from the sun and shivering from the cold, fresh holes in my sweater, fresh scabs on my face, and a paper bracelet on my wrist with a picture of a criminal printed on it.  At first I was embarrassed to be seen in such a state, but after my eyes adjusted to the light and I looked around, I realized that everyone else on the sidewalks at that hour was either homeless or hung-over, or, like me, had just been released from the pokey.  We were all shuffling along, averting our eyes and considering the depths of our shame, just wishing we could finally get to wherever the hell we were going.  It turns out that the 'walk of shame' isn't much different from any other walk.

I feel like crying but all I can do is smile

No matter what you do, you can't force somebody to respond.  The fact that you would drive your self crazy trying is all the proof necessary to justify the label of neurotic.  Be thankful for the little things: neurosis is a damn sight better than psychosis, and it looks better on a resume, to boot.

I always took this song at face value, as a lament of being unable to shake the ghost of someone who died, a desire to make that ghost real.  Lately it feels more like the cries of someone in the throes of a nervous breakdown, unable to cope with the unresolved, the person lying there is not dead, but they might as well be for your inability to coax a response.  Passive aggressive, psychologically violent.  Or, as they are in the jargon: Pass-Agg... Psycho-Vio...  Psycho-Ass-Vag...  I guess sometimes the behaviors are more haunting than the people.

All I know is that you're beautiful and I want to touch you and feel the warmth of your blood and your life

So, I'm driving across the bridge this morning, thinking about how I feel sad and I want to cry, when Everybody Wants to Rule the World comes on the radio.  It took a second to realize just how right the song was for the moment, but I had caught on well before the delivery of the line, "Welcome to your life, there's no turning back."  I don't care to consider why, but I find the song almost epitomically sad, and it just doesn't seem like there is a better time to be reminded of how unlikely one's future success is than when you are hopelessly despondent about the present.  Just as your doorway to values is sure to be wrapped in scare quotes, the limitless potential of your world-oyster is decidedly dubious.  Doobie-doobie-do.  Do-do-do-do-do.  Doobie-doobie-die...