The Madness Of Monkeys Which Are Mangoes

2004-02-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

Title Is Nothing

Hi kids, I've decided I'm not writing anything here anymore, at least not for a while. I'm trying out a different 'blog on a different server. Email me (see link at bottom left) for the URL to my fabulous new 'blog, otherwise, have fun being greeted by this here entry & growing old.

2004-01-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

Not Much Really New To Say

I'm still out of work, and still stuck at home pretty much all the time.
I've decided to let all the hairs on my face grow, until I either find a job or winter blows over, whichever comes first.

In the meantime, please enjoy this fine link, and if stuff happens, I'll be sure to write about it.

2004-01-04T17:28:00.000-05:00

heavyheavyjon/littledroogie on Yahoo Chat/Swellmeister on AOL Instant Messenger is NOT TAKING THIS SITTING DOWN!!! (actually, he probably is)

Okay, I've been a de facto shut-in for most of the holidays, and thus stuck, for the most part, with communicating with friends via email and instant messaging of one kind or another, and from my experience lately, I must say that instant messaging sucks ass.

I'm all about family (in theory) but my dad's pretty much the black sheep of his, my mom's peeps have more sense than to try to make everybody eat dinner & sleep under the same roof for up to a damn week, so I'm spending a lot of time just sittin' around in my room.

I just re-installed this universal chat program (universal=compatible with all the major online chat formats), set the whole thing up, and the only people on there, ever, are the two lame people who are always online, yet always have some kind of 'away' message on there. Is it the medium that sucks, or is it people who suck? Ehh...the holiday season is a busy time, and a bunch of people wind up being temporarily relocated to suffer all of their creepy, dysfunctional relatives for the season. People don't suck. At least not inasmuch as they'd probably be talking to me if they could be. The absence of people sucks.

Watching "Cops" right now. I'm not proud, just waiting for Fox to start showing "King of the Hill", "The Simpsons", et al, and don't feel like listening to CDs right now. They bleep out all sorts of cuss words on there, yet somehow, the word "nigger" comes through intact every time. It's black people using the word, but it's still kinda weird. After several days of unseasonably warmish, sorta wet, mucky weather outside, it's finally starting to get cold out & it's snowing like a motherfucker outside. Smoking has been reduced to 3 Merit Ultra Lites a day, and soon I plan to make my way down to two a day, one a day, then, eventually, none.

2003-12-14T03:35:00.000-05:00

Hooray, It's The "It's Been A Year Approximately Since I Started Writing In This Goddamn Thing" Celebration!!! I'll do my best to make this a party. I'm drinking beers tonight and currently listening to
Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman. You reading this: you have no excuse for not educating yourself in the musical works of Jonathan Richman because just like for me and for a lot of friends of mine, his music just might save your life, no lie.

As for the guy behind this site, well; I'm still here to write this, I'm back on a regular routine and doing my best to keep that going as long as possible, still struggling to deal with the hand that's been dealt me, with what I thought I had & might have never had & may never get to have being yanked out from under me, and I think I've made some good choices &/or been dealt some good fortune for my immediate circle of friends. There's a nice little fraction more affection in my life this year, as opposed to last year around this time when I wrote about why the movie "A.I." made me cry, and that's a good thing.

I've got a pretty good idea of who's on my side and who's not these days. If you're nice to me, I'll remember you when my fortune is better. If you're not, so sorry (on paper), but---BYE!!! Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

Fuck material objects, this holiday is all about a happier soul. I find each commercial I see on TV for somebody actually being able to afford to BUY SOMEONE ELSE a 50,000 car for their present laughable at best.

So, in order to celebrate what is the one year anniversary of this blog (I have some vague memory of it going back further but I SAY this is the OBSERVED one year anniversary, so, along with anything else I say, accept it or fuck off), let's make with some merry links:

Some images of Swedish bands from the 1970s

Joe Cartoon, Bastion Of Relief For Those Bored At Work

Amnesty International, who can definitely use your help if you're not broke & feeling generous during the holiday season

Anyway, happy 1 Year Anniversary To This Here Blog, and Happy You Getting To Be Around To Read It. I'm going to bed now.

2003-12-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

Garage Sale Item #24601: An Old Flexible Gumby Figure Drawn On W/Magic Marker

OK, this isn't gonna be one o' them reg'lar types o' 'blog entries where I talk about how I'm doing or even say anything of any redeeming value, no, not one of those perennial gems that springs up like fuckin' daisies around these parts, it's basically just an excuse to throw out this one random thing I've had floating around in my head for a coupla weeks now & waiting for an opportunity to use in a conversation/online debate/somethin'.

It has to do with people who complain about bad movies & try to get all righteous about "I SUPPORT THE FILM INDUSTRY WITH MY MONEY blah blah blah blah *fart noise*", but said opportunity never came up, and subsequently it got catalogued in the "Miscellaneous" section of my mind; a vast and wonderous place where buffalo and gazelle respectively buff and leap about and Skittles(TM) fall out of the sky in seperate colors, making for a sort-of rainbow effect, where pink puppy dogs tell tales of robots being bitten by oversized chickens, and Eugene Levy in his character from "A Mighty Wind" speaks of a majestic voyage around the sun in a big, fancy ship.

It is this:

(for superfun goodtime activityness, picture the following in that choppy, alien female voice they use for telephone voice menu stuff)

How To Determine Your Gross Adjusted Amount Of What The Film Industry Owes Your Monkey Ass (or GAAOWTFIOYMA, which is a fun thing to yell when you're pretending to be Jerry Lewis):

1. Procure some sort of implement or writing, drawing, or otherwise making marks, along with something on which to manifest said marks. Suggestions:

(a) Pencil and yellow legal pad
(b) Pen and piece of blank 8"x12" swiped from a photocopier
(c) Burnt Sienna Crayola(TM) crayon and bright orange construction paper
(d) an Etch-A-Sketch and your own two lovely hands
(e) MS Paint and a computer
(f) Imaginary MS Paint and your mind, if you're on dope

2. Place your hand firmly on the implement of making marks.

3. Apply the implement to the receptacle of marks (if you chose Item (d) or (e), skip ahead to item 4. If you chose Item (f), tgo away, take some more dope, then come back and read this 'blog entry again & it'll be even funnier---for extra fun, take a WHOLE LOT more drugs and try to find the place on here where you stopped reading).

4. Without looking directly at what you're doing, draw your best picture of a dick.

5. Stop looking away and behold(!!!) your artwork. This represents your Gross Adjusted Amount Of What The Film Industry Owes Your Monkey Ass.

2003-11-27T07:21:00.000-05:00

Thankfulousibleness

Well, here it is ten after seven on the Day of Turkey, or Day of Tofurkey if you're one of those vegitarian/vegan types who insist on your soy products resembling dead animals and are unashamed to walk around using the word "tofurkey", IMO one of the stupidest-sounding words ever coined. But grousing about goofy words is not the name of the game today. Today it's all about being thankful for shit, so here's a list of things for which I find myself thankful on this day among days:

---My good health--all five senses and all four limbs functioning after nearly 32 years. Woo!
---Music--the good kind
---Not having to live out on the streets
---My kitty, who's probably curled up in a fuzzy little ball somewhere in the house right now
---The fact that I'll be employed again in a week
---The mutant gene that endows me with a sense of humor and an appreciation of weirdness & irony. Sometimes it's a burden to bear but today I celebrate it as the wings that make me fly.
---The fact that even though we may not always all agree about anything, the human spirit lives on, which makes all things possible
---My mom & dad...they may be nuts but they're good people, always
---My friends, old and new, including you reading this right now

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

2003-11-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

Diarrhea Of The Somethin'

WARNING: If you're not on the same page as me politically (and being fair, since I've only touched the surface of my beliefs on anything of that nature, unless you already know me and are reading this, you don't really know if you are or not), this just might be the last thing you ever read on my 'blog. If that's the way it is, well: that sucks and I'm sorry we can't hang anymore, but my beliefs, opinions, and convictions remain mine.

You're warned. If you'd like to keep our possible political differences a mystery, go ahead and drop this blog for a while & come back in a few weeks when I'm talking about something else.

Ya know, I've been toying with this idea for a while: of just letting go & coming out of the electronic closet with my beliefs and opinions on real stuff, instead of my usual stuff which is nice, but tends to mostly be pretty rambling, with a few little bons mots thrown in here and there, but with no real direction. It's been almost a year since I created this thing, and it still remains this crazy quilt of all different kinda' stuff. What prompts me to push yet another aspect of my ideas/opinions/beliefs into the limelight for all to see is partly due to my being linked to by the gentleman or lady as the case may be who works on/writes for this blog, and this action serves as a reminder to me of my own convictions.

Yeah, it's political. It's sticky and touchy and getting-in-your-face. It's the stuff that bar brawls are sometimes made of. It's the type of discourse that could cause a date to go horribly awry, or keep one from future invitations to dinner at certain peoples' houses. But it's time for me to talk about it.

For the record, my political views are pretty much to the left. I very strongly identify with a paraphrase of Mark Twain, something along the lines of, "Love for your country always; love for your government when they deserve it," and as it happens, my love of this country is as strong as it was when I sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the top of my lungs on top of a gravel pile with a sparkler in each hand at age eight on the 4th of July, but now, nearly 24 years later, I believe that my government...doesn't deserve it. Right now we have a govermnent that's become corrupt to the point where Richard Nixon would probably blanch if he were around to see it. We've got a guy in office who got in on a technicality, despite the way the people voted. If you're a Republican and reading this, I'm sorry. Not sorry that I offended you, sorry that the guy who's in office is representing you, your party, and your vote.

As embarrassed for you and your party, in fact, as I was for the Democrats when Clinton's Oval Office shenanigans were at the center ring of the big Media Circus a few years ago.

If y'all haven't learned your lesson with just voting for the first guy who comes along, you should all get up, figure out a way to boot him off the ticket, and demand somebody better for your candidate next year. If you get somebody good enough, I might even vote for him/her, but probably not, because honestly, my trust and the Republican party have an even worse track record than with the Democrats. At least they gave us Jimmy Carter. You know, the guy who brought peace between Egypt and Israel.

Maybe there's a lesson here as well w/r/t blind party-line loyalty. You don't have to root for every player on your favorite team every game, ya know. How about next time, we look at all the candidates, even the 3rd party ones, even the really crazy parties like a bunch of guys who all speak only Klingon or who promise to replace all our currency with Tinkertoys. Get as educated as you can on as many candidates in as many different parties as you can possibly cram into your cranium, then vote for whomever the hell you like based on how they stand on the issues, and get as many people as possible to do that too. THAT's how democracy is supposed to work, and THAT's how you get the person in office you want, because I have to say this: I know there's some hardline right-wingers out there who are into Rush Limbaugh and all that who honestly don't spend that much time thinking about politics. We on the left have people like that too.

But it's really, really, really hard for me to believe that there are actually educated, informed people out there who are willing to vote for this guy again.

How long can one man hide behind an empty effigy of false patriotism? How long can they keep a war going on to justify the image of President as Benevolent Father Figure to never be questioned? How long can they disgrace the memory of the 3000+ people we lost on 9/11 to justify the war? How long will people be branded as traitors who speak out against the deaths of even more innocent people by a government who has systematically refused to listen to the disenfranchised and poor in other countries maybe even to the point where there are even more angry, disenfranchised people who just might decide to become terrorists themselves, and when can we finally crawl out of our caves & wipe all the stigma off of the word "liberal"?

As for the Big War, I can only say, Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home.

The links I'm going to give for this entry are propaganda. They're biased towards a certain opinion, as is this entry. I'm not going to present them as The Truth, because we all have our own ideas about what The Truth is, and hell, maybe we're all right. This one requires Flash (or the Mac equivalent if Mac doesn't use Flash) and some speakers on your computer: BushFlash .

For any right-wingers reading this who still aren't convinced: Conservatives Against Bush

Not In Our Name

And specific shout-outs to two groups of people:

If you're some frothing right-winger who's all set to rush to judgement and start damning me in my comment thing or leaving me some angry piece of email, please don't waste your time or mine with something you don't want to write & I sure as hell don't care to read. Surely there's something more constructive you could be doing with your free time.

What's going on in Washington directly affects your life. It's not specifically the Republican OR Democrat parties' individual faults, but a bunch of fatcats who, honestly, don't give a damn about you or your family or your pets or your friends.
I'm sure things wouldn't be much better right now if Al Gore got elected; we might be in a different kettle, but it'd probably be filled with the same crap.

If you're one of those "not into politics" people who wonders why I don't go get a life, well...the guys who founded this country said it's the patriotic duty of anyone who has an issue with the way things are being done to SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT, and that's what I'm doing now.

If you're still sitting here with me, amidst all the broken dishes and teeth all over the place, I thank you for your attention.

2003-11-25T23:28:00.000-05:00

G'Day Motherfuxx

I'm Australia according to this crazy test that tells you what country you are.

Australia -
Founded as a gigantic prison colony, Australia has
turned into a Mid-Level world power. Known for
its wildlife and culture.

Positives:

Reformed.

Culturally Admired.

Mid-Level Power.

Renouned Flora and Fauna.

Negatives:

Founded by Criminals.

Island Nation (Isolated).

Talk Funny.

Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-11-25T19:18:00.000-05:00

A Brief Walking Tour Of Downtown Detroit

Well, it looks like I'm finally on my path to gainful employment. I got a call last Monday about a job through the temp agency, at Comerica yet again, though in the Records Dep't this time. It's at the same building downtown as my last stint with them, which is probably the best place in terms of location that I've ever had the pleasure at which to work: half an hour away by bus, 20 minutes on foot from my favorite used bookstore on the planet , maybe 40 minutes on foot from one of the greatest bars in Detroit . Not to mention being just a stone's throw from Hart Plaza , the Renaissance Center, and what's left of Greektown.

True, this is only a temp job, but when they briefed me on the assignment, it was imparted to me that it could pan out to me being hired directly in, so I've got my fingers crossed, and meanwhile I'm not giving up on the type of job I really want.

Here's yet another link for you, a link to scary kitties. Enjoy!

2003-11-09T18:22:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, regarding the Matrix 3: Electric Boogalee---

I would warn you that there are possible spoilers in this post, which I guess this sentence effectively serves as, but the way I figure it is, anybody who hasn't seen the goddamn thing yet probably either doesn't want to see it or probably doesn't care if I give crap away about it, but for that one person who doesn't fit this criteria who hasn't seen it, doesn't know anything about it yet, but really, really wants to see it & doesn't want it wrecked for them, STOP.....READING....THIS.....NOW. Scroll down & read the little rhymey entry I wrote two hours ago instead. If I really knew my shit as far as HTML or PHP or whatever are concerned, I could do my spoilers in that nifty "invisible ink" a' la the big-ass Star Wars website (poke around in the Episode III stuff & eventually you'll see it), but I don't. But anyway, again: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO READ "MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS" SPOILERS, DO NOT KEEP READING THIS POST. POSTY-POSTY, NO-NO READY-READY, SPOILY-SPOILY. Check out some pictures of fluffy bunnies instead.

Now, for those of you who stuck around, here are my thoughts on the third and final Matrix movie:

First of all, the best thing about the movie is that they pretty much threw away all the philosophical mindfuck stuff from the second sequel, and made it a nonstop action-fest with lots of cool robot attacks & battle scenes.

The worst thing about the movie is that they pretty much threw away all the philosophical mindfuck stuff from the second sequel, and made it a nonstop action-fest with lots of cool robot attacks & battle scenes.

Your theories about the non-Matrix world being actually part of an even bigger Matrix, sorta like the last episode of "St. Elsewhere" where they pull back & all of it's made-up?
Not addressed.

The idea that the Merovingian is actually the guy who did Neo's job before Neo came along, or in fact any further info about just who the hell this Merovingian character thinks he is anyway?
Not addressed.

How Neo manages to have superpowers when not in the Matrix? Nope.

There are friends of mine who swear that all this stuff is, in fact, addressed in this third movie, but it's very very subtle & in the background. Well goddammit, what is this, "Twin Peaks"?? A good-sized chunk, a REALLY good-sized chunk of this movie is all about the big mess o' machines attacking Zion, and the battle that ensues. All of this is damn impressive, and if you're disappointed that they don't get into the Nature of the Matrix much in Revolutions, all the action stuff in it just might make up for it with you if you're capable of being bought that way---and believe me, there's some cool action stuff here.
It's just that unless you're actually able to notice all the little stuff going on in the background while giant masses of octobots attack dudes in mech suits, you're not gonna see it.

I saw the movie, as said in my last post, on an IMAX screen. Normally I'd ask what the hell they were thinking releasing it this way, if I hadn't already used that question to deal with the IMAX version of "George Lucas CGI Wankfest Episode II: Attack Of The Clones".

That's as much as I'm gonna "go there" with that particular film for now, cuz I'm talkin' 'bout dat Matrix. Parts of it worked on the IMAX screen. If they'd done "Reloaded" in that format, the parts with Neo flying and beating up all the Agent Smiths would have totally worked. For the most part though, the experience of seeing "Revolutions" on such a huge screen was like...too much movie. I found myself craning my head during a lot of the dialogue scenes, and with the action scenes, you're looking at something bigger than what the range of a normal pair of eyes can take in.

Now, I've talked with a few friends of mine about this who also saw "Revolutions", and one thing we're all completely flabbergasted with is this: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE FINAL FIGHT BETWEEN NEO & AGENT SMITH ABOUT?? How exactly did Neo defeat him?

Somebody on another blog said it best when they said something to the effect that the feel of this third sequel is almost like at a certain point, the Wachowski brothers just said "fuck it", wrapped the movie up, and went off to get drunk. It didn't really feel like a proper end of the story that was being told through the three movies, but maybe I just need to sit down & watch 'em back-to-back when the third one comes out on DVD.

Onward to Return of the King, which we all know is going to kick 365 days of ass.
See ya at the movies!

2003-11-09T15:25:00.000-05:00

Nothing really happened this week but at least I caught up on my sleep.
Made some calls for the Friday meeting but not the whole list yet and time is fleeting.
Had a lot of crazy dreams but can think of 'em when I sit down to write, it seems.
Saw "Matrix 3" with friends at the Imax place, that's too much damn move for such a big screen in your face.

Didn't hear much from friends besides that. But I know they're busy and we're all broke; flat. A job is what I need to find, but not a lame one because I'd rather be givin plasma with them stickin the needles in my behind. Then goin to the liquor store & buying some Steel Reserve & passing out in front of a rerun of "Are You Being Served?". So I'm rollin a smoke & callin some folks and I'm all broke and it ain't a joke.

2003-11-03T19:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I tried to put a picture up, but I forgot the fact that Yahoo are total dicks about people linking to their stuff, so sorry 'bout that.

2003-11-02T21:41:00.000-05:00

IT IS DEATH FOR SIRTAN. PLEASE, A BURGAR FIRST! FIRE HAS NO WEELS! YOU CANNOT CHASE PORK ALL THE DAY! BLARG, ARE YOU MY LUNCH? (YES!) OH NEWS PAPER, I KNOW WHERE THE HAM DOES HIDE!

I can't think of a title for this entry, which is feeling at this point like it's gonna be sort of meandering & formless & sort of me kickin' it Larry King stylee, so you'll just have to make do with the above bunch of bunch of nonsense written by a demented Mexican kid. Or a white guy from the Pacific Northwest with funky, colored hair who is into Mr. T on a basis that borders the arguably unwholesome, who *pretends* to be a demented Mexican kid. What the fuck am I talking about??

Last night saw me going to the Spag show: The Halloween Edition. Tons-o-fun, as always. Buckets o' tons o' fun. Also, some fake blood & guts. Wheeeeee!!

Hi-lites include:

--me in a really shitty, broke-guy Zartan from "G.I. Joe" costume (which I'll totally post a picture of if somebody can tell me how to htmlify a pic that's on my hard drive)

--my buddy Tom trying to point out a person I knew but there's two people I know with homonymous (sp?) names & I didn't know which one he was trying to point out so I missed out on getting to say "hi" to said person

--lots of fun horror movie themed schtickery in the show itself, ranging from a rare out-of-drag appearance by the fabulous Penny Tration, lip synching that one syrupy singin' ("Paul, you are ONE SUAVE FUCK!!") scene from Blue Velvet (*phew!*), to a reenactment of the shower scene from Psycho involving that teasy, behind-the-lit-up-sheet staple of burlesque, to to the grand finale that saw all the dancers stabbing the fuck out of Popeye & eating his guts to the tune of "Kill The Poor" by the Dead Kennedys.

--Me pulling my stupid "vanishing beer" trick on Bruce. *Wa'-wahhh*!!! I think it's time to retire that old chestnut before one of my friends gets sick of it & kicks my ass.

--A drunken ride in the bed of a pickup truck to a cheaper, less-crowded bar down the street, once the show was over.

In summation, more fun than a live monkey at his own funeral.

Didn't do anything much on the actual night of Halloween except chat with a few folks online & stew a little bit. Also, while under the influence of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley (currently being re-read by me), I put a nifty mix CD together of all electro music (NOT techno, electro---it's more your "Sprockets", dance-like-a-robot type of stuff) that sounded to me like stuff the characters of the book might listen to. I may be a geek sometimes but I'm the fun kind of geek, dammit!

Ironically, the night of Halloween, coincided, unbeknownst to me, with National Drunken Writing Night , courtesy of a bitchin' 'blog I just discovered . Now, I'm sure there are folks who are intimate with me that would attest to the fact---to the unfortunate slower folk amongst my beloved constituent of 'blog readers & maybe a few folks who are new around here---that SOMETIMES I AM NOT SOBER WHEN I WRITE THINGS HERE. It's true! Most of the time I'm sober when I do, but there's definitely a ratio at work here: generally, a blatant dearth of responsibility for the crap I write is a shining tip-off.

But I've gotta say this: me missing National Drunken Writing Night is almost like Santa Claus missing Christmas. Still, with my financial situation it surely would've meant I would've spent that money on beer & drinking it alone (physically, if not cyberonically or onlineically) in front of the damn computer, instead of actually getting out of the house & doing the same thing with a bunch of buddies of mine. Neither is exactly physically healthy but one's a bit more psychologically sound than the other, at least.
It gives me a chance to write a fun-filled entry like this, instead of another vitriolic one filled with grousin' and cusses. Well, grousin' is semi-optional; cusses ain't. Neither's spittin'. Pah-TOOOEY!!! Right in de ole' kissa'!!! So have I morphed into a grizzled 1890s prospector or a World War Two-era Brooklynite with a different poysinality? Only my hairdresser knows for sure, and I don't even HAVE a hairdresser! Ha!!

OK. I'm getting way too damn silly here for somebody not on drugs. It's time to come down & knock off this levity at once. Anyway, Spag show: Good. Missing National Drunken Writing Night: Bad. But they more than balance each other out. Goodnight, ya crazy kids!!

Yr Pal,

Uncle Monkeyboy

2003-10-30T18:58:00.000-05:00

GAAAAAH!! FUCK!! FUCK!! GODDAMMIT SHIT FUCK MOTHERFUCKER ASS BITCH HITLER COCKMASTER BUNGSWEAT GRRR DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!!!! doodie.

I have been trying...for three months...for THREE MOTHERFUCKING MONTHS...to get in touch with people around my district. See, I got appointed Rep for my district for the Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network back in late July. I've been sending emails. I've been making phone calls, and have heard from two people, both of whom were basically already onboard before I even started trying to contact people. Besides that, not a goddamn thing from anybody.

Now, I understand that people have lives and all that; Fall is a transitional period with a lot of your college-age types going back to school and Unitarian ministers & subsequently, folks connected to churches in general, have the summer off (basically, your typical Unitarian church isn't officially run during the summer--there's services only if enough people want there to be & they have to be willing to do all the work themselves so it's basically "open mic" all summer), but if just ONE of those fuckin' people could at least type a short email sentence or actually check their voicemail & give me two minutes of phone conversation of words to that effect, maybe there'd be some--- however brief---sense of accomplishment and/or closure, as opposed to being stone dead fucking silent. I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of the contacts I thought I made at ConCentric last summer turned out to be fuckin' holograms or something.

It could be that connectuu.com, the official online contact list for the Continental UU Young Adult Network is woefully outdated or something, but all I know is, I'm damn near zero for twelve or so for hearing back from the people actually listed there.

Me and the other two people have been trying for months to get a teleconference going to discuss how to get around or otherwise deal with this lack of communication, but this fucked-up thing keeps happening where the three of us never seem to all be up for it at any given time.

So getting paid or not, I actually am doing some work, and it's barely amounting to anything, and it's starting to seriously piss me off. Maybe I need some nice herbal tea & a Xanax or something.

2003-10-23T23:43:00.000-04:00

Nothing really new or exciting happened since my last post. I've finally heard from the DRE at my church about getting people together & the Detroit part of my community-building stuff is just that little bit closer to actually starting to happen, but besides that, it's sort of quiet. Still don't have a job yet, but the subject of my last post is helping me by sending me leads, along with the jobs I'm applying at myself.

It might be sort of far-reaching of me, but I've developed a theory:
There might be folks out there who just give my resume a cursory once-over & put it in the back of a drawer somewhere, but if on my mere mention of a resume I get so much as a funny look from potential employer person, it's a sure sign to me that the job may be something to let me pile up a bit of money, or something to stick around at for longer than a few months as long as the perks are sufficiently exploitable, but if they don't even pretend to take my resume seriously, I'm not going to take their job seriously either. This rule obviously doesn't go with my freelance stuff, but that's stuff to put on the resume anyway.

I currently came up with the idea to make multiple types, flavors if you will, of resume---so far, in addition to the good old-fashioned general one, I've started making a second kind that plays up my community/volunteer work skills--(I came to the conclusion that a lot of the UU stuff I've done throughout my life definitely counts in this department), as means towards finding something in non-profit or a similar field.

One of my dreams is to find some sort of work that may pay a lot, may not pay much, but is on some level meaningful to me, something that visibly helps people, besides selling something to them, and there's definitely lots of stuff I can put on a resume with references to back it up for something like that.

And the idea of getting down with Americorps is still very much in the back of my head.
It's all about finding something meaningful to do with my life, doing something that helps people.

Here's a link. There's nothing funny or hip about it, but go there anyway:
you don't have to give any money, just by clicking on the pink button below the ribbon with the numbers on it, it makes a hit & some money goes to fund free mammograms to fight breast cancer. The more you click, the more hits it makes, so get some other people to do it too.

Till next time, keep watching the skis!

2003-10-15T23:51:00.000-04:00

Editorial: First Impressions Aren't Always Right

...because I recently gave someone the benefit of a doubt after what was basically a really mutually bad first impression, and I think I may be rewarded with someone really awesome being in my life now. So I want to atone for this here, in 'blog form, after possibly dissing said person in a previous post.

Here's something I'm thinking of doing: making a completely new 'blog, a sort of "Dark Side of MangoMonkeyBoy", or at the very least "MangoMonkeyBoy When He's Drunk Or Really Unhappy & Wants To Vent". It would be open by invitation only, basically for people who really want to know what's up with me at any given time. It'd save those who just want to come to my 'blog & be entertained or otherwise be in touch with me from having to look at me bitching about stuff all the time, and for those who are able to commiserate with my problems or be able to help me with them, there'll be a space for that that's not all public and shit.

First of all, I found an old co-worker of mine through Otis Fodder's fabulous website of crazy, weird, mostly outsider recordings, get in there those of you with speakers on your computer & poke around in the archives a bit & have some mad fun listening to weird shit . It turns out, when I was a manager at a foofy "art" theatre out in the suburbs, the gal who runs this bitchin' site was the one working in the box office who kept bugging me needing more quarters for her till while I was trying to fix a broken projector or three. Small world, eh? Yes, she deserves better than AOL for a host. Don't we all?

Listening to my Rolling Stones mega-mix CD that I put together myself right now. Oh, it's not all Stones, but I put some other stuff in there that I felt either complimented their sound or, more often, was an inspiration to their sound---some Chuck Berry, some Howlin' Wolf, all the good shit. Current track: "Miss Amanda Jones"

Some people are Elvis people. Some are Beatles people. Gimme the Stones and the Who & the Kinks (me=closet Mod 'til the day I die), throw some old, pre-1969 blues & some motown in there and I'm a smilin' motherfucker.

Anyway---Bad First Impression Lady turns out to be Very Nice Second Impression Lady.
I'm really glad at this point that I wasn't an asshole to her or tried to write her off as something similar. We got together & played board games that she soundly whipped my ass at, but I had a great time all the while & can't wait to see her again. Being out of a job & without a car or much money, I worry that I might somehow be "not good enough" for her, but she's kept pretty good contact with me and seems to like me, so maybe there's hope for me yet.

2003-09-29T17:12:00.000-04:00

The Truth About The Fasting Monkey Boy

Alright, I'm gonna break it to you: after about six hours on Wednesday, countless trips to the bathroom, and being completely sick of drinking salt water every morning, I wound up saying "fuck this". I can appreciate the idea behind the fast, but there's no way that one program can work with each different person's metabolism, and honestly, there has to be a better way to get in shape. To such an end, I've decided to not eat as much as I used to, and to eat some nice fruits or grains or veggies instead of meat or some sort of shitty comfort food for every single meal. After just the day-and-a-half that I did on the fast, I could really notice the difference between what I felt like after eating, say, an apple, and after eating a bag of chips.

I would've had to have ended the whole thing last Friday anyhow, because it was my Mom's birthday, and we went out to this Italian restaurant she likes where the waiters stop waiting tables every once in a while & sing a song accompanied by the pianist set up in the middle of the dining room. Barbecues and people's birthday dinners are times when I put my weird dietary pecadilloes aside for a time & just enjoy some nice food. I still think our society's "stuff-yer-face" attitude towards food is fucked up, but at least I'm starting to figure out some direction in terms of not being part of that myself.

I tried.

I may try fasting again sometime, but I'm not going to use the Stanley Burroughs Bowel Blowout technique, thank you very much, if I do it again. Though the nutrient drink is sort of tasty. Maybe I'll just drink some of that every once in a while instead of pizza rolls or a TV dinner.

Sorry to keep y'all in suspenders.

2003-09-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

Better Living Through Grossness, or, "How To Find Out Who Your Real Friends Are"

It was my friend Natalie whom I hung out with in Canada from whom I got the idea to do this fast. I didn't see her much during the conference. Now I know why.

Basically, the secret nutrient magical power drink turns the entire digestive tract into the fuckin' Autobahn. I damn well better lose some sort of weight from this thing;any activity like preparing foods & eating them would entail me not being in the bathroom, and I'm glad I had the foresight to get fired before I undertook this whole adventure. No boss in his or her right mind---let alone the douchebag I was working for---would pay someone to not be at their desk as often as I wouldn't be at mine.

Argh--I'm listening to the master CD I made for a friend with....peculiar taste in music. The track: "Eating is Fun, Eating is Serious" by Chris "Corky" Burke & His Shitty, Cheesy Backup Band Of Studio Hacks. If you've read Seanbaby's article for the San Francisco Wave Online about albums put out by faded semi-celebrities, he features this very song in there. It's already a pretty bad song, but when denied solid food for 24 hours, it begins to take on an even more sinister tone. Damn you, Corky!!

This must be something like what it's like to be elderly---no solid foods, scheduling my day around trips to the bathroom, not really being able to be anywhere that's more than 50 feet away from one at any given time, I'm starting to notice a decline in energy, if such a thing is possible. It occurs to me that one could torture me with visions of tasty foods in the comment thing below. I feel a little bit weaker than I did yesterday, but oddly, I don't really have any craving right now.

2003-09-22T22:35:00.000-04:00

Fast Fast Fast Relief

Well, after going on and on about plans to better myself somehow, I've finally decided to go ahead and do something. Starting tomorrow morning, I am going on a 10-day fast, using Stanley Burroughs' Master Cleanse system. By this time tomorrow, there'll be nothing passing into my mouth but 12 8-oz servings of this lemonade-like stuff every day, along with salt water for breakfast & optional herbal tea at night. No more beer. No more solid foods. I could keep smoking but experience has taught me that boy do you feel like ass when you smoke on an empty stomach, and with a 10-day period of a perpetually empty stomach, it's probably a good idea to lay off at least for the duration.

The lemonade-like stuff consists of an 8oz. serving of water mixed with the juice from half a lemon, mixed with grade-B maple syrup (the watery kind, not Mrs. Butterworth's), mixed with cayenne pepper.

The idea behind a fast is to let your body get rid of all the nasty stuff you put in there that it doesn't know how to deal with & just builds up in there, without you putting any more in for a while, sort of a "RESET" button for the ol' pipes.

So I guess we'll see how pure my conviction is regarding the FREAKY STAND I've been taking about the unhealthy attitude towards food people have in this country, won't we?

I just tried a glass of the stuff, and nothing bad happened. However weak I get, I'll keep y'all posted on how this experiment goes.

Later,

2003-09-21T00:10:00.000-04:00

Hooray For Stuff!

Well here it is, Saturday night & most folks are off doing things. I could sit around & try to read, watch TV, keep feeling sorry for myself, but instead, I've decided that you, fellow readers, have been reading a lot of really shitty negative stuff from me lately, so this post which I'm writing now, I've decided, is gonna be all about FUN stuff.

I don't really have any format or layout in mind as to the form of this fun, but instead I plan to just throw out a list of free-flowing memes regarding things which amuse me or at the very least, don't suck. So without further adieu, I give you--THE THING I ALREADY REFERENCED IN THE PRECEDING SENTENCE!!

---Watched the U of M/Oregon game today. We lost, but not horribly. Michigan was 3-0. Oregon was 3-0. Both teams seemed pretty well matched in offense and defense, and though it couldn't be seen via TV, it was really windy at the Ducks' stadium, and Michigan's QB seemed pretty obsessive about punting to the same guy over and over, and for some reason, despite it being really windy, he seemed really into doing the super-ass-long passes when he could've just passed the ball a few feet. There was one really unbelieveable turnover when the Ducks were bare inches away from the end of the field, where I think it was Rob Breaston who totally out of nowhere intercepted the ball & ran all the way the fuck down the field with it, scoring Michigan's one and only touchdown in the first half of the game.
Shortly after, the QB punted off another guy's head, which resulted in yet another turnover & the ball getting swiped.
It really looked like the Wolvoes were going to get totally punked until the last quarter, when they picked up several touchdowns, which made for a loss but not a spectacular one. Final score: 31-27, with a win for Oregon. I mostly watched that game, but I also periodically flipped over to NBC to check out the State/Notre Dame game. State won, but not by the insane margin of last week's game against the Boys in Blue (and Gold). So Notre Dame played our state's two best teams & got their asses handed to 'em both times. Ha!

--On the recommendation of my friend Pat, I picked up and started reading a second-hand copy of "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.
I like Gibson's books a lot, though they do tend to be kind of hard for me to get into at first, and I've never read anything by Sterling. This book is based on the premise that Charles Babbage actually sucessfully built this huge calculating machine in the 1850s, which effectively makes for an Industrial Age setting with computers in it, so the book is a tale of cyberpunkish hackery, but it takes place during the Victorian era. Sound convoluted? Well, maybe, but so far it seems pretty well-written.

--After about ten minutes of looking around on the 'net, I've at least found a screensaver based on a thing I said I liked in an old, old post of mine (does anyone know how to do html to make a link to a previous post here on BlogSpot?), that of Flying Pieces Of Fruit in Slow Motion, as seen in countless fruit juice and cereal commercials. It might label me as a consumer whore (and how!--"Rejected" reference)
but seriously, I could watch that shit all day. Now I can! Yaaaaaaay!

--As a Getting Fired present to myself, I went out and bought a copy of the Woody Allen movie "Bananas" on DVD. I've seen movies of his ("Zelig", "Sleeper", "Deconstructing Harry") that I thought were funnier, but "Bananas" definitely has its moments. It's basically Allen's tribute to good ol' fashioned, 1920s/1930s-flavored slapstick, and there are definitely scenes in that are absolutely hysterical. Even if you don't like Woody Allen, or think you don't, the sequence where Woody's testing out exercise equipment designed for busy executives is one of the funniest damn things ever.

--I'm giving some serious thought to the idea of volunteering for Americorps right now.
I need to have some sort of structure in my life that allows me to wash off the stench
of the evil, evil place I just left. I'm keeping in mind that I do intend to continue my committment
I've already made to my community-building project here, and I have every intention to honor it,
but I really feel the need to get involved in something positive in my life right now, something
that allows me to do some good for someone else as well as for myself.

--It's amazing to me how many new people in the blogging community are popping up all over the
place & leaving nice comments here, and I just wanted to say welcome welcome welcome to all of
youse and thank you for being awesome enough to leave comments! Those of you who are repeat
visitors and commentors who leave comments, you're thanked for continuing your coolness by keeping
putting up those comments. It's feedback & getting to hear from people I care about that keep me going
a lot of the time these days, honestly, so thank you for helping to keep me going!

--Over fifteen years after the movie Full Metal Jacket came out, I'm starting to see R. Lee Ermey everywhere.
He's on that "Mail Call" show, I've seen him in one or two commercials for completely different products,
and there's even a damn computer game, some sort of Real-Time Strategy military thang, natch, which
features him yelling at you & calling you a maggot. Move over, Gilbert Gottfried.

--After realizing I've been eating waaay too much meat lately, tonight I cooked up a tasty stew with some lentils, potatoes, and onions in it. Mixed in some curry & bay leaves, topped it with yogurt, and viola! a nice, veggie-friendly dinner with practically zero fat content. I laughed at a McDonald's commercial for a new salad they have that's covered with cheese and ground beef---foods I like but have been eating practically nothing but them lately, no es bueno---while I was eating the product of my endeavors. What i'm ideally trying to do is get on some sort of culinary regimen where I'm eating until I'm simply no longer hungry, instead of until I start to hear my stomach yelling at me to cut it out. A whole lot of our culture seems to revolve around the idea that the proper attitude towards food is to stuff your face with it until there's nothing left but a smoking crater.

--Though not having a job is pretty crappy, at least I get to sleep whenever I want to, pretty much.

--If I could have three wishes, they would be
a. For people all over the world to realize that we may not all dance to the same records all the time but
it is physically possible for us to at least all tolerate each other
b. For everybody not to necessarily all be rich, but for nobody to have to worry about where food, shelter,
medical care, or other basic human necessities are going to come from
c. A friend who I could hang out with not necessarily every day, but at least every other day or so, at least once a
week.

Life ain't so bad. I could be living out on the streets or be missing some body parts or getting beat up all the time.
Actually, I *am* missing a body part, but it's just a tooth, and one of the back ones at that. Here's a little homeworky project for subject matter for comments for this blog entry, which is, of course, completely optional & you're welcome, as always, to put anything you want in there as long as you put something:

Name something that I haven't listed in Wish B of my Three Wishes list that you think is a basic human necessity.

That's it for now.

Peace Out,

2003-09-18T17:44:00.000-04:00

Laugh When You Can And Cry When You Must

Well, this is keeping true to the pattern. Whenever I have some grief I want to write about, I wind up keeping it posted for about 24 hours, to let it sit & speak to my pain, and then delete it and put something positive up instead. It's never really my intention to subject anyone to viciousness or vitriol, I've just been in a bad way lately and sometimes there's nothing else to write about.

Annamatic ---I never meant to get snippy. I know you mean your best. I plan to just take it easy for a few days & relax, something I'd been denying myself utterly at....at The Place. There was the conference, but that was more a Voyage to Planet Happy than any sort of relaxation that's readily available around these parts, not to that same degree, anyway. I plan to spring into action but I have some wounds to lick first.

There's an upside to this---I may be without an income for a stretch of time, but I'll at least have lots of time TO WRITE EPIC LENGTHY RAMBLING BLOG ENTRIES

ha-ha, Gotcha!

What I'm really trying to say is, lots of free time for the UU community-building stuff I've been saying I wanted to do, only that pesky earning-my-daily-bread thing got in the way. I have no intention of being a freeloader or a bum, but I have to do something between now and when I have a job, so why not this?

2003-09-15T02:24:00.000-04:00

PS

Nanermatic, your new blog setup is da bizzomb. I'd tell you myself by adding a comment on there but your comment server CRASHES MY BROWSER if I try to type anything there, so I'm saying it here--cool layout. Seriously.

2003-09-15T01:36:00.000-04:00

You To Me, With A View To A Kill

So I'm commemorating the passing of Johnny Cash with Duran Duran lyrics?
No, this isn't going to be a Johnny Cash tribute. I do plan to listen to a bunch of his stuff over beers & have a good cry, but I'm not there yet.

Didn't do shit for 9/11 either. People who know me know how I felt that day, and pretty much anything I could do on here in terms of a 9/11 tribute has been done much better than I could do elsewhere.

No, I'm listening to a Beatles/Stereolab mix I whipped together & looking back over my weekend. The Big Thing that I mentioned planning to post about in someone or other's comment thingy (either Smivey's or Glovia's more than likely) turned out to be meeting a person-I-met-online-and-pondered-the-idea-of-going-out-with on Friday night.

It went pretty badly, honestly. There turned out to be some pretty major personality clash issues there--basically, I think I might..stress that word, *might*...be able to hang out with her but I can't see myself going out with her, she probably came away with pretty much the same take on things. BUT, I got to run into an old buddy of mine from Specs Howard while I was there & got his cell #. Turns out, his was the band that my friend Carmen/Natalie & I tried to go see when her band played here two weekends ago, but we got there after they finished.

Anyway, to those of you hip to the UU thing who were at ConCentric (basically, Annamatic) who remember Lisa Bower from there, she treated me to the U of M/Notre Dame match on Saturday. Her husband couldn't go, and she had a ticket going spare.
I was supposed to go to the SPAG show that night, but was I going to miss one of the hugest hundred-year-rivalry games in the history of college football in attendance of a friend I don't get to see nearly enough of to spend another drunk-ass night out with the boyos (whom I love dearly, but still)? Not bloody likely.

There was a record set for the Biggest Attendance Ever at any NCAA event. It's pretty simple: U of M has a wicked huge stadium, true enough, but the secret is in the seating. They have numbered markers on the benches to show you how much space you have for your ass to take up, and me & Lisa (who's actually really skinny) worked out that unless you're anorexic, you're not gonna fit. Most of the people in the crowd knew this beforehand, so it was a bunch of relatively thin people, punctuated by the occasional beer gut (yo!) that made up that Biggest Attendance Ever.

I'm not the world's biggest football fan, but holy God was that a fun game to watch. Notre Dame didn't get beat per se, so much as they got denied to make a single play.
They might as well have put stuffed animals or mannequins out on the field for all the good it did them, every goddamn time they had the ball it got took away from them.
The whole first half was Michigan driving their asses down the field mercilessly.
Everything about a U of M game is HUGE ('cept for the place to park your butt), so when 20 or so cheerleaders came out between the first quarter & made pyramids holding up teeny placards with letters on them that spelled out "M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N", it seemed sort of anticlimactic. Notre Dame's marching band came out & did a bunch of weird, Lovecraftian geometrical formations accompanied by what sounded like some sort of modern Latino Livin La Vida Loca type of music, while I scooted outside for a smoke and watched the medics cart off heat stroke casualties. There was a poor woman whom they were moving from the walkway leading out of the stadium into a gurney who was throwing up all over the place, while people sat on the lawn eating pizza less than five feet away from her, which was pretty surreal.

In the second quarter, the sun was bearing down with no less mercy than in the first, and both teams were visibly tired, which made for the Wolverines actually having to put effort into each touchdown. Final score: 38 to zero.

I feel weird writing about sports on here, but I watched some sports over the weekend with a newfound friend of mine, which I feel negates the shit out of the bad semi-dating experience I had on Friday. I'm right the fuck back to Square One in terms of finding someone in this mean-ass world to love me, but my friend Lisa took me to one of the best football games I've ever seen, kept me sober & kept my mind off the situation at hand, so it's OK.

Currently playing: a mix CD featuring The Rutles.

Long past time for bed. I'll write more later as it comes to me.

2003-09-08T00:48:00.000-04:00

You Must Ask The Heart
Life is Very Long, When You're Lonely

Well, it's been a while since my last entry, hasn't it? Long enough that I feel justified in giving this entry two titles, and going for a Yin-Yang balance of Jonathan Richman and Smiths lyrics for the purposes of perplexing duality and/or fun.

Like a lot of the things I write about, this entry is gonna mostly be about.....me. My life, what I'm trying to do with it, and where I want it to go.

First of all, it looks like I might have a new online friend, thanks to Friendster , which I had my doubts about at first--it just looked like a bunch of people from the West Coast with fucked-up names like Esme' and Njorl who all seemed to know each other & the site must've been like a frickin' ghost town while Burning Man was going on, but when you get a bunch of Unitarian young adults on there, watch out! So hooray and a hearty 3-Mango Salute to my maybe new friend. Not that I have one single problem with my friends around here, they're the greatest people ever and I would never want them to think even for a second that I would take them for granted, it's just pretty miserable that I don't get to see the friends I have nearly enough. I've been going through some pretty heavy emotional shit (pssh...perhaps you noticed...huh?) over the last year, and I don't want to leech off anyone but support is something I really need in my life right now, so if I can't have a few friends that I get to at least talk to once a day, I figure maybe if I acumulate lots and lots of friends, there'll be enough that I can find one when I need one.
Somthin' like that. This is the one of the only pieces of negativity I'll bring up in this post at all, I promise, but one of the truly shitty shitty shitty things about this thing we call "adulthood" is the loneliness.
According to every mainstream media thing I've observed, as a Typical Middle Of The Road Adult, your only relationships are supposed to consist of:

--A few aquaintances who you get drunk or play tennis or drink coffee with
--A spouse whom you're allowed to love in an I-want-to-fuck-you kind of way, who is to be your primary sharer of affection
--Some kids to raise up & be the secondary sharers of affection
--Some co-workers whose relationship to you will consist of something between grudging tolerance & aquaintanceship, generally
--If you're really lucky, a priest or other type of clergy person, to act as confessor & offer some sort of counsel to you when things are really fucked up
--Your parents

and that's about it, really. It's pretty goddamn depressing to me to think that even though those limits aren't necessarily real, they pretty much constitute the yoke you have to wear & the cross you have to bear if you want to be considered a Normal Adult. It can't be enough to say that the answer to why I need a shoulder to cry on or someone to hold my hand once in a while is because I'm somehow fucked up, flawed, an aberration, a reject, a burden. These are some of the more toxic elements of the society we live in, and I'll scream about it from the top of the tallest mountain if I can get people to hear me that way.

And *that's* about it for that. What am I going to do about this lousy emotional shit I'm carrying around with me? I've tried alcoholism...well, not really *tried* alcoholism, but fallen into it, for a long time, and I keep getting rudely reminded that that ain't it, Hoss. I'm at a point again where I'm sick of putting that shit into my body in order to not have to think about my problems, but there's a big-ass void in its place, so what do I fill it with? How do I go about picking my self-esteem back up off the ground, dusting it off, cleaning all the scuff-marks off of it, and making it nice & shiny & pretty again like it was when I was a happy little kid?

I think the answer is this: I need to find & follow some sort of spiritual path. Being a Unitarian is basically like having a "Build Your Own Religion" kit, ditto being what the Annamatic refers to as a "31-Flavors Pagan". Both are pretty much carte blanche to make up any gods you want to & worship them as you please, or not worship anything not directly corporeal & be political all the time (that applies to Unitarianism, not Paganism, natch), hence the joke about the burning church where the Catholic priest runs in & rescues the baptismal, the Protestant runs in & rescues the crufifix & the Bible, and the Unitarian minister runs in & rescues the coffee machine.
Paganism tends to run pretty thin on authority figures within the group, so I can't picture a priest for us but we'd probably just make a circle around the fire & sing.

Paganism suits me fine as a belief system, in terms of just quietly and reflectively communing with natural stuff & sometimes banging a drum & communing very noisily with natural stuff, as well as recognizing that you have spiritual power within yourself instead of it being granted to you by some invisible man in the sky or even worse, by some hokey Reverend Cornholio motherfuck who claims to represent that same invisible man in the sky---to be able to grant you that power implies that they could yank it away from you any time they pleased, so it feels a lot like some veiled threat to me.
This is pretty much why I'd considered myself an atheist for many years. Not just an atheist, but a total skeptic on just about anything spiritual, but the more I look at myself, the more I see a need for some sort of spiritual outlet in my life.

What I'm considering doing, is getting into some Tibetan stuff. I hear some of you groaning right about now. I mean this in the nicest way possible: screw ya. I'm doing it anyway. My co-workers already probably think I'm some sort of Devil-worshipping faggot commie tree-hugger as it is---I mean, I listen to Iggy Pop, for crying out loud, surely I can't be normal! But you know what, and again, nicest way possible: screw 'em.

This is me, god dammit.

This is for me.

Underneath all this self-deprecation that you've been subjected to in a lot of these entries, I love me, and it's time to break the fuck away from this poisonous miasma of a culture and learn to heal myself & my loved ones before it's too late and I'm a fifty-year-old baldheaded drunken slob with a spare tire, a bum ticker, & a fucked-up liver.

To this end, I've decided that the next step is to find someone who teaches it, and take up some Reiki. Now I've heard this & I've heard that about this system, but from what I've experienced of it, it's amazing stuff, and there's definitely a big part of me that says that my path in this life is meant to be that of a healer. Call me a new-age hippie tree-hugger all you want to, it doesn't affect me & it's not like it's gonna make me go, "Oh--sorry. Lemme just go back to drinking beer on the couch with you. When's rasslin' come on?", because I'm just about through with that bullshit. Oh, realistically, it's probably not completely out of my system yet, but I've seen the effect that booze & the lame dreams of the mainstream have on me, and I've seen the effect that developing myself spiritually has on me, and I think it's pretty cut & dry.

This is another "you reading this" thing I'm throwing out here, but I think it's something really, really important this time, and I ask you, you friends of mine who are reading this to please, please listen when I ask this of you:

Please hold me to these words I'm writing here in this. I don't mean to come off as clingy, but I really need you right now.
If it seems like I'm straying from the things I'm talking about, please do what you can to remind me. If you see me getting high, knock me down (gently, now). You'll thank me when you get to be around the happier, healthier, better-adjusted me, and you know I'll thank you.

OK?

Thanks for reading,

2003-08-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

sound off like you got a pair! (of gonads, breasts, headphones, hands, feet, eyes, kidneys, lungs, shoes, socks, or anything else that comes in twos)

Yes, YOU. You reading this right now. Your free moochy reading of my blog entries ends today.
If you're reading my 'blog, leave a comment.

Do it.
Do it now.

I'm not writing another thing until you do so. I'm honestly sick of writing in here for an audience of one really good friend and a bunch of people who either can't or won't take a few seconds to just say "hi" in the comment thingy I did the work to set up. I don't mean to be whiney, I'm just tired of writing all this for people who either can't or don't bother to read it. If you're someone who hasn't looked here in a while and are just seeing this now, this isn't aimed at you, because honestly, how could it be your fault? I'm just fed up with writing for damn near no one.

Save this blog and please put something in the comment thing, if you want me to keep writing. Otherwise, I'll move on to something else.

2003-08-15T23:30:00.000-04:00

An New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular

Left Channel: Now

Guess y'all heard about the blackout, huh?

Yesterday was my second day of work after returning from Kaneda (how they managed to name a whole country after a character from an anime' movie is anyone's guess, but it's a lovely country and this isn't oppression, it's a pun, dammit). I've been coming down with some sort of nasty coldish, flewish, sniffly thing, and wasn't into sitting at some desk for 8+ hours, but one of my coworkers, who has connections (a relative with season passes to every show at one of the outdoor ampitheatres out in the boonies), plopped an envelope down in my lap with four tickets, about 12 rows from and directly in front of the stage & VIP/executive parking passes, for the sold-out Iggy Pop (w/the original Stooges, and opened for by Sonic Youth) concert scheduled last night. I still felt pretty Ickypop myself but figured if I took some vitamins or something beforehand I could be full of potential vim and possible vigor for what could be the concert of a lifetime, and even if I'd just lost a leg, I'd have to whack myself over the head for about three hours for missing such a thing.

I started calling friends, and it turns out that all the people around here I know who would be into such a thing were already going too, so we were making plans to meet there or even go together. Then, around quarter after four, the power started going in and out, and I figured at first that maybe it was a bad fuse or something, but it in fact turned out that the entire strip mall was out of power, and people were coming out of all the different business and standing around on the sidewalk. All the traffic lights were out, and to top it all off, this good-sized funnel cloud of brown dust was moving around in the parking lot. It didn't have anything to do with the blackout (did it?) but it was still kind of ominous, though cool to look at.

After about a half hour with no electricity, my boss went out to his car to listen to the radio & see just what the deal was, and we got the full news about a big chunk of the Eastern Seaboard being without power.
Several cars were parked with their car doors open & news broadcasts coming out of their respective radioes, with people standing around, listening in near-silence. Freaky.

All sorts of weird thoughts were going through my mind at that point. There was the fleeting notion of terrorists, of course, and then, even more fleeting, the idea put forth by Whitley Strieber at his website that said words to the effect that some sort of mass-scale human/ET contact was imminent. Far-fetched, maybe, but welcome to some of the wackier corners of my mind.

It was pretty obvious that there wasn't gonna be any Iggy Pop show, so I went with my original, pre-being-given-kickass-tickets plan of going home & being sick with a jug of water, a candle, and the last 200 pages of Harry Potter.

It was still light out when I got home, but there was also no water pressure when I turned on any of the faucets. Luckily, I'd filled a gallon jug with watery goodness before setting out for work, and had barely tapped it all day.
Lightless, waterless conditions around the house were pretty similar to conditions pertaining to where I'd just spent ten days, only much more humid & no Alan, Ann, Stephen, Mary, or Hafidha to talk to in the dark. Most of the people in the neighborhood came out of their houses and were still heard talking and laughing out in the street when I went to bed, so that felt a lot like a conference, too. When I went downstairs to find something to eat later, I went outside, looked up at the sky, and thought what a rare experience it is to get to see so many stars in the sky here in the city.

The Iggy Pop show has been moved to the 25th, a week from Monday. To anyone in the Metro Detroit area or anyone potentially able to come here for such a thing, I have three other tickets, they're for really good seats, and they're all within at least 3 seats of ME, so comment if you're interested, 'cuz they're season tickets & I don't know if I can get money back for them.

Right Channel: Then: The Big Con(s)

Or, "Putting Stuff Into Words When I've Never Been Able To Before"

Please bear with me here.

For those reading this not in the know, I don't really wear my spirituality or my political leanings on my sleeve in day-to-day life. I am a Unitarian Universalist, and part of a continental Young Adult movement/community which is an offshoot of this faith. Once a year, we have two huge, contintent-wide conferences
in one region of the continent or another. The first is ConCentric , which is a three-day-long, largely business-oriented meeting, which I was a part of in a big way, having been recently selected as Young Adult representative for my district. Typically, as said before, this conference is very nuts-and-bolts, but this year's seemed considerably more intense to me than those past--never before have I seen a community come together so closely in such short time in such a setting. I made some amazing new friends, and made closer ties to friends I'd known from conferences past, and it feels like I learned more about human interaction & dynamics from just one night there than I've learned in my whole life. To anyone who was there who's reading this, thank you for being there and being part of that whole thing. One of the questions that arose during one of the plenaries (part of the process where resolutions to our constitution are added or not added), the question seemed to arise as to whether CUUYAN is a movement, or a community (my fellow UUs are very much hung up on process and semantics), and the answer I wanted to give was that it is both--it's a community of people involved in a movement for social change. Compared to most congregations, which are largely defined as liberal, the attitude of the conference-going young adult is better defined as radical. In addition to the plenaries, there were also anti-racism & anti-oppression caucuses, and as a pretty much straight white male, I sort of felt the ogre at a lot of these, simply based on the fact of me being...well, a pretty much straight white male, and in the eyes of many, surely part of the problem before I even open my mouth.
I learned a lot, while I was there. While I'd honestly rather know my friends, be they White, Black, Asian, Queer, Straight, or Transgender as Derek, Natalie, Dawn, Liz, Kevin, etc., I do see the need to make it completely sure on no uncertain terms within the community that every single person is welcome & encouraged to be part.

Immediately following this---actually, following a trip into town to a Greek restaurant where the barkeep didn't know how to make a martini & the vermouth had bugs in it---was Opus, which was, for the most part, lighter and less intense, but not entirely--having to say goodbye to a lot of the people from the first con and say hello to so many people from the new one was a hell of a thing. A lot of the energy I'd brought with me was used up by this time, but I still had a blast--It seemed like I sat around the fire with people playing my bongoes & smoking for days. And naked swimming? There was naked swimming, though campground rules prohibiting doing this at night.

Why do I go to these things? Three words: community, community, community. I'd do anything I could to make life out here just one bit like life in there. This is a community where spiritual exploration is not only welcome but encouraged, and where the hug generally replaces the handshake. Maybe not everybody's cup of tea, but very nice if you let yourself be open to it. There's emotional support coming from every direction, and a true feeling of togetherness with all sorts of different people. At no other point in my life could I say that there's a group of 160+ people who would each & all be welcome at my table at any time. How would I not go?

To those of you reading this who weren't there, this is the best I can do to explain it to you for now.

To all of you, thank you for reading all this.

Peace.

2003-07-31T18:02:00.000-04:00

Take off, eh?

That's my plan, anyway. In about 18hrs, I'm hopping on a Greyhound for fabulous rural Ontario. My clothes are just about done washing & ready for packing, all my toiletry crap (huh-huh huh-huh) actually all fits into the front pouch of my backpack, including niceties like cologne, which leaves the main compartment free & I can even fit my goddamned Harry Potter book in there for on-bus (it's only for 6 hours) reading. I'd be one happy fool if I can have that book all read & not be carrying it around like a dork all week. Birth certificate to get me across the border? Check. Info packet? Check. Ticket? Check. Even bought a carton of Parliaments, cuz I guess the bus doesn't stop at the Duty-Free. Blah blah blah, fa fa fa....anyway, any jabs you post in comments won't be read for over a week, so do your worst.
I dares ya.

2003-07-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

HUZZAH!!

I CRACKED THE GODDAMN FIDLER ACCOUNT!!

Work today was pretty rough, but with a bit of deft monetary & diplomatic manipulation, I think I've come up with a solution to the bureaucratic quagmire that is the byzantine complication of the many online orders of "Bob" Fidler. He owed us $$$ for four items, has accidentally ordered some crap online that he didn't know about, and some other items were listed that he'd already either gotten or were still in the ether of UPS transit. Apparently, we'd accidentally sent him two belt sanders, and he'd only ordered one.
What I did, after figuring out whatever he had still not recieved out of all this mess (which I actually had to put together a chart to figure out), was told him that I'd take his outstanding balance, apply it to the four items out of the huge list he hadn't gotten yet, and he could just keep the goddamn second sander instead of mailing it back to us, and the whole thing would be settled.

That's about my only accomplishment at work today. There's still a little stack of printed-out payments-to-turn-into-invoices and whiney "I-didn't-recieve-my--yet" emails from today that will wait for me when I sit at my desk tomorrow, but goddammit, I unFidlered the Fidler account, and that's like D-Day to the Ardennes that is the rest of the crap on my desk.

I've put together a new mix CD that I plan to give to somebody at this here conference coming up on Friday. It's music of the 80s, as I remember them. It features: Kraftwerk, the Meatmen (doing a Smiths cover!), Musical Youth, the Pixies, Motorhead, XTC, REM, the Jam, Black Flag, the Wedding Present, the Violent Femmes, Run DMC, and a certain Oingo Boingo song that makes it almost perfectly clear whom I should give it to, so maybe I will make multiple copies.

To the person who would like a certain Boingo song on a CD, I don't know how much of your stuff I can bring with me on the Greyhound to Toronto, but I'll try to bring along a few things.

2003-07-27T15:29:00.000-04:00

Highlights From The Party Last Night

--Crazy dog running arond the yard all excited about so many guests, culminating with a rare all-four-feet dip in the
kiddy pool Tom bought for him

--Me trying to figure out for the umpteenth time how to use the tap on a keg

--Jamming to old-skool punk, rockabilly, and garage rock (for real played out of a garage!), courtesy of world-class DJ Spag

--Getting to meet some of Tom's old friends...one of them was a relatively quiet woman who was
nearly a dead ringer for Julia Sweeney, another was a really cool guy with a ponytail who helped me keep the
funny rolling in the conversation, still another was this really nice woman who I ranted with about political stuff,
and her brother who was also pretty quiet but a cool guy nonetheless

--Occasional rain

--the video premiere of the Spag show from Friday week before, which also kicked much ass. I woulda done a post just about that but if you weren't there, there ain't no way to do it justice.

--Getting to talk theology for a while with Bill

--Shouting the Sex Pistols' version of "Friggin in the Riggin'" with the DJ and the boyos

--A drunken attempt by Your Humble Narrator to stand on my head, which resulted in me losing my lighter and Tom telling me to "wear a fuckin' belt, for Chrissakes"

All in all, a pretty cool party: inside the house, you had people watching stuff on the Sci-Fi channel and later, the Spag show video, out on the lawn you had the somewhat more gregarious types just chillin' and talking, and over by the garage where the beer & music flowed made for the wilder part of the whole bash, so it just kind of wound up being this thing where there was something for everybody.

While hanging out with this crowd, something ocurred to me: in my immediate circle, all my friends are guys. I've been whingeing for some time now about how I don't have a girlfriend & what a bummer it is, but I think a major part of it is that again, in that same immediate circle, I have no friends who are girls. Now, I could throw in the Chris Rock bit about how "guys don't have female friends, they just have women they haven't fucked yet", but I don't think it's true in my case--in my life, I've had and still have many women friends where there's no physical attraction at all, just good clean friendship. Maybe what I miss as much as--if not more than--having a girlfriend is having some friends who are women.

Sure, I'd be happy to have a sweetheart, but I think I'd also be happy just to have some non-guys around every once in a while to hang out with and talk to too. Maybe I'm a step closer to figuring some stuff out about myself here.

2003-07-25T19:15:00.000-04:00

I've also come up with what's either a really kick-ass or really suck-ass idea for a piece of fan fiction/satire based on a TV show/literary work. Now, between alcohol, cigarettes, computer games, work, and masturbation, there hasn't really been a need in my life for such things as fan fiction, in fact it hasn't even ocurred to me up to this point to do something like that, but this idea I have seems like something I could actually shop around if I were to put it together just the right way.

2003-07-25T19:01:00.000-04:00

The Bob Fidler Honorarium Post

So I'm a bookkeeper for a little Mom-N-Pop company now.
I take orders, and turn them into invoices. As many as 60 per hour, maybe even more when it's really busy. Quite a bit--well over 95%-- of the business of this place is in selling stuff through auction sites such as eBay, and it's my job to process each person's Payments and make sure the Shipping Dep't (the guy at the desk across from me) gets the Invoice and sends the Thing out.

Sometimes, it gets hairy. A lot of the time, I get emails from people who had the winning bid on the Thing, hasn't recieved it after a long time, and wants to know where It is. Sometimes I'm able to get their info to them right away, sometimes it takes a bit of detective work & skullduggery. Some people only order stuff from us once or twice, while others seem to be made of disposable income and order assloads of stuff on a daily basis. We acumulate customers with regularity, but there are also those who enjoy winning auctioned items from our company, and could definitely fit the bill of being regular customers. Some of them are of the variety of crazy old men who see an item going for three dollars, don't bother to read the fine print about the (admittedly unfair) shipping charges, and don't bother looking at their balance until they've got 3-400 dollars racked up.

This guy, though...this fuggin guy...this walking enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a metaphor that is Bob Fidler...I changed his first name in the interests of not giving him away... This is a guy who has about 20 Things in various stages of winnage, payage, and shippage. He's paid for three of the things, accidentally bid on and gotten the winning bid on maybe four or five, and, for the last week or so, has been besieging me with emails wanting to know why an additional three or four of them haven't arrived at his house yet.
I sent him a reply as soon as I could basically telling him he had a shitload of things on order, which ones did he send us a payment for, and what he planned to do about the $$$ he owed us.
He sent back an email explaining his various orders that was so Byzantine in its complexity that I actually had to draw up a damn chart off in the margins in an attempt to figure out what the hell he was trying to tell me.

So, From This Day Forth, I coin a new noun to the annals the English language: Anything like this that's a really big, complicated mess of paperwork that involves a bunch of mixed messages and must be dealt with, will be known as a "fidler", especially in a bureaucratic context, e.g., a "fidler file".

(the term "fidler" in the context described above is copyrighted 2003 by Jonathan Schultz. All rights to the use of the word in published or recorded media for commercial purposes are reserved to the coiner, but the word may be used freely in non-commercial conversation with no charge to the user)

2003-07-22T22:01:00.000-04:00

There Are Many Sides To The Mind Of Jon And Tonight They're All Somewhere In The British Isles (be afraid. be very afraid.)

Well, i've finally done it. i've gottun off me arse and changed comment servers. this one seems ter weerk scutty than de owd one: it remembers yew if yew come back & post again, so yew dun 'uv ter be bothered wi' typ'n in yer email and l (if applicable) every single time. Gi' it a go.

As reward fe try'n out de nicked comment server, i'll let yew in ed de secret behind why this entry is inna strange, un-american accent, and 'ow it got dat way.

Ay swear ter anyone oo listens, de words ay go'n in wi' cap lettis in all de rite places, but they're be'n changed around by unknown forces. Unknown ter yew, dat is.

all ay tinnie say at this point is, WOOHOO!! My new comment thingy works!

Noh that we've heaaard enough mwah mwah sweetie the scottish paaart of jon's brain, maybe it's time to giz things ovah to someone ah little bit more civilised, fancy myself, the aspect of his refined sensibility. john is knackered mwah mwah sweetie taking ah constitutional up to the ah pint of finest foaming ale store and beck, but is noh sitting comfortably, listening to "velvet goldmine" by david bowie ohn one of his many mix cds. Goodness me! And a ripping good WOOHOO!! for my new comment thingummy finally being up to scratch.

That's enough from ya, ya uncle josh bastard. nickle and dime ter get Hammer and Tack ter basics wif the bloomin' old, Dolly side of jon. Kathy Burke was taxin' today, but grateful I was ter be there nonetheless. I was truly 'appy ter get aahhht of there today. I was especially 'appy ter finally get the chance ter sit daahhhn and successfully re-wire the comments server on me lovely jubly old blog. WOOHOO!!

Oi'm pure, pure excited aboyt me trip ter toronto comin' up in jist over a week. other than dat, thar's not much 'eadin' on 'ere at de moment. as for de promised link, Ah've given it ter yer already, at laest tree times. 'ere's a 'int: it's not an american site. de resourceful among yer shud be able ter fend it. cheers!

2003-07-17T23:22:00.000-04:00

Would I Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me?

Today, I had a very disturbing revelation.
To backtrack, I've been working at a new job over the last 2 and 3/5ths working weeks, essentially since the First of the month, and yesterday marked my first pay check from said new job. I was happy to finally have a bit o' loot in my wallet, and I celebrated by buying a sixpack of tasty Sierra Nevada Wheat Beer. Now, besides the last drunken post that I did, which I took empties back to the store to come up with the dough for, and an epic binge out with my friend Tom, just prior to starting the weeks of work, I've been clean as a whistle. I spent a good portion of that clean time in a pretty fucked mood, and when I tried to sleep at night, there'd be all sorts of awful stuff on my mind and I'd get really nervous and had to resort to either bumming Xanaxes off my Mom or dipping in to my little stash of over the counter sleeping pills. True enough, the nervousness could be attributed to many things, like how well I'm doing at a new job that's kind of new and sometimes overwhelming to me, or whether or not I'm going to be able to go to the big Unitarian conference in Toronto next month, or my cat getting out and disappearing for days on end, or a myriad of other horrors, real or imagined.

As I said, last night, to celebrate not being dog-dick broke, I went out and bought a six-pack of nice, tasty wheat beer, and I slept like a baby after drinking it. Now, I can pretty much throw down a six-pack and experience no more than a decent buzz, and after downing these six amber friends, I slept like a baby. The nervousness wasn't there at all.

Now, this may coincide with a few other things, too: while my boss doesn't kiss my ass, he seems cool with me. Today, I had to deal with a bitchy asshole customer over the phone, and he stuck up for me, so something must be going right.

I know I'm very likely going to get to go to the conference. Not only do I have enough money to pay for registration, but after asking around to find out who was going to represent this district at the big continental business meeting, it turns out......

....to be me.

The original representative was to be a woman from Indiana, but as it happens, she's not going, and nobody has asked to take her place. All I did was ask a few people who our rep was, and nobody could come up with an answer, so they told me I am. Wow. I talked on the phone to the chairperson for the entire district, and she said that the district was to fund my transportation there and back. WOOHOO! It's reimbursement instead of money up front, but it's been a long time since I've felt important enough to warrant being funded to do something by a public institution. This *does* mean that I'm going to have to buckle down and.....uhhh...PARTICIPATE in all the political business meetings, which can be lengthy and, honestly, pretty damn boring sometimes, but if they're going to spend money and time on me, I mean to make good for them, and besides, I've also been recruited to be on this four-person committee to seek out and network with young adult Unitarians in this district. It'll mean travel and adventure, as well as maybe making more young adult activity happen up here in Michigan. There is a group at the Birmingham church in Bloomfield Hills, but why not anything happening here in Detroit? The Birmingham group is very nice and it's obvious that a lot of hard work went into it, but what the hell? Why isn't the Motor City on the map? That's part of why I'm doing all this:
to PUT Detroit on the motherfucking Wall of Fame. Now! NOOOOOOOW! (Paraphrased from Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing")

But I digress. Maybe being able to sleep more soundly last night was because it appears that some of my problems have been worked out and solved. But the more sinister idea, the one that came to me today, is that maybe that nervousness that was keeping me from sleeping nights and making me into such a self-loathing asshole the rest of the time?

Maybe I've been going through alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

I know it's pretty clear that I'm an alcoholic, but has it gotten to the point where there's physical suffering when I go without, as well as the psychological craving?

I like to get a buzz on every now and then, and I like the taste of good beer a lot, but do I have the drink or does the drink have me?

The idea of being physically addicted to anything, especially something that does damage to my body, scares the shit out of me, but what do I do when it's the only thing I can think of to get to sleep every night? I won't need it at the conference, but I'll be in a nice, nurturing community surrounded by lots of really cool people the whole time there, so I won't need it. To those reading this whom I drink with: if there were no drinking, you'd still be cool. That's not the point.

I've tried meditation and even Yoga, and it helps a bit. It makes me feel peaceful enough to get in bed and lie down and be in a state of mind where I can get into a nice book until I start to nod off.

I'm currently re-reading
A Confederacy of Dunces by the late John Kennedy Toole, a truly amazing and funny book that I urge you, *implore* you to read. I'm not that versed in Southern US lit, but this is one damn fine read, for real. If I could kick your ass for not reading this book and still be your friend yet also get you to read it, I would. It's just that good. And the story behind the book is just as amazing as the book itself, though very sad---basically, Toole wrote the manuscript sometime in the mid-1960s, and never showed it to anyone. Not much is known about his life, but it must not have been a very happy one, because he committed suicide in 1969, with two complete novel-sized manuscripts under his belt that nobody besides he had ever read. Some time in the 1970s, his mother was going through some of his old stuff, and happened across the manuscript for "Dunces", and curiously read it. Shortly thereafter, she started pestering the hell out of Literature professor and author Walker Percy to please, please look at the manuscript. Percy was annoyed at first, since many others had pushed their writings in his face, but he read it and was drawn in and amazed by it, and the book was finally published in 1980. Walker Percy's foreword now graces the first few pages.

Read it.

Seriously.

Now that you see how extensively tangential my mind is these days, you can probably see why I have trouble sleeping.
My usual thoughts go quite a bit like the strings of words you've hopefully made it though.

I can usually nod off a bit after reading a few pages from a book such as the awesome one I have provided a link for you to check out above (and bear in mind: this is my *second* reading of it that I'm all gushing over), but a combination of nervousness, an overactive mind that seems to fire up when I'm trying to go to sleep, and a sort of restlessness thing where I just can't find a way to get comfortable and relax, takes over, and I average 4-5 hours of sleep a night as a consequence.

Is an overactive mind a sign of sickness? Is this withdrawal, or some Clockwork Orangeical type of "getting better" that just takes some getting used to? I wish I knew. But then, I guess the sober lifestyle has to do with perplexing intangibilities such as "patience" and "accepting things" or some shit. I've been drinking for sixteen out of the thirty-one years I've been alive, and it's all pretty alien to me.

Still though, I'm trying to weigh all that with not wanting to be fuckin' dead by age 45 because I couldn't stop putting a damn stupid bottle or some burning leaves rolled up in paper to my mouth. I may not know my real potential, but I have this feeling that there's something amazing and profound inside of me that nobody up to now has ever really had a chance to see, and it would be terrible if I had to leave before I could figure out what it is and be able to show it to people.

I've recently put a mix CD together based on stuff downloaded from Otis Fodder's 365 Day Project. What it is, is this guy is putting up a different really strange recording of some kind every single day for an entire year. He's just about to hit the 200 mark, so that's 200 MP3's worth of truly weird shit. Some of it's found recordings, some of it is so-called "Outsider" artists' works, some wacky religious stuff, stuff some of those oddball old records you can get at the Salvation Army shop for a quarter, stuff like that. Right now on the CD, there's this disco interpretation of "Jack & The Beanstalk" that's being told in some unplaceable foreign (it sounds possibly Central or South American, and possibly from the Middle East or India) foreign accent, complete with a host of children shouting things like "hooray for story time!" in the same accent.

Also on the CD:

--a country song featuring the vocal stylings of Thurl Ravenscroft (whose awesome, bassy voice is most well known from the "You're a Monster, Mr. Grinch" song from the Grinch Xmas special)

--a truly rockin' instrumental tune by a bunch of high school kids who use school lunchroom dining utensils for percussion

--A.M. Radio's favorite old fart, Paul Harvey, giving a speech called "I Am Amway!"

--an excerpt from a Christian children's record with a pirate theme to it

--an excerpt from a series of records put out by the Catholic church that's aimed at mentally retarded folk (imaginatively entitled "Religion for Retarded"), which sounds something like Mr. Rogers' really boring and also really religious twin brother

--Liberace, circa early-mid 1960s, doing a "Twist" number

--A woman from one of those stupid old dirty party records they used to put out in the same era that Liberace recorded his "Twist" number, singing about how out of all the things she cooks, her boyfriend likes her cupcakes the best

--the Reverend and (self-proclaimed) King Of The World Phil Phillips proselityzing about "De Evil Dope!" (declared by me to be the Best Audio Thing Ever until something equally amazing comes along)

--A well-meaning, but really patronizing, glad-handing white guy giving a speech about how cool black people are, with "Glory Glory Hallelujah" playing in the background ("I'm white, and I'm glad, because I don't know if I could have gone through what the black people did....nothing for the women but washin' and ironin'.....")

--A really folky pop song called "The King of Fuh", which was ed obscene when it was put out, so it never got any airplay

Yes, all this and more.

Wow, I done wrote me a lot of words just there. Hope you made it through all this. If you did, reward yourself for being such a good reader by heading to the library or bookstore and finding a copy of "A Confederacy of Dunces" and reading it.

And BTW--Congratulations to Zee Annamatique for managing to crank out 200 pages worth of bloggage!! (She actually cut-n-pasted all the text from all her blog entries into a .txt or .doc file and figured out that she had 200 pages there). Stop by there and fill her comment thingy with praises. I'd do it, but my computer always fucks up when I try to post anything there, so from me to said Matique: I schmurve you, and see ya at Opus.

To the rest of you, thanks for reading all this, and I'll see you next time. Goodnight.

2003-07-13T02:20:00.000-04:00

there's a world
where i can go and
tell my secrets to

in my room
in my room

in this world
i lock out all my
worries and my fears

in my room
in my room

is the song on my CD player right now (it's "in my room" by the beach boys, duh)
i have to say, i'm a big fan of the vocal harmonies, and the brian-wilson-going-crazy period of the beach boys has that stuff in spades. plus, and i say this completely non-jokingly and not trying to gain hipness cred, i can totally relate to the whole brian wilson "pet sounds" frame of mind. "pet sounds" was in my head before i went into my last major relationship, and it's with me still. it's definitely not rock and roll at its most rockinest, but i find it speaks to lonely folk like me. the love song to my last relationship, "god only knows", comes from that album.

but that's not what i'm here to talk about. i'm not exactly sure what i'm here to type about, i just figured it's time to put up somthin-somethin up in this muhfucka. i've been drinking, for the first time in exactly a week, which is good for me. do you hear that, unattached conscience who answers to a power nobody can see? I SURVIVED A WEEK OF WORK WITHOUT ONE DROP OF ALCOHOL ANYWHERE IN THERE. mostly from being broke.

you knew what the hell you were in for before you even came to this 'blog.

i' m currently listening to a cd compilation made by ME, of the best of artists who start with a 'b' from my collection. the cd is called "a diskful of b's" (all it needs is some stickers or decals depicting bees to slap all over it and make it all cool and stuff) and it boasts the following tracks:

beastie boys "car thief"
belle & sebastian "sleep the clock around"
badly drawn boy "the farther i slide"
of course, the beach boys, twice, with "in my room" to start the cd, and "sail on sailor" to conclude
bob marley "talkin' blues"
the beatles "hey bulldog"
billy bragg & wilco "airline to heaven" (lyrics by woody guthrie, who was in the throes of parkinson's disease and could write lyrics but was in no shape to make songs out of them, so these folks did their best to turn them into songs)
bauhaus "st. vitus' dance"
brak (also space ghost and zorak) where zorak teaches brak about being evil
bill hicks talking about how creationists want their hallucinations to be taught as science
booker t and the mg's "green onions" (the sexiest piece of instrumental music EVAR. if you walk down the street with a pair of sunglasses on and this tune in your head and you still don't feel cool, go see many professionals and get yo' shit straightened out)
billy preston "will it go round in circles?"
boards of canada "olson" (you'd have to hear it to get it---it's this really neat electronic piece. the key to understanding modern electronic music is to allow the word 'neat' to apply to music.)
big star "down the street" (aka the theme song from "that 70s show", before cheap trick covered it)

who knew that the letter "b" could wield so much greatness? so much soulfulness and funniniess and sexiness. it's all there. you or you or YOU cowering there, afraid to put something in the "comments" thing that follows this post, i see ya, don't even try to front, could live their entire life happily and die an honorable, peaceful death by the letter 'b' and be in the good graces of their chosen diety the entire time. plus, the capital version of the letter looks like a booty. what's cooler than that? In fact, in honor of the letter "B", I'm going to stop this all-small letter crap, at least for a while, and type the rest of this 'blog entry, and maybe more if I feel particularly saucy, in a normal way of typing, with capital letters beginning each sentence, as well as proper names and such. We'll see.

This is like color coming into a black & white movie. This is the scene from "The Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy lands.

This is the beginning of the end of the beginning.

This is "Smack In The Middle" by Bettie Serveert pouring over the CD player. as part of the "Diskful of B's" mix.

This is me saying part of me might be cured now, and thank you for making it through all this.

This is me saying, if you have Showtime on cable, check out the TV show "Dead Like Me" 'cuz it's really cool. And it's also me saying if you're within driving distance, I'll bring my recorded episodes over for you to watch.

This is me saying, see you later. Thanks for reading this.

2003-07-01T18:26:00.000-04:00

but behind the chalet
my holiday's complete
and i feel like william tell...

the award of ultimate coolness goes to whomever can name the song from whence come the above lyrics. think 1980s.
i've decided that until further notice i'm gonna use song lyrics for entry titles. they might relate to something that's on my mind, and they might just be from songs going through my head. BLARG! It is a mystery.

speaking of which, i've had trouble of late connecting to seanbaby's website lately....hmmm...either he's finally updating the god damn thing (last update=some time in january, and it consisted of a rather lame reprint of something he did for some fanboy video game mag), or it's down for good. we'll see.

new job went well today. starting pay is sort of on the crappy side, but everybody there seems really nice and they seem to like me. i can get into a job where you start off with a stack of paperwork and the hours magically fly by as you process them. it's a living.

just picked up a lord and two reaver jetbikes for my ever-growing dark eldar horde. maybe if i feel like it, i'll put up a pic of them in all their dorky, hand-painted splendor. probably not until jetbike #3 is put together and painted, tho'. the lord is actually a lady, but i painted her the same bronze-n-blue as one of my squads, so she has an entourage of scary-looking guys n' gals with guns who all dress alike and follow her every whim.

i've gone with this sort of bumblebee-from-hell look for the jetbikes, if they had blood-red stripes instead of black.
at this point, it's all about the procurement of jetbike #3.

as for the mysterious miserable thing from last post, in a nutshell, i'm being stalked online, and it's really fucking with me.
the person is a lady whom i don't think realizes the difference between liking someone and....uh, more.
somewhere out there, there's a special lady for me who's not crazy. or at least crazy in a way i can deal with. there must be.

anyway, it's still really light out, and a very nice day. if it's still light out, go outside and do something cool.

'til next time,

PS--the new version of blogger just let me know there was something wrong with the seanbaby link i tried to put up, and let me go back and fix it. how cool is that?

2003-06-30T22:20:00.000-04:00

i think somebody better turn off the big light 'cuz i can't stand to see you this way

wow. there's a lot i want to say in this post. there's a lot i shouldn't say in this post. there's a lot on my mind that i need to sort out before just regurgitating it through my fingers onto the keys and onto the monitor. i have questions i want to ask and i need to phrase them in such a way that nobody gets hurt. i don't want to point fingers or make things shitty for anyone, but at the same time, it's something that has a lot to do with why i've been going into an intermittent funk and subjecting you, the reader, to the byproducts of said. it's not stuff for everybody to look at, but there's nobody around right now, so i'm just getting as much off my chest as possible without things getting too weird or uncomfortable. it has to do with the fact that this isn't some nameless depression i'm going through, really. the bulk of it is something i can put my finger directly on and say "there", yet at the same time, it's something that's not really anybody's fault. it hurts like hell, though.

so there ya go: a whole paragraph about how i have something to say that i can't. not this way.

moving along to things about which i *can* discuss, it appears i've stumbled onto another job. in redford. at a tool shop. as an accounts recieveable clerk. it looks to be a mom n' pop sort of operation, which works for me. it's regular 9-5 hours, monday-friday, which also works for me. it's relatively close to the house, blah blah works meow meow me.

i start tomorrow at 10AM. my boss there is not only a non-smoker, but in fact allergic to smoke, which means the slightest trace of a scent on me will be offensive, which means i'll either be quitting soon, carrying around some sort of miracle stank remover, or going eight waking hours without smoking.

it's true, i definitely ought to quit. the day i stop feeling so crappy about myself, it'll be the first thing on my to-do list.

still haven't changed comment servers yet, but i have all the info i need to do so. for now i'm just writing this to take my mind off of things.

my cat's been missing for nearly a week now. part of me says she's fine, but she used to at least come to the porch when i brought out the packet of treats, and for the last few nights, not a sign.

that's the shape of things right here right now. off to take a xanax and go to sleep well before i'm used to.

2003-06-26T11:22:00.000-04:00

them changes them changes them mangomonkeyadness changes: a look behind the scenes

don't know if you can see any visible difference in looking at this, but the "edit your blog" page has been re-vamped, and is now a whole lot sexier. no more typing in a cell the size of one of those little red plastic spreader thingies that come in the little packages with the crackers in one compartment and that evil, toxic cheeselike shit in the other.

mmmmmmmmmmm....evil toxic cheeselike shit.....

i've noticed that i get a slightly different setup depending on which browser i happen to be using when i do my magical elf-in-a-tree cookery that makes each and every 'blog entry possible. opera is the one with the crummy little cell. also, opera has no shockwave or flash hookup, so i can't play any of the little arcade games over at neopets,, so all i can really say is, fuck opera. i'm typing this on mozilla, which seems to fulfill all my blog-makin' and neopettin' needs.

sorry about all the crazy posts of nothing lately. see, i've been trying to incorporate links into the entries, but if you put the code of the link too close to the "edit" link when editing an entry, it takes you to the thing you were trying to set up a link for instead of letting you edit the entry, so i can't make those blank posts go away. hmm, maybe they fixed that?

anyway, as soon as i can figure out how to set it up, i'm changing servers for my comments. the one i'm using i guess sort of does its job, but it causes whichever browser to crash whenever i use it, and it's pissing me off, so off it goes. this means all your lovely little comments will be nuked, unfortunately, but look at it as a step towards better service for all of us.

baby drakul sez "hi evwybody!"
(image copyright neopets inc.)

2003-06-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

variations on a theme...

whilst searching the net for lifestyle aids & boons for the modern manic-depressive on the go who can't afford any god damn pills or anybody to give them to us, i wound up looking at this:

click here. click here now. mangomonkeyboy COMMANDS you...

then there's this, from a fellow 'blogger...

and finally,

a clever piece of culture jammage that until a few weeks ago used to stand somewhere in liverpool, uk

so there ya go. what sucks? everything sucks.

2003-06-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

so i took one of those stupid personality test thingies. here's the result:

Funny Asian Man

What's Your Personality Type?
brought to you by Quizilla

and with it comes the awesome and mighty power, using HTML, to manipulate the ether to the point where i can finally put up pictures up in this bizznitch.

MANGOMONKEYBOYHOLIO WILL RULE YOU ALL!!!

2003-06-23T18:09:00.000-04:00

here's that link i was trying to put down in the last post:

some of this is humor you'd have to be british to get but not all of it.

2003-06-15T06:47:00.000-04:00

fitter, happier, more productive

well, i picked up the new radiohead CD on friday, and yesterday i began the process of breaking it in. radiohead has always been one of those bands for me that when they put an album out, it's never something that's accessable to me right away. 'OK computer' sort of is, but the 3 albums (including this new one) that came out since have required me to actually sit down & give each one a good listen before i could really have anything to say about the music, so what i did was check out the new one maybe twice all the way through. after this, i did the big radiohead marathon where i listened to all four CDs, back to back, from "OK computer" through their latest offering, "hail to the thief", in order to place it into some kind of context. even if i wasn't already into radiohead when they came out with it, the title of the new one probably would have grabbed me, and this entry would be a hell of a lot shorter, or be just as long, and filled with "there's this band? and they're called radiohead? and they have an album out? etc."

the newest album seems to be a slight return to the form laid down in "OK computer". i actually have never heard "the bends" or "pablo honey" all the way through. "pablo honey" features that awful, whiny, "i wish i was special" song, which made radiohead a no-fly zone for me, and subsequently, "the bends" i just sort of missed. "OK computer" came to me in the form of a birthday gift from a friend with decent taste in music, so i gave it a listen & was hooked. it's the album that made "kid a" into something that was hyped & anticipated, but the album, in terms of popular or critical acclaim, seemed to have had sort of a "pet sounds" effect; basically, though a great album in its own right, it was such a departure from their usual sound that the group probably lost some fans over it.

"amnesiac" was referred to by many as "kid b", partly that only, like, six months passed between its release, and the album that came out before it. the reference is also due to the fact of it having a similar sound to "kid a". both albums could very well count as an exercise in the idea that inacessability doesn't necessarily equal integrity. not that either album is bad--i could name several tracks off both albums that i thoroughly enjoy--it's just that many artists do often seem to confuse these two things, and there are many people, including paid critics, who probably bitched about these two albums for this reason.
did these two albums recieve the same critical acclaim as "OK computer"? did either of them spawn any singles for airplay?

no. you know what though--

WHO GIVES A FUCK? if your cultural millieu is so weak that you need critics to tell you what's good and what isn't all the time, you're in trouble anyway.

that being said, could "hail to the thief" have, somewhere within its 14 tracks, a radio-friendly single? could be. as i said before, the album is definitely something of a return to form. though it appears that the electronic stuff that's been more and more of a constant element of their music since "kid a" appears to be here to stay, this time out they seem to have tweaked the formula quite a bit; the electronicness is still there, but it's been coupled with traditional guitars & percussion. it definitely has more of a 'pop' feel than the last two albums, but there's just enough residue from those two albums in there to make it interesting. as with the last two albums, it bears repeated listening, because it's one of those pieces of music where one is likely to catch new things in there each time one puts it on. while i enjoy the instant gratification of punk, older rock & roll, and similar types of music, i can also really get into music that reveals itself gradually, and "hail to the thief" definitely fits in there.

i just woke up from a pretty wacky dream about an hour ago. again with the conference theme. this time, i was at the conference in canada (which hasn't even happened yet), with a bunch of my con buddies. the campground had one kind of tallish hill where people liked to hang out, and beyond this hill, in fact, for some reason only visible while standing on the hill, was this GIGANTIC, HUMONGOUS sand dune, the size of a mountain. for those of you in michigan, or familiar with non-detroit parts of the state, think of sleeping bear or the lumberman's monument up north.

somehow, i knew that i'd been here a bit longer than some of the other people around me, who were just seeing this sand dune for the first time, and they were really amazed by it and asking me all these questions about it. i had some memories of it, so when people asked me what it was, i told them "it's a three-hour climb through sand." this managed to put them off, and we all sat down on the side of the hill. then, something weird started to happen...let's see if i can put this into words...

either the sun up in the sky or my view of everything started to very quickly shift, over and over again, from left to right, sort of like a camera panning over & over again, though i was just sitting there. i tried to tell people about it, but only one person could figure out what the hell i was talking about.

then, either a flashback sequence had started, or a few of us just arbitrarily decided to get on a city bus in what appeared to be suburban toronto. i think it must've been a flashback, because i ran into two people i knew on there, and we hadn't seen each other for a really long time up to that point. the other two people that i knew got off at a certain stop, and i tried to get off too, but couldn't stand up for some reason. i tried to tell the driver, getting to the point where i was shouting at him to stop, but he paid no attention to anything but driving the bus. eventually, i stood up, at which point the bus stopped i got off, and backtracked until i caught up with my two friends. that's about where the whole thing ended.

well there ya go: a CD review and me telling about a dream i had. hope you enjoyed, and just maybe learned a thing or two.

ope--almost forgot. here's a pretty cool website for you to check out. it's the home of these three chicks who are into RPGs. they do funny, mean reviews of websites and gaming stuff. i think they live in lawrence, i saw many kansian references to things like dillon's supermarket while browsing around in there. check it out.

until next time,

2003-06-10T10:53:00.000-04:00

a drunken addendumb

this is easily the coolest variation of "404 YOU'RE A DUMBASS WHO DOESN'T KNOW YOUR WAY AROUND THE NET" i've ever come across.
enjoy.

2003-06-10T01:04:00.000-04:00

her mystery not of marshall stacks & drum machines: a semi-review of the jonathan richman concert, done in between gluing together dark eldar minis & drinking beers

well first of all, tom picked me up & we went to the new southfield library, to attend the grand opening/grand finished-building-it/grand it-exists/whatever celebration, invited by tim, who works there & was also going to see jonathan. all i can say is, if you're reading this in the detroit area, CHECK IT OUT when it opens--it's easily the coolest library i've ever been allowed in. how cool is it? i was walking around with a gaping mouth, saying 'this is the library of the future' a bunch of times in an awed voice. the kids' section reminds me a lot of science museums i've been to.

then, there was the jonathan show. tom's girlfriend brooke showed up to join us. the night before the show, i played one of my jonathan cds for my dad & he was knocked out & decided to go too, so my folks were there. the opening guy was.....well, an opening guy for the act everybody in the room except for maybe the guy's friends or family or something paid to see. he was IN THE WAY of the jonathan experience. chances are, he knew the gravity of this. his songs were sort of lame, 2-3 chord affairs, with lyrics that were kind of imaginative and kind of not. to rip on the guy would almost be to make sport of a really easy target, honestly, but me & tim couldn't help singing along--using lyrics from other songs.

after about a half hour, his set was over, and we decided to go from our seats down to the open floor in front of the stage. there was a woman seated behind me who bitched about me being too tall & blocking her view. i was a little bit put off by this, and went back to sit down. jonathan took the stage & did a song, and the audience exploded with applause when he was done. he had a spanish 6-string acoustic, & he was backed up by a guy with a drum kit--that was it. 2 mics for jonathan, one for him to sing into, and one for his guitar--that was it. he had what i thought was a worried expression on his face, but it turns out that's just the way he looks. while he was singing 'let her go into the night', he went off into this thing about couples arguing in different languages, and i was convinced to come back down & join my friends in front of the stage. the mean lady was there, and bitching at everybody who dared stand in front of her like she paid more for her ticket than anyone else or something, making this roughly cone-shaped yenta zone from her seat all the way up to the stage. on the other side of the theatre, there was some drunk guy who kept yelling at jonathan--it sounded like he was trying to request songs, but it was hard to tell.

jonathan kicked ass. just about all his songs were sorta romantical & he played 'em in this really cool flamenco style. sometimes when he got really into a song he'd put the guitar aside & start doing some funky dancing along with the drumbeat. sometimes he walked away from the mic setup and came down to the skirt of the stage & sang so only we folks in the front could even hear him. he did a cool presley/costello jumping kick during one of his soloes. he sang "pablo picasso was never called an asshole" (i know, i know, it's just called "pablo picasso" but maybe people will know him from the repo man sountrack or something that way) (even though it was somebody else covering his brilliant song on there). for those of you who weren't there, and for those of you who've never heard his music, the only way i could really do the experience justice would be if i could wrap it up and give it to you as a present, and i wouldn't know how to do that. it's amazing how all that great music could come out of that one little guy.
for a while there, he inspired me to go down to my local open mic and sing some songs of my own devising, but he already did it.

here is a link for you, based on a new thing i'm into, and something that could be the ultimate time-killer when you're online. it is neopets. it's sort of like pokemon, where you have a little pet that you raise train & battle other people's critters with, combined with the most massive conglomeration of little flash/shockwave based games i've ever seen, from arcade type stuff to card & other gambling/solitaire type games. if you're there, look for me, mangomonkeyboy, and my korbat (a little bat-shaped critter), baby drakul.

i guess that's enough for tonight. will write again soonest. scarab21 awaits....

2003-05-31T03:25:00.000-04:00

everyone's gone to the moon...

the carson daily show is going on in the background. why does he need cuecards for his little monologue where he's just talking about the day he's had? funk dat.

here it is, friday night again, and there's nothing going on with me. i haven't left the house once in the last two days, there's nobody online to chat with, and things are pretty boring. maybe tomorrow will be better. geez.

for those who post things in my comments area & don't get a reply from me, fret not: for some reason, my computer fucks up when i try to type anything there. it works fine until i try to type anything, and it functions with nary an error on every other system upon which i've attempted to access it, but me being able to do that is rare, so that's why. it's some funky kind of c++ bug fix error or some such--something beyond me, in other words--which also happens on a handful of other sites i try to summon. as a result, i can't get into the onion's personal ad section to delete my ad there and prevent more scary potential personal-ad-based dating situations from happening. with the level of loser rays i'm emanating these days, it's probably not a good idea. online dating sucks anyway. dating, if it happened a normal way, would be pretty cool, but that's probably something (regrettably) that's going to have to wait until i get my shit together a little better than it is now.

i guess the whole SARS-reports-straight-from-china idea is a bust. my friend got basically fired from her job due to some sort of office/political situation the, details of which can't quite breach the language barrier, so i guess it's not happening.

in order to offset the problem of the window in which i am typing this being the size of half a popsicle stick, i'm going to change browsers. netscape behaves erratically so i don't use it much, opera is pretty cool except for the one problem which is the basis of this here paragraph (tried resizing--it's not that type of a window), so next stop: mozilla.

link o' de la day:
http://www.democraticunderground.com

dedicated to the almost complete dearth of social and political discourse around here. check it out. they're generally based on the democratic party but they also welcome more progressive points of view. check it out if you're into it.

well, i guess that would qualify as a significant number of words for now.

hey you, reading this: add a comment! drop a line! your input is as important as you are! maybe moreso if you suffer from low self esteem! ha! i kid because i care.

bye

2003-05-22T05:10:00.000-04:00

RIP and goodbye to June Carter Cash

first of all, a little editor's note. for some reason, with the browser i use (opera for windows 9x), whenever i write anything in this 'blog, my words appear in this laughably tiny little cell about the size of one of those flat little red plastic spreader thingies that comes with those little cracker-and-cheese kits.
yes, they float on water very nicely...when i was a kid & used to go to visit my relatives in maine, my cousins and i would race 'em in the river they had behind their house. but cheesy goo-spreader size is not conducive to typing, so if there are odd breaks in structure or continuity, that's why. BE UNDERSTANDING *NOW*, dammit.
anyway,

here i am and here the computer is and here's some 'net access following my former housemate's leaving and some upheaval of the network that hooked all the computers together, so here are some words for you...

first of all, i saw "a mighty wind" over the weekend, and was moved to tears....

of LAUGHTER! hahaha i foo' you good. it was pretty damn funny, though. my only real complaint is that--not to give too much away here, but it is basically a bunch of funny scenes that happen to tell a story so there's not much to give away in the first place really--there's these three folk bands, right? one of these--the one with parker posey in it--is this super white-bread, ned flanders-style act, and interviews with the main two people in the band reveal all sorts of increasingly bizarre stuff surrounding their personal lives. in one scene, they show the two of them picking out clothes, and they both start going into this utterly insane quasi-mystical diatribe regarding their philosophy towards colors, and this leads to a less-than-ten-seconds-long clip of the entire group wearing pointy wizard hats, wielding sparklers, and doing some sort of hokey, ritualistic chant.

this little clip is one of the funniest goddamn things i have ever seen, EVER, in celluloid. through laughter, i actually begged the movie, out loud, to 'show that again!'

so yeah, 'mighty wind.' go see it, if'n you're of a mind ta. if not, take some drugs or whatever it takes to make you really laughy, then go see it.

i spent the day today doing repairs and maintenance on my bike. the tires are no longer leaky, the brakes, no longer squeaky or slacky, and the body & sprockets are nearly free of rust. i celebrated by riding up to the store in the dark and singing 'na-na na-na na-na na-na BICYCLEMAN!!!' over and over, then returning home with cigarettes. i didn't sing on the way home.

got an email today from my new e-pen-pal in beijing. she's part of a volunteer people's army that's trying to contain the SARS virus. her access to a computer is sporadic at best, so i can't give a link to a website or anything, but she's keeping me up to date about what's going on there, and it definitely puts all my--and maybe even your--whiney little problems into a modicum of perspective. maybe i'll make a regular thing of reports from the front line in my 'blog entries, with her permission and your interest. anyway, i'm keeping a wacky schedule these days, but it's 5 in the frickin morning and i gots ta sleeps sometime. goo'night.

2003-05-05T11:05:00.000-04:00

excerpts from the id

so here's some stuff from a dream i from which i just woke:

there was something about camping out in the woods with a bunch of people. i can't really remember any details, but i think it's probably a recurrence of the 'being at a unitarian conference' theme that pops up so often in situations like these.

i had a job in a huge, tall building that was in a city that was not detroit. there was some agency that was spying on me & sending these floaty, robotic probelike spying gadetries after me, which i could spot going wherever i went. they looked a bit like the ones darth maul sent out in that weird, star wars-esque movie that george lucas put out a few years back. eventually, i got pissed off at them always following me, picked up a bunch of rocks, and started throwing them at one. two of my friends came along and told me that that wasn't the way to get rid of them; that for every robot, there's a car somewhere nearby with someone inside using a remote control to....well, *control* them, and if you get rid of the car, the robot will fall no longer be able to function. sure enough, a carjacking occurred a few feet away, and the robot fell to the ground, useless. i remember yelling "BUNGHOLE" in my best beavis voice and kicking it.

so with all of this behind me, i went to work. it turned out to be on a very high floor in the building, and no elevator, so i had to climb a series of ridges that had all sorts of weird creatures hanging out on the sides of them. when i got to the entrance to the department, it turned out i had to pass some kind of test to get in. i noticed that the wall opposite the door had some kind of weak spot to it, so i pushed it until it tore open, and there was a little sort of niche there, with a tiny little wind-up mine car on a track that went somewhere into the wall. i wound up the car, and off it went; i could hear it moving along within the wall, until it stopped at another papery spot which i again punched open, only to reveal another mine car. i wound up that one, and this whole process repeated a few times, until the last car wound up at a spot with a whole bunch of little brass levers. i started flipping these around, until a panel opened up on a display in the middle of the room.
the display somewhat resembled one of those advent calendars that have little doors that open up with little toys or something inside, for each of the days of december that lead up to christmas.

well, this was shaped like a tree, and had little different-colored doors at certain points on the tree. all the doors were locked except for one, which i opened, and it contained a red key, which, of course, i used on the red door, which revealed another little colored key for another little door. the same friends of mine, now joined by some more friends, had sort of made their way up to the room by this point, and they were sort of talking to each other while i was doing this. the golden little-advent-calendar door had a little figure in it, that appeared to be of some sort of asian design, sort of a little chinese buddha dragon-headed guy. the base was made up of several plies of flat pieces of rubber or plastic, and between these, i found another little key. eventually, little colored cards began to replace the keys, as the design of the little doors started to take on a more high-tech appearance. while all of this puzzlery was going on, one of my friends simply opened the door to the department and everybody, including myself, walked through, and that was pretty much the end of the dream.

so basically, i dreamed the computer game MYST last night.

2003-05-02T11:14:00.000-04:00

offin' goof

ever have a bad tooth in your mouth that you just couldn't stop poking with your tongue? ever have a scab you just couldn't resist picking off, or a zit you just couldn't wait to pop? i know, these are all pretty damn gross examples, but they're the only ones i could come up with of things you know perfectly well you should leave alone, but for whatever reason, you just can't resist.

i say all that to say this: i've been doing a sort of psychic battle that's similar to those mentioned above lately, with the message boards for yahoo!'s news service. if your sociopolicial mindset is even anything close to mine, and/or you have an IQ higher than your waist size, male OR female, you'll very likely want to put a gun to your head after looking in there for more than twenty seconds. it's the most bottom-of-the-barrel, lowest-common-denominator political discussion i have EVER seen: morons typing in all caps, with every other word mispelled, finding ways to blame "liberals" (interpretation theirs) for everything from the pentagon cutting education funds to military families, to big-ass pharmaceutical consortiums ("consortii?") trying to pimp mind drugs to kids.

and if that doesn't get to you, the apalling amount of completely open racism will.

so yeah, if you want to check out some slobbering dittohead action, go there and check it out. the only reason i do is i do email through yahoo! and their main page is my startup page whenever i go online, and there those news articles sit, in that lower right-hand corner of the screen, waiting for me to click on their message boards & be ennervated. check it out if you want, but don't say i didn't warn you.

here's a really groovy website that i discovered last night. it's a bit like portal of evil, only without the evil. it's a bunch of links to nifty or cool things, instead of wrong porn or funny -looking or crazy people who have a website. probably a lot of people reading this have already seen it, but it's NEW TO ME, ok? and maybe to you, too.

here's a mix cd i made that i'm listening to right now:

1.frank zappa "sofa 1"
2. stereolab "doubt"
3. johnny cash/bob dylan "that's all right mama"
4. joan jett & the blackhearts "bad reputation"
5. guy whose name i forget "everybody needs somebody to love" (the blues brothers sang it)
6. frankie lymon & the teenagers "why do fools fall in love?" (rebuttal)
7. symarip "must catch a train" (incidentally, for those familiar with first wave jamaican ska, these are the "skinhead moonstomp" guys)
8. the pogues "sally maclennane"
9. the dead boys "sonic reducer"
10. the animals "heart full of soul"
11. stardust "music sounds better with you"
12. the skatalites "lion of judah"
13. le soft machine "love makes sweet music"
14. the stooges "TV eye"
15. the kinks "nothing in this world"
16. stevie wonder "higher ground"
17. the beastie boys "the sounds of science"
18. dinosaur jr. "muck"
19. jonathan richman "true love is not nice"
20. veruca salt "seether"
21. sly & the family stone "it's a family affair"
22. ray charles "nighttime is the right time"
23. the flaming lips "do you realize?"

all in all, not a bad mix: there's a little something for everybody in there, or, just for me. maybe i'll give a copy of it to someone.

anyway, that's me for today. time to get back to work!

2003-04-29T23:02:00.000-04:00

greatest cockney ripoff it was the greatest cockney ripoff

that's a 70s punk reference and if you don't get it, that's your problem

i'd like to fank my mam & dad...for taking me out to dinner tonight & sparing me having to ride the damn bus home.

i would also like to thankone of the awesomest people in the world, who deserves many little gold stars stuck all over her forehead for making the whole super nutty coo-coo cannonball "comments" thing happen for this here 'blog. she actually plunged into the bowels of the inner workings of this here gablogga and made it happen. you who did this, when you get a chance, just show me what you did, in case i wind up on some uncivilized little rock in the south pacific somewhere & need to update my 'blog using coconut shells & a volleyball with a face painted on it.

tomorrow marks my last day working at comerica. maybe i can talk them into keeping me on, but it will have to be with the stipulation that my return be after may 9th, because certain obligations hold me to getting something else done before then, and i want to devote all possible time to said project.

in my ear lately:

--the sun records collection (obviously)

--"a mighty wind" soundtrack (obviously again. it's fun to picture a choir of people singing some of the songs on there, equally fun to picture me whipping out an acoustic hippie guitar and just going right into one of them)

--d.j. food "kaleidoscope" (perfect electronic music for people who say they hate techno...i don't much like cheesy dance music either, but trust me, this stuff is different)

--boards of canada "music has a right to children" and "geogdaddi" (almost the same deal....it's music for the mind)

--frank zappa "live in boston 1968 w/ mothers of invention" and "broadway the hard way" and "thing-fish" (this 3rd one bears only occasional listening--repeated listenings make for serious brain damage)

--a mix CD featuring johnny cash, a bunch of "schoolhouse rock" songs, and a few girl- and semi-girl bands, including veruca salt, the blake babies, and bettie serveert

--a bunch of firesign theatre stuff that's NOT EVEN MUSIC (if you're not familiar with them, ask--think monty python, only american and purely audio), some of it store-bought, some of it plucked from the ether

that's all for this time. see you next.

2003-04-28T22:10:00.000-04:00

did you ever see a dooby go this way & that way

did you ever see a dooby go this way & that?

for your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends

did you ever see a dooby go this way & that?

this inane song they made me sing in kindergarten will hopefully have a place to add your comments afterwards:

2003-04-27T21:57:00.000-04:00

that '40s show

in the background as i type this is my current favorite tv show, 'the 1940s house'. it's a british reality show where they take a family of people & make them live the way british people did during world war 2. i'm really not a fan of so-called reality shows, because most of them are anything but, really. this one is different, though, because they're trying to show what it was really like during the war. all their food is rationed, and the only media they get is newspapers & bbc radio broadcasts from the time, and the occasional (period) record to listen to. this episode takes place during and after d-day, so the family is getting all sorts of care packages from US soldiers full of clothes, food, cigarettes, etc. it's interesting.

i've developed this weird growth inside my right eye socket, near the bridge of my nose. i got my dad to get out his examination equipment, and it turns out to be some sort of zit or something that had the misfortune of being on some flesh inside my eye. it was really tender & itched like a motherfucker a few days ago, but seems to be going away. nothing sucks more than an itch you can't scratch. thank god it turns out to not be actually on my actual eyeball.

took the day off work on thursday, and wound up helping pat move out of here. all his stuff looks heavy, but none of it actually is. he left his weight bench & a halogen floor lamp, so score! for me (he said he had no plans towards keeping either). i've moved a bunch of my weights down to where his room used to be, and am in the process of turning it into a little gym. now that winter's over, it's time to get back into shape so i can wear a t-shirt and not be disgusting.

they're wrapping up 'the 1940s house', showing the family returned to their normal, modern house with all of its amenities, and it looks like the kids, deprived of their playstation, tv, and all that, have developed a new appreciation for playing outside. good for them. i have to walk through that shit to catch the bus to work tomorrow. started making mix cds for people, and will listen to them at work tomorrow to see if they pass muster.

for anyone who might have been going to the flaming lips show on wednesday, it turns out to be sold out. me & pat went & tried to buy tickets after moving him into his new place on thursday, and no luck.
if you're there, have a good time, and maybe next time for the rest of us.

hopefully comments thingy here soon.

2003-04-23T18:41:00.000-04:00

testing one two...commence firing of comment bomb in

5...
4...
3...
2...

check ignition and may gods love be with youuuuu

2003-04-22T21:56:00.000-04:00

yay for friends!

well, mangomonketeers, i have been trying to get you a positive, nice, non-f'ed-up entry here for some time now, no? well, tonight's your lucky night, as i've decided not to bitch about anything at all. the only sort of sucky thing about today was that i didn't get enough sleep last night, but it was well worth it-- a good good friend IMed me last night, and i wound up calling her, and it was really, really nice to get to talk to her & hear her voice again. you should click on the link embedded withinin the previous sentence and check out her 'blog, after you're through reading this, of course. her cuisine reigns supreme.

i tried to set up a comments thingy on here today, but it doesn't seem to be working. at least i know where to go to set one up now, and i'll work on it more when i have the time.

in order to get this here "positivity" ball rolling along, i've decided to put up, just for YOU, a freeform list of stuff i like, from those little things that are sort of cool to big-ass, happy-go-luckiness of titanic proportions. here is but a smattering:

--CONSUMERISTIC THING THAT I LIKE: you don't see 'em quite as much anymore, but i must say, i'm a sucker for ads where they have little chunks of splashy water-ridden fruit flying across the screen in slow motion. i could watch that shit all day. that's probably why i chose the template i did for this 'blog--it had cut-up pieces of fruit at the top.

--the concept of Irony. given the bricks, i would gladly build a mighty temple to this awesome thing, even if it involved huge amounts of scaffolding, oxen, and ropes, whistling all the while. now, i'm not talking about the alanis morrisette, 'baked-a-ham-but-oops-i'm-a-jew' type of irony, i'm talking about the kind that makes even the most inane, crass, & irresponsible things that come out of my mouth funny and enjoyable by all. thank you, oh great irony, from which all things flow.

--george lucas, for putting out 'the phantom menace' and 'attack of the clones'. not on their face value, but more to appease my sadistic side--it's a chance to go to the theatre and not watch the movie, but check out all the fanboys writhing in agony in the aisles, clutching spasmodically at their popcorn containers and gasping 'worst....movie....ever!'. pure fun.
now put out 'THX-1138' on dvd already, ya varmint. i *could* gripe about the legitimate 3 star wars movies being put out, unmolested, in the same format, but i don't want to go there right now.

--hunter s. thompson, for existing.

--beer. all of the above, with a side order of more. beer make mangomonkeyboy happy. happy good beer.

--old motown/soul songs that have that schtick where the lead guy plays god with the band, like in the song 'cool jerk' where the guy says 'gimmie a lil' bit o' drums by himself....now gimmie a little bit o' bass with those 88's'...it's obscure, but cool

--rhino records, media pundit of the gods

--a toasted onion bagel with veggie cream cheese

--old video games & the people who like to play them

--ALL christopher guest movies

-'the simpsons'

--when it's room temperature outside

--any thing that all different kinds of people can find common ground with that keeps them from possibly killing each other

--people with silly names

--elderly folks with lots of cool stories to tell

--ANYBODY good at telling stories

--sour apple flavored anything

--chess sets where the pieces are shaped like real human knights & kings and stuff

--the smell of a campfire

--the sound of an electric 12-string guitar

--really crazily tricked-out cars, the more insane the better

--good friends.

thanks for reading. like i said, i plan to get the whole comments thing happening here soon, and when i do, i have all sorts of nutty ideas for things to do with it. keep watching the skiis!!!

2003-04-21T23:32:00.000-04:00

i'm just the messenger, or: just when you think it's over

i know, i've been wanting to do a positive post on here. i've been wanting like hell to come home and write all sorts of cool stuff about the relatively nice day i've had (up to a certain point) today. i woke up at a reasonable hour today, and actually had enough energy to get out of bed & go get ready for work. i actually did some yoga in the bathroom whilst waiting for the shower to warm up (sun salutation=a great way to get the body & mind going). i took a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, put some wax in my hair to make it nice & flat-toppy, put on some nice, crisp, clean clothes, even put on a tie & some freshly-polished boots, and went to work. caught the express (non-crowded) bus downtown, listening to my newly burned schoolhouse rock/million-dollar quartet (mdq=elvis presley, jerry lee lewis, carl perkins, and sometimes johnny muthafuggin' cash, TOGETHER!) cd, and did a thing i'd been planning to do: i rode the bus all the way to the end of the line, discovering a place to catch the bus back that's closer to the office, and i can just get on the stopped bus instead of waiting for it to come along.

work was relatively light; everybody was all smiles to see me all slicked up & with a tie on and everything. two of the women there said i looked handsome. a really pretty lady from another department who never even normally looks at me came over and talked to me--it was all business stuff, but still, nice.
a bunch of people came over and gathered a few feet from me & started having a loud, animated discussion concerning some sort of administrative corporate gibberish, but i put my headphones on & cranked b.b. king & roy orbison & the guy who sings "drinkin' wine spo-di-o-di" whose name i can't remember (thank you sun records boxed set!) up to 9 and went about my work. when it got quiet again, i took off the headphones & was actually singing out loud for awhile--i think i have the presley vocal tremolo pretty much down, so i was singing elvis songs. fun.

my shift ended, and i went to my new place to catch the bus. i made about the same time as i usually do, but it was fun to fly past the curb where i usually get rained on or colded on. i rocked out to the excellent disc one of that same old sun records set, the one with all the great old blues stuff on it, including the rebuttal to 'hound dog' ('you ain't nothin but a bear cat') & some awesome old gospel stuff too. i managed to time the 'halfway home' call to my buddy tom, who usually picks me up for my monday night gaming session, so he managed to catch me after me walking maybe a block towards my house.

subsequently, got to bruce's store about a half hour earlier than usual. tonight was the night of the game in the blood bowl (basically, a football game played with little painted metal guys) league wherein my brand-spanking-new norse team was to face off in almost a grudge match against bill & his dreaded team of witch-hunters. bill's a good guy, but tends to be a bit overly competetive, and can be known to be a sore loser and kind of a jerk sometimes when winning. didn't make any touchdowns in the first half, but beat the crap out of a bunch of his guys & actually ran some decent plays. his guys were a little to fast & tricky for mine, but i think i'm starting to get a feel for my team, and besides, i know all the other guys' teams have seen a great deal more games than mine, and getting punked & bitch-slapped is part of the experience of playing a newer team. as you play, your team gets more experience, which leads to more skills, and combined with what you learn the hard way, it all works out. cool.

then, during my first kickoff of the second half, my friend of 11 years calls on my cellphone. he wants to know what i'm doing tonight. i remind him that monday is the night i play blood bowl, and that i'm generally not good for hanging out on weeknights, due to having to get up at 6am to get ready for work. i asked him what he's doing on the weekend, and he tells me all his free time is completely booked up on his girlfriend.

i tell him that the weekend is really my only time to really do anything, and to try to make some time for me then. he proceeds to get in my shit about how i'm 'gaming with a bunch of dorks' a few miles from his house, actually accuses me of not making time for *him*, when i don't really have a car right now, can only do stuff on the weekend, and am pretty much only able to get out to do the gaming thing because of the generousity of another friend with a car & his encouragement towards getting me into all this gaming business in the first place.

now, i'm not going to go off on the guy, because i've been doing quite enough of that sort of thing on here, and i just feel done with it, but i swear...

this is a guy who, since he and his lady hooked up, doesn't seem able to make time for anybody else. do i need friends like this? do i really want to wait to hang out with the guy until the inevitable breakup? he called me right in the middle of my turn, and had the fucking gall to make fun of me for doing what i was doing.
what bullshit.
if my dorky, pathetic self ever somehow manages to find a girlfriend again, i don't ever want to get to a point where i forget the other people in my life, and that's the truth.

and to you reading this: i'm just reporting the news as it happened. it has nothing to do with anything else, it's the being made fun of for no good reason that hurts. that, and the possibility of losing a friend.

if my day today was a bowl of punch, that phone call was the turd that plopped into it from 50 feet up.

i ended up not being able to concentrate on the rest of the game at all, yet somehow managed to get my one touchdown in the whole thing. towards the end, i was so out of it that tom & bruce had to come over and show me what to do. final score: 4-1. so far, i have a winless season, but at least with my new team i manage to get the damn ball to the backfield now and again. my ork team got beat around like a red-headed stepchild, and never scored a single touchdown.

at times like this, i'm doing my goddamndest to stay strong. i'm doing my best to keep things like negativity, shabby treatment, and disloyalty from getting to me.

you, who read this, are a friend. i'm sorry to have to bitch yet some more on here again, but if it helps at all, i mostly had a good day today. hopefully tomorrow will be a lot like today, only without the turd in the punchbowl.

2003-04-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

happy rising jesus and chocolate bunny day

my pre-easter: getting to go over to my friend tom's new house & help him move his stuff in. a grand time was had by all; we sat around & drank beers & watched movies; it's been so long since i've been in any house besides this one that it was a nice & welcome experience. tom lent me his sun records boxed set, and i'm currently drinking some whiskey from a jar (cut with water) & listening. it makes me want to puke when i consider that most people would rather listen to britney or whatever passes for music these days than something like this that might be, like, old and stuff, but definitely has more fuckin' BALLS to it than most music i hear coming out these days. these are some of the earliest rockabilly recordings you can find, and some blues stuff from that period, too, when it was just starting to all come together as rock and roll.

though lest there's any doubt, i consider ani difranco's music very ballsy. it's not a gender thing. she's a major exception. most modern music fucking sucks.

i've been doing some thinking. i've been forced to. it occurs to me that a lot of the hurting i've been going through is about a year old, and i've been doing all sorts of futile things to try and offset it, and all that's happened is i've been fucked over by a few semi-strangers that i wound up blaming, inwardly, for that same hurt that wasn't directly caused by anyone. the idea, whether it's correct or not, occurs to me that up to about a year and a half ago, i had something wonderful going on in my life, and somehow i've fucked up, and that that sort of goodness won't be coming my way for quite some time again, if at all.
and right now, it seems that everybody but me gets to enjoy this type of goodness, and it really hurts to ponder what i've lost.

this is as direct as i'm going to get with this. if you seek clarification, just email to heavyheavyjon@yahoo.com and ask me. i'd direct you to the email link in the corner, but it's been there since i learned how to throw links down, and nobody that i know of has ever touched the goddamn thing and nobody seems willing to help me set up a comments thing on here (ALL help pages for blogger.com are down) , so those two options are out.

that's it. my pain is as laid out as i plan for it to get. anyone reading this, including some random person who stumbled onto this humble little pile of words, as long as they mean me no harm, is my friend. you, friend, deserve something nicer to look at, and now that i've been able to somewhat break my unhappiness down to its most basic form, i'm hoping this will lead to this 'blog being a more pleasant experience for all you wonderful readers out there. i honestly wish i'd hear from you more. i got maybe 2 emails from actual human beings who didn't want to sell me something in the last week.

i also picked up, actually purchased a cd of the soundtrack to "a mighty wind", a movie which isn't even out yet. it's the new christopher guest ("this is spinal tap", "waiting for guffman", "best in show") movie, and this time out, the action revolves around a bunch of aging folk singers who are getting back together & recording again. guest, michael mckean, and harry shearer, the original members of spinal tap, created a group called "the folksmen", for the purposes of the movie, and all i can say is, if you're a fan of the chad mitchell trio, you'll either be amused or offended by these recordings. i think it's all funny as hell, personally. and dead-on: it sounds like some suit-wearing, hootenanny-playing bunch of folkies from the early 60s.

anyway, i've rambled a bit, and hope you enjoyed reading. now that i've figured out my problem, i think i can write here occasionally, and not have things be as vitriolic as they've been in posts of the past.
if you read this and have a few spare minutes, please, even if you don't have much to say, avail yourself of the email link in the corner, or just remember the address: heavyheavyjon@yahoo.com. don't be too busy to be a friend.

happy holiday,

jon

2003-04-08T23:21:00.000-04:00

because because because because goodbye goodbye goodbye
--woody guthrie

music is the best
--frank zappa

i'm drinking beer tonight and listening to CDs. anna, if you're reading this, please be eased that i plan to get you back *all* of your CDs most likely at opus this year, except i'll (if it's OK with you) give you money to keep the library of congress CD of mr. guthrie. pop music scholars try to see where the whole punk aesthetic comes from, and point to 60s garage bands or 50s rockabilly, but it goes back even further than rock music in my opinion. one of my recent aquisitions is a box set of 4 CDs that i copied off my own father that's a bunch of old folk songs that were mostly recorded in the 1930s, and most of the songs on there are old mountain folk/hillbilly songs, which were sung from, in many cases, a time before there was any equipment with which to record them. there's your whole punk/DIY thing right there. the whole thing, practically, is just some hillbilly motherfucker with a guitar, and you know what? it sounds great, every time. i don't necessarily even need the rocka, the billy part works fine for me. you couldn't ask for better drinking music. and if you need further convincing, these are the descendants of the irish people who were indentured servants and were forced onto some shitty parcel of real estate in the ozarks or appalachians after their servitude. no mule, but they did get their 40 acres, on some crappy, rocky piece of land where nothing grows and nothing ever will.

all of that having been said, i now want to address my previous, semi-notorious little post that stayed up for about a day. it was a mean, nasty thing that i put up, and it dealt with someone who built me up at a time in my life when i was lonely and bummed out, who went on to totally misjudge and reject me. please understand that i meant every single word of what i put up here. i have no patience in my life anymore for anyone who blows into my life and hurts me, so the words--regardless of whether i'm the reckless asshole who puts them up for all to see, or the pussy boy who puts them up for a day and takes 'em down again because the kind readers of this little 'blog don't deserve to be subjected to such things--stand.

i just want to say, to everybody still reading this little bloggy thing of mine:

i love you.

not in some weird or fruity way, don't worry. i know who my people are, and everybody still reading this gets a big hug from me for still doing so. i'm sorry for things being so ugly around here, and you all deserve better words than those. i am eternally thankful to have friends in this world, and you are never forgotten.

before props go out, i need to get some things out of the way. first of all, i just found out about a week ago that mary hansen, backing vocalist of stereolab, one of my favorite bands ever (this is the "nice" music of mine that i'm convinced i can't turn others on to, but that makes it mine), passed away last september. it didn't make the press, since stereolab isn't britney or whatever the hell the kids are listening to these days, but it still bums me out. there has been many a scathing review of the groop, that reduced their music to "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba etc."...that's mary, doing the bababababababababababababa as backing vocalist.
or it *was*.
you can like 'em or not, but they're still favorites of mine, and one of them is gone now. goodbye ms. hansen. i enjoyed seeing you all at st. andrews hall in '96. i crashed my volvo driving a souvenir t-shirt over to the house of a woman i was seeing at the time. hell, if anybody knows nikki cooney's email address in detroit, say 'hi' to her for me, and tell her about mary.

now that that's out of the way, i have a shout-out lined up for my bestest buddy tom, whom i hope is reading this, and it comes in the form of my account of the st. patrick's day parade here in detroit:

what a beautiful day god or whoever is in charge of weather ordained for us sorry-assed detroiters the day of the parade. i actually got sunburned at the thing. we drank lots of guiness, and it was the grandest of times. a girl from the metro times was in with us in the crowd, and she interviewed tom, probably due to his connection with spag and all that, but i escaped mostly unscathed, though a picture was taken of me along with tom, kelly, lisa, and other drunken revellers, which was pictured on the back page.
once we ran out of beer money, we all made our way to the i-75 bridge, where we proceeded to moon the people on the freeway, and god help me if i didn't present my wookie ass for the random people on the freeway to check out. we made our penniless way to some bar on the other side of the bridge, where i ate the rest of lisa's lucky charms right in front of her, to present her with and empty box. HA-HA!!! after that, we made a game out of kicking an empty can, like a soccer ball, all the way from there back to the lager house, where we were stationed. it was a fun time, and i'm glad to everyone responsible. nothin' beats alcohol-fuelled mayhem where nobody gets hurt.

to all of you reading this, be warned--i plan to start one of those annoying questionnaire things, but the theme for this one is MUSIC, and what it means to you. you are warned.

anyway, that's about it for me. i think i've bared my soul enough for one post. hope you enjoyed it.

2003-02-27T22:32:00.000-05:00

won't you please?
won't you please?
please won't you be
my neighbor?

goodbye fred rogers.

the world is a better place for having had you in it.

you were the closest thing to a childhood friend that a guy on tv could ever be.

you taught me that i was unique and special and worth something.

you taught me that my imagination is, too.

you taught me that every job, from the baker to the music shop owner to king friday himself, is interesting and important.

you taught me that tropical fish are cool to look at.

you taught me how to make all sorts of little-kid arts & crafts.

safe journeys to wherever your road may take you, and goodbye....

2003-02-26T20:47:00.000-05:00

farts from the ass of my mind

well, i'm working again. in a big office building in downtown detroit. go me.

here's some stuff about that:

i wish somebody could have told me how FUCKING COOL it is to work downtown. my favorite bookstore (john k. king used books--5 floors of used books!) can be seen from the building's cafeteria, my current favorite bar (the lager house on mich. ave. near trumbull) is maybe 10 minutes away, and i'm right there at the hub of Where Stuff Happens in the City. true, there'd be a downside to this if some crime went down or terrorists for whatever reason decided to try and make our town even shittier than it already is, but judging by the unlikelihood of either of these, it's worth it. totally.

there's a 'jackie' and a 'donna' in the office pool of my department. it's like, 'that 70s office'.
c'mon, i know a few of you are familiar with the characters on that crappy show, don't even try to front.
i watch it 'cuz it's on right after 'the simpsons' and the actress who plays donna is pretty damn hot.

speaking of hot (mildly) there's a really cute woman who works there that i think i have a crush on.
she's a temp like me, but has been there a whole month longer than me. she's not really cute in the conventional, bullshit, "friends" kind of way, not even in the slightly-less-conventional-but-just-as-much-bullshit "donna-from-'that 70s show'" kind of way, she's cute...TO ME, according to my own skewed agenda. i think she's either married or at the very least, has a fella', but it's ok: i think i'm mature enough to handle a crush on someone without it turning into anything fucked-up or weird. this is the 'fun' type of crush. and anyway, as prophet & future king of the world jonathan richman sings, "true love is not nice". (have you ever seen "there's something about mary"? he's the guy that they periodically pan to who's sitting up in a tree or whatever, playing his guitar & singing. go out and buy as many of his CDs as you can find RIGHT NOW.)
she does the cutest little scrunchy thing with her nose sometimes when she smiles. sigh.
i think i can live with just the idea of going out with her, though. it's practice for when someone who really *is* available comes along.

just about every office cliche' you can name exists somewhere in my department. there's the tall, willowy blonde secretary who talks like hank's dad's wife from "king of the hill" (sorta ditzy, you can hear the spaces between syllables when she talks), there's the meek little baldheaded nebbish guy who knows things about computers, there's the hardened, craggy, smoking woman with the gravelly voice who's been working there for 80,000 years, there's the spunky, cheerful, can-do lady in the motorized wheely thing that's almost-a-wheelchair (i don't know what the fuck the things are called--if you know, email me & say).

the only things really missing are the evil, fascistic boss (head of the dept. seems really busy & put upon, but seems a decent enough bloke) and the inane yapper who cracks her gum & won't shut up.

sure, the whole 'professional image' thing hinders most really interesting conversation, and they seem fairly illiterate and unversed in the finer points of culture, but come on, they spend eight hours a day in an office.

there was one more thing i wanted to say about my new job, but i forget what. if i remember, i'll remember.

i doubt any of them do what i've been doing outside of work, namely, getting back in touch with my inner dork, whom i tried to kill when i was out in the world seeking foolishly for love from another (female) human being.

fuck it, i've joined the dark side, y'all.

some of my really good friends hooked me up with some games workshop "blood bowl" (a board game based on football, only fantasy-like, with elf, orc, and undead etc. teams) miniatures, and paints to paint 'em with for a birthday present, and i've been learning the finer points of painting miniature fantasy figures.
it's a very relaxing hobby, and more rewarding than....well, than a lot of things, i guess, when you put a lot of work into a figure and it winds up looking really cool.

in fact, a big, fat middle finger that is a dick growing out of the middle of my hand goes out to anyone that harbors any sort of derision towards those who engage in gaming, from dungeons and dragons up to the occasional players of axis & allies. a lot of these folks were the ones who got beat up in grade- and junior high school. cut 'em some slack. they may not have the same priorities as a "normal" person when it comes to having fun 100% of the time, but i would defend the existence of gamers to...well, *exist*, to a broken nose or limb or whatever. to fuck with them is to fuck with me.

in our society, it almost feels like it's more difficult to admit that you're into roleplaying games than it is to admit that you have herpes or that you're gay (not trying to knock gay people, i'm just saying it's a hard thing to admit). from my experience, it's the ultimate turn-off to most women. true, probably somewhere out there right now is the woman that would go out with me and own the fact that she has a boyfriend who's into the dungeons and the nurgles and the 20-sided dice, but let's face it: i game right now because i enjoy it. i'd enjoy getting laid, too, and it would be pretty cool to be able to be in a spot where i get to have both, but gaming is always there.

and if you read that and call me an immature little boy who needs a security blanket, why don't you try going several months with no TV, no cruddy top-40 pop music, no stupid fashion or sports magazines, no cancer-causing junk food, or whatever the hell other pacifiers you may have in your mouth at one time or another. i have a sneaking suspicion that i get more reward out of my life than you do. nyah.

i read in a poll a few weeks ago that popular opinion supports the idea that it was saddam hussein and not osama bin laden who was responsible for the attack of sept. 11th.

oceania is at war with eurasia. oceania has *always* been at war with eurasia.

2003-02-12T00:41:00.000-05:00

mangomonkeymadness.blogspot.com--it's like writing an email to nobody.

actually, writing emails to most people these days is like writing an email to nobody.

maybe having enough free time to look around and see how fucked up everything is long enough to be affected by it constitutes too much free time.

paranoia about the many stalkers, weirdoes, and wishers-of-ill-will in the world have forced well-wishing weirdoes everywhere to bury their best intentions.

'just shoot me' is a pretty ironic name for a sitcom that makes me think that after being subjected to it for more than 30 seconds (turned tv on for 'simpsons'; it's over & i was too not focused to turn it off).

there's nobody to talk to but the beer store's just down the street, and hey-! i've got enough for a 40.

i could write some really angsty, gloomy, morrisey-flavored stuff up in this bizzatch, if i really felt comfortable letting loose and allowing myself to whine, which i don't right now (well, not extensively, anyway), but ya know what? most of the words would be true. it's pretty damn cold.

is it normal to go 24 hours without talking to anybody?
is it normal to do this on a fairly regular basis?
the trip to the beer store would give me a chance to say 'hi' to the clerk at the beer store, at least.

started smoking again. so fucking what. nicotine is soothing in a way people can't be.

sorry blah blah blah gloomy maybe next blah blah blah empty rhetoric words words words.

--blah.

2003-02-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

word of the day: VITRIOL (look it up)

life is a hell of a struggle these days.

from disease to depression to rejection to unemployment to seemingly unsurmountable debt and back again...honestly, if i have any hope left, it's buried pretty deep & it's just a little sliver.

to all my friends who've stood by me, thank you for being there, and i could say that the day will come when you'll be rewarded for being as cool as you are, and hopefully it's true.

for those of you who have turned your backs on me (probably not anyone reading this, but the words have to come out) and rejected me and left me lonely for no real reason, i have two words in the whole universe:

fuck you.

fuck you, fuck your heart, your mind, your family, your pets, your favorite anything, your thoughts, your words, and your dreams. the parts of me that feel so dead right now were murdered by you.

i've been trying as hard as i could to love life, do unto others and all that, but i really must say: that shit ain't working so well a lot of the time. this isn't a case where you're either my friend or my enemy, i'm not dubya and you're not osama bin laden, i still plan to do my best to be a decent human being, but i guess one of the main lessons i hope i'm almost kind of starting to learn is that there are people out there in the world that, no matter how close you may try to be to them, no matter how nice they might appear to be, that doesn't lessen the possibility one bit that they could be idiots, liars, or other people you shouldn't be taking shit from.

not that i'm necessarily calling anyone reading this an idiot or a liar, because again, it's unlikely that the people who have seriously wronged me in the last six months or so would even take the time to read all the shit that i write here periodically. so to the majority of you who came on here expecting something fun or happy, sorry. maybe next time.

2003-01-23T01:41:00.000-05:00

please please baby lemonade

my mind has become a transciever for some sort of alien communication device.

i just took my temperature about a half hour ago, and it's at over 101 degrees fahrenheit.

everybody in the house i've talked to says i have something called labyrinthitis, an affliction of the ears that causes dizziness and disorientation. my head certainly feels like it's in a maze, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if a minotaur showed up.

if you're reading this and you've been around me over the last few days, i hope to hell you don't catch what i have, because trust me, YOU DON'T WANT IT, and if i gave it to you, i'm so sorry.

here are some random thoughts for you earthlings to play with:

---what is the name of the male equivalent of a dominatrix? i've heard them simply referred to as 'dom', but that's the name of a wine or the fat guy who was in a bunch of comedy movies in the 70s. 'dominator' sounds goofy too, like some sort of dungeons & dragons crap. for all my sheltered self knows about matters pertaining to bdsm, there could well be an element of d&d type stuff in there; there's an element of fantasy and roleplay sometimes, so why not? 'dominator' still sounds silly to me though.

--there's always going to be someone worse off than you are. there's always going to be someon better off, too. does this make the severity of your problems relative?

--somewhere out there, the world's worst dentist is preparing for another day of work. maybe his/her first patient of the day will be the world's greatest grandpa.

--part of my illness, so far, seems to entail me not getting songs stuck in my head anymore. maybe that means i'm gonna be able to reclaim that part of my brain & put tricky math equations or something in there and be the smartest person ever. or not.

--does george carlin ever read this little 'blog of mine? does anybody?

ok. cathode rays from the monitor are doing seriously funky things to my head, so it's high time i get back into the nice, warm womb--er, bed--, put my syd barret cd on, and try to drift off and not have scary fever dreams.

hand-over-mouth good ole-fashoined down home friendliness to all you silly people,

me

2003-01-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

greetings mangomonketeers! that's what i've decided to call you all, so that's what you're gonna be. nyah.
if you're really bad, i'll make up a song & make you all sing it & put on some funny hats with ears on 'em or something. well, there's no denying that it's been...what, 3 weeks? since i've put anything up on here, so i figure i ought to explain myself. first, i managed to find some semblance of a job. it's only a temp thang, and it ends this friday, but it's money in my pocket that wasn't there before.

i've been meeting a lot of cool people online over the last few months. some have become good friends, from as far away as texas and the u.k. to right here in the good ole metro detroit area. i may not be the best communicator ever at times--once in a while i wind up putting my foot in my mouth, don't we all?--but i hope it's all good.

here's a rare treat for you all, a bit of prose/poetry/what have you...it's the purpose behind the creation of this almighty juggernaut of a 'blog, after all. sometimes i take to doing automatic writing as an excercise, and this is sort of like that, only i'm going into it with a few clear ideas...

sometimes
i wonder about voices and words.
voices can make words
can words make voices?
can a voice
from your mouth
to your ear
say the same things
as some words
from the hands
to the eyes?
sometimes i wonder about
voices
& words.

hope ye liked.

shout outs to tom & katie. whazzup!

--jon

2002-12-27T16:04:00.000-05:00

everything but the chicken soup & the rubber chickens it's made from

well folks, it's been the christmas that comedy built, gift-wise. i got a gift certificate from border's books n' music n' movies n' stationery n' book-related paraphrenalia n' 'employees must wash hand' signs (N' MORE!!) n' shit. i'm pretty well stoked as music goes, i'm reading 'ender's game' by orson scott card and being religiously faithful to it, so no books for me right now, thank you. i wound up walking out of there with 2 dvds: the anime epic, 'princess mononoke', and the spoof of retardo 1980s summer camp comedy movies, 'wet hot american summer', starring the lovely ms. janeane garofalo. sigh.

i'd imagine that somewhere between these two movies, the truth lies. 'american summer' was pretty funny, but i must admit if it weren't for janeane being in it, it probably wouldn't occur to me to see it, ever. 'mononoke' actually ran at the theatre where i used to work, so i'd already seen it many times over for free, but i wanted to get something tasteful that i actually like, in case little kids or old people or something show up at my house and i somehow feel obliged to entertain them by showing them movies.
something visual, that shows off the performance of the dvd player. something to offset how dorky & misunderstood i felt marching up to the checkout counter with a movie called 'wet hot american summer' in my paws.

anyhoo, since i pretty much have all the music i could ever possibly want to listen to, i wound up scoring a bunch of comedy stuff on cd instead. i got "laugh out lord", the latest offering from neil hamburger...the fact that this cd exists at all is the joke, basically. it's supposed to be all religious/inspirational material, but most of the album is him trying to re-hash his old, cruddy jokes, though he does a rap about how all 7-11s across the country are the same, backed up by some of the cheesiest electronic music i've ever heard. gen-x irony hound panty-sniffers, start your engines!

disc #2 and more comedy: 'flying saucer tour volume 1', a newly resurfaces collection of stuff from the late, lamented bill hicks. this time around, they're doing a series of whole shows of his, as opposed to the compilations that have been kicking around since he passed away in 1994. he wasn't just a funny guy, but someone who actually had something to say.

probably the funniest and most ironic gift of all this holiday has been the gift of disease, though. felt pretty much fine on the 25th, then, yesterday morning, i started noticing a sore throat. it's been a little over 24 hours, and i'm all stuffed up. i've been sleeping at random, and am fixin to go down to the kitchen and see if there's something hot to drink.
six days since smoking a whole cigarette...woo!

2002-12-26T07:39:00.000-05:00

huh-huh huh-huh check it out, beavis huh-huh huh-huh

anyway, hello to you and you and especially you back there. christmas was decent, i spent most of it sleeping & thus gifting myself with permission to be a lazy sod. got a dvd player for a present, but no dvds. however, also recieved a gift certificate at a place that sells 'em. just for the hell of it, i'm going out this morning to see what there is. on christmas eve i sort of cheated and had half a cigarette, and after how lousy that made me feel, i haven't wanted one. yes i have. no i haven't.

you know why i'm awake now? i haven't been to bed yet. that's right, my sleeping pattern is all screwy again. my headbones are pretty sluggish right now. maybe write more later.

2002-12-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

goodbye joe strummer 1952-2002

2002-12-23T03:47:00.000-05:00

cold turkey

so i've gone over 24 hours now without having one cigarette. yesterday, i had, maybe four of them. i'm holed up in my bedroom keeping my mind occupied with video games & books & the occasional online chat, and, when the urgin' gets to be too much, i keep my body occupied by picking my dumbbell up off the floor & doing reps with both arms 'til the craving goes away. alls i can say is, withdrawal makes my mind really neat. i've made no commitment to anyone to quit doing anything, i just want to see how long i can keep from doing this. what it all boils down to is that, even though it could stand to be better right now, i love my life and am not ready to give it up for something as stupid as a bunch of paper tubes full of leaves and who the hell knows what else. the above sentence has been my mantra for this, one of the longest days i can remember since i had jury duty a few years ago. i really feel like i'm ready to quit; i'm sick of putting that shit into my body, which it doesn't make sense to do harm to simply because i have have the occasional bout of low self esteem. sometimes a cure for self-loathing presents itself, if one is willing to pay attention.
i don't know if this test of the might of my willpower will be a sucessful one, but the struggle carries on as i type this, frantically attempting to find distraction and/or comfort in anything. emails of encouragement can be sent to the link to my email address in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

shakily,
your humble narrator

2002-12-22T04:02:00.000-05:00

themeless n' fancy-free, like a weblog oughtta be

not a bad day today. my parental units threw their 35th(!!!) wedding anniversary tonight, which i attended. it was very nice, and when it came time to roast the both of 'em and tell funny stories and such, everyone involved was either kind or neglectful or both enough to not mention me in any of them.

then i went with my housemate pat over to the house of some friends of his, where we watched the 'lord of the rings' episode of south park, about twenty minutes of 'the minority report' (i WILL see all of this movie some day), then i proceeded to get my sorry arse kicked in some crazy mario brothers game.....ehhh, these kids today and their newfangled video games....

i have a really cool, really ambitious idea for something pretty clever involving my html-link-making knowledge. keep watching this spot.
in the meantime, here are some links thrown to you like so many milk bones to a small group of doggies up on their hind legs:

today's collection of links have a decidedly musical theme to them...hey, from my stream of consciousness to your eyes...without further ado, i give you:

if your musical tastes are anything like mine, this site will be likened unto heaven to you.

not quite as huge as the above site but just as sharpish.

this is basically just an ad for a british zine you can subscribe to, but if you have flash installed on your browser, the intro page is one of the sexiest things ever.

g'night kids. love yer guts.

2002-12-21T02:53:00.000-05:00

went out, had some fun: a rebuttal to the piss-poor entry i threw down earlier

i would like to begin, actually, with an explanation for said entry. it is this: i'd actually been attempting to update this here thingy over the last week or so, but each attempt to post has resulted in some sort of error message, something to the effect of something or other being too full. more entries resulting in an excess of the alotted space, perhaps? i've only got, like, six of 'em on here, so far. i will say this, though: nothing ires the blood like sweating and poring over some laborious task--like thinking stuff up and typing it down, say--for hours and hours, then seeing the results of your work vanish like so many tendrils of morning mist at the first rays of sun.

potential hallmark h.r. people reading this: i *am* available for work, be it meaningful or semi-meaningful-to-completely-meaningless, like 99% of the jobs out there besides king of the universe or everybody's favorite musician forever. (dilemma of the moment: i'm going through my cds, trying to figure out what to listen to. i actually put in "yankee hotel foxtrot" by wilco, one of the greatest albums ever, honestly, i beg you to go out and pick up a copy 'cuz it's awesome, just doesn't fit my mood right now. instead, we have disc one of the mod jukebox collection. current track: "heat wave", martha & the vandellas)

this entry is brought to you in word-wrap-o-vision, songs of thanksgiving & praise due to anna of lawrence,
who has offered her services as being queen of my thriving, high-powered admin. team. she has a sweller blog than mine, and in addition to being permanently listed off to your left on the screen, it can also be found here. i can only pray that some day, she shows me how to do all this shit, then i can fire the entire staff of mangomonkeymadnessco and rule my firm of invisible wretched worker drones with an iron fist.

yes, this is real. check it out.

also, for all you folks out there like me who are into lots of weird, obscure music here's a bunch of crazy old thrift store/garage sale record album covers to look at. you're welcome :)

tonight, i went and saw my folks sing a bunch of christmas songs in a choir, as part of this big holiday performance hoo-hah at a civic center out in the suburbs. due to being basically broke and anyway, at the age of thirty, just sick of the whole hype commercial/consumerist side of it all, i'd pretty much been distancing myself from the holidays this year, but going to this show and hearing some old carols and even a few modern but tasteful songs, i actually got to experience some nice, christmasy feelings.
at one point i even closed my eyes and thought of all my friends. then i ran into a guy who was a sysop back in the olden days of the bbs in detroit, before all this world wide web came along, back in the frontier days of online stuff, when men were loud and dorky and women were ratioed one to every 20 or so guys, the rest having the good sense to stay the hell away. his site---which could be of particular interest to anyone involved in the detroit bbs scene from the 80s the early-mid 1990s---can be found here.

boy, is it time to learn some more html besides how to make links to stuff. it's pretty much boy behavior though, i guess: learning to do one dumb little thing you think is really cool, then showing that new thing off ad nauseum. oh well.

approximately two hours ago (about 1am), i did what's known to everyone within two feet of me as a broke guy's beer run. this consists of rounding up every empty bottle or can that used to contain beer or soda (they're worth a dime here in michigan), putting them into the trunk of your car, then driving like the devil's chasing you (current track: "devil with a blue dress on", the slowed down, clappy, storefront-baptist-church-soundin' version, can't remember who does it) to one of those big-ass stores with the automatic bottle and can taker.

note: if you have more than, say, half an hour to do all this, it ain't a broke guy's beer run.
put all those cans and bottles into the taking machines like you're on a game show & the faster you go the more you get paid. push the buttons that poop out the little pieces of paper with how much you have in deposits (i had, like, 9 dollars' worth tonight--wooHOO!), and PUT THEM IN A SAFE POCKET.
now comes the fun part: picking out the beer you want to take home with you. st. pauli girl is smiling seductively at you. i can't think of any other metaphors involving brands of beer, since most of them don't really seem to have any sort of logo that would actually entice you to take them into your arms; it's what's inside those cans or bottles that attracts. though a commercial for mickey's malt liquor where an animated arm with a club in its hand (take a good look at the label some time) comes off the bottle and whacks a guy upside the head after he takes a swig would be pretty cool, not to mention totally appropriate if you've ever gotten soused on the stuff.

but i digress. anyway, you've got your six pack of happiness, now it's time for the not-fun part, ie going through the checkout with it. at most stores of the ilk of the one i visited tonight, it might take you only 5-10 minutes to go in and pick out the things you want, then up to a half hour-45 minutes to wait in line & pay for 'em. i lucked the fuck out tonight: not only was the u-scan dealy open, but the carding process (automatic with u-scan), along with that of handing in my bottle slips, went with nary a hitch, and i was out of the store with a six of dundee's honey brown and a smile on my face with about 10 minutes to spare.

current track: "i'm the face", the high numbers (basically the who before they were named as such)

shout outs to:

tom, who actually mentioned my weblog in conversation and actually bitched that i hadn't updated in some time. hope this suits you.

calix, who also mentioned my weblog in conversation, and whom i was supposed to see at open mic night the last two wednesdays running, but haven't been able to for one reason or another. really hope to see you soon!

katie, who critiqued this blog via email, and to whom i owe a response.

natalie, whose show i hadn't even mentioned going to see, 'cuz i'm a dork.
you see, a few weeks ago, my friend natalie came to town as part of a show featuring the performed art of professionals of the sex industry. the show kicked 31 flavors of ass, especially (and i say this objectively, not just as a friend) natalie's part. can't really plug the recent tour, 'cuz it's over, but please check out the site anyway.
natalie, hope you read this: it was awesome seeing you again.

i'd better either go to bed or go play video games or something. hope your holiday season is going well for you.

love,

me

2002-12-10T02:57:00.000-05:00

much ado about stuffing

hello. there's no real theme to this entry. there probably aren't going to be any links either. i just can't think of any right now. the ones to the left are entertaining as well as informing and more than occasionally disturbing, they ought to suit you for now. if you've seen 'em already, go back and look again; most of them are updated on a fairly regular basis, except for the crazy japanese one and seanbaby, who hasn't changed a thing in almost 6 months cuz he's either (a) a lazy sod, or (b) writing stuff for some sort of e-zine in san francisco and subsequently too goddamned big to remember the people who love to laugh. like i know the guy. what am i, kreskin? go check out his website if you want to, just don't get pissed like i do if you check it out maybe once a week & there's nothing new there.

i could spend this entire entry grousin' about some other guy's website, but i know that's not what you, gentle reader, pay an internet bill to read here. to those of you who are broke or nearly broke or for whatever reason not having regular access to a computer and have to use someone else's to read this:
i love you.
you get extra-special places of honor in jon's mighty marching legion of greatness.

so it's been sort of a productive week. i wired this here room up for cable modemness, with these two bare hands which must be represented by this somewhat meandering string of text which your eyes are following right now.
the period at the end of the preceding sentence, however, is a figment of your imagination and had nothing to do with these bare hands

.

what if their dreams are our reality?
what if their hell is our heaven?
what if it just looks like there's
something under your foot
when you put it out
in front of you?
what if there were no such thing as time
and those who loved you
were still around?
what if this is what they meant when they said 'life'?
what if it's not?

hopefully i'll update again soon. if you enjoyed this just half as much as i did, then i enjoyed it twice as much as you.

2002-11-30T23:20:00.000-05:00

mango monkey boy: portrait of a big ole sap

i just saw the movie 'a.i.' for the second time...first time was in the theatre, and this time, on cable. it's one of those movies that, while not perfect, does merit repeat viewings imo. despite the change of circumstances since i saw it in the theatre (then: impending ending of long-term loving relationship hanging over my head, stuck working at a cruddy job at the mall, probably other things i can't even remember anymore) and despite just plain me thinking it wouldn't happen, the very final scene of this movie saw me blubbering like a little bitch. the whole idea of the little boy wanting to love someone and be loved by them, the whole more-than-anything-in-the-whole-worldness of it all, maudlin and--let's face it--*corny* as it may be, really struck a chord with me, and yes, friends, it made me sad.

one of the major themes in this relatively complex movie is, of course, that of love. i suppose the reason that the scene in question resonates so heavily with me is that it definitely speaks to love's delicate nature; true love can be strong, but often very fragile if not downright fleeting, especially when cross-referenced with the themes of rejection and unrequited emotion, which are also represented in the movie. heavy stuff, and is it just me or does all that stuff seem to be pretty buried in cynicism and most of the people i know these days being so busy running around like a bunch of hamsters in wheels just to make ends meet that not much attention seems to be paid to such things.

relationship? dating? it's plain & obvious that i'm in no shape for any of this these days. being close enough to someone that you can have a nice relationship with them is a fine thing, so is getting laid, but all that stuff seems almost like so much window dressing; the thing i lament the lack of the most these days is the affection. from my experiences over the last year or so, i've been nearly conditioned to the point where i know better than to expect the tunnel to end at all, let alone to hope for there being a light.

of course i love myself. i think once you cut through the blinding amount of bullshit in the way, most people do. why should something so vital require such a herculean amount of effort?

anyway, i was feeling sad, and figured i'd better get it off my chest. thanks for listening.

2002-11-27T17:40:00.000-05:00

much ado about...yeah

this entry is gonna be pretty boring. this entry is pretty much just gonna be a journal entry, nothin fancy.
was supposed to go to open mic tonight, but it got cancelled, due to an anticipated really big crowd down at jacoby's. apparently this is the biggest drinking night of the year...all i know is, i've drinken heavily with the best of 'em in my day and i figured st. patty's for biggest night for that. go figure. so i'm sitting around with the boob tube going (turned it on for 'the simpsons' and now 'that 70s show' has weaseled its way into the room). i learned how to play a bunch of songs on the geetar today, and hopefully i'll have something resembling an aresnal of songs to play and writings to perform by next wednesday. either that or the folks down at jacoby's might have forgotten some of my older crap by then. i'm a winner either way.
i have to say, i really like the crowd that gets together there: it's small, cozy, and friendly, just right for a shaky dude like me who's trying to get comfortable all over again with performing in front of people.

here's a link for you today: no words i'm capable of generating can possibly do justice to this site. enjoy. i'm gonna go get something to eat. later.

2002-11-27T02:55:00.000-05:00

mango monkey boy--UNLEASHED!!!! AH-OOOOOO-GAAAAAH!!

this entry is dedicated to laura (no, not THAT laura...), who came dangerously close to putting me in a frame of mind not conducive to writing words like the following

this entry is also sponsored by the word of the day (i probably won't make a regular thing out of this 'word of the day' stuff, such a thing could force me to be consistent about something--fuck all that) (note:it's 3AM now. the word of the day is ____________. go to bed.)

i was thinking i should throw something down tonight; there's no way a scattery dork like my bad self can actually commit to doing damn near anything once a day, but a few times a week probably shouldn't be too much to ask, unless i somehow get distracted. as anything that can turn this head o' mine from this computer is mighty like a rose (that's an elvis costello reference and if you don't get it, hit yourself in the head right now for being so stupid and uncultured--it's not an obscure lyric from an obscure song of his, it's the title of an entire album of his, for fuck's sake), i guess i don't really have any excuse. earlier, i was trying to get something to work on here, something pretty much basic to being able to get any use out of this here machine and i kept getting the same vaguely-worded error message over and over, and, well..i wound up having a little stretch of good ole, wholseome Angry Time. ohhh, it was beautiful. i've tried to do the round-peg-in-a-round-hole thing and try to, like, channel my energy into a more positive, constructive....geez, i've managed to construct this sentence into a corner into which maybe two words in the english language can be wrangled....way? idiom? idunno. maybe that's why i don't wind up going the whole mystical lentil chakra patchouli hackysack crystal-wearin' route and am, subsequently, not a healthy specimen. in fact, boy oh boy do i have fun yelling and hitting stuff sometimes. i'd pretty much never focus my rage directly upon another human being unless they were a physical threat to me or someone i cared about, but lemme put it this way: another factor in my little one-man rage therapy session today was a cd i tried to play which skipped horribly during the one & only song on there i wanted to hear. i wound up throwing it at the wall over and over again until it was smashed into a bunch of little pieces.
yes, this is extreme behavior. and ya know what?
it felt *great*.
I REPEAT: i would NEVER apply this sort of behavior to another human being unless they threw a punch at me first or something to that effect.

flash forward to tonight (*WHOOSSSHHH!!*). i was letting ideas float into and out of this cranium my brain calls home, when a friend of mine instant-messaged me. we talked about quite a few different things (i was getting ready to write all this crap, and she was working on her own journal at the time), subjects got bandied about, shunted, and re-routed, and we discussed the concept of enjoying your misery, of being really mad but managing to have fun with it, of really getting into rage & expressing it in a relatively harmless (though sometimes symbolically and even literally destructive) way. the idea of a project/writing/thing that i've been tinkering with off and on for some time came bubbling up in my mind like some weird, dark sludge that lurks at the bottom of....hell, let's face it: my mind, namely, sort of a page taken from george carlin, a freeform list of things that annoy me lately, from your mild nuisances up to defcon one, full-on psychotic rage-causing stuff, not necessarily, indeed, necessarily not, in that order. so ARE..YOU...READY to share the hate with your old unky jon? i knew you would! (gentle readers, take note: any real writer of merit is allowed the use of two, maybe three exclamation points over the course of their career. i've just burned one of mine, and in a pretty offhand manner, too. ANARCHY!!!)
but anyway, here we go with

SOME THINGS THAT ARE PISSING ME OFF LATELY

--people who are part of a couple and let their coupleness define them, e.g. people who use internet handles like 'billysgurl24601" or refer to themselves as 'taken'. anyone who presumes on me giving a shit about the fact that you, a total stranger, are in a relationship, loving or otherwise, ought to have cheese graters rubbed across your face nonstop for about a week. the kind that grate the cheese up into really fine little shreds, suitable for tacos. not only that, but i just have to say it: the fact that you're actually cool with the idea of being owned not only disgusts me, it makes you less of a human being in my eyes.

--just about anything on TV these days. i know it's trite to pick on as easy a target as ye olde boob tube, but let me put it this way: I CAN'T SIT THROUGH AN EPISODE OF 'FRIENDS". and i've tried, oh believe me, how i've tried: i actually figured, 'well, this show makes thousands, maybe even (shudder) millions of people laugh every day, surely there's something in it?'. i sat down in front of this swill, and on as many levels as i was capable, prepared myself to somehow enjoy it, and i have to say it, folks,
i just can't do it.

i didn't find ONE FUCKING JOKE even the least bit funny on there, i wanted to strangle every character on there with a 40-year-old pair of gardening gloves that came with the house i live in on my hands, their take on anyone not an empty-headed asshole yuppie type who is somehow able to afford the biggest apartment in manhattan known to man, god, or beast even though they all work in coffeehouses or something, is fascistic, an insult to the mind of even the most slavish couch potato dullard, and will be partly instrumental in the downfall of western civilization. and by the way, if you watch this crap, i guess you can still be my friend as long as you never mention liking it around me, capische? actually, i see a show like 'friends' as part of a bigger problem, and this time it's....

--advertising & media in general that's aimed at the top one percent of people in this society & seems to presume you own two s.u.v.s, a cell phone, a big-ass house in a subdivision, and a bunch of other hi-tech amenities, or that a few thousand dollars to obtain each or any of these items would be as easy for ANY american as letting out a fart. fuck you for trying to make me feel bad about being in the majority of people who can't afford all your consumer goods. if i'm the only guy standing who still has a soul left, i'll be the richest guy i know.

--religious fanatics.
no, not all of you, just the noisy ones who want to make trouble for the rest of us who don't have the same superstitions you do. i blame all of you for the fact that it's coming up on 2003 and we still don't have our jet packs, flying cars, and other cool stuff they promised we'd have by now on 'the jetsons'. are you aware of the fact that your nutty hallucinations or whatever they are are holding the rest of us back? the only thing y'all are good for is sometimes it's funny when some idiot carbon blob newscaster or whoever comes on tv and talks about iraq or afghanistan being a repressive fundamentalist regime, then after that we get treated to pat robertson flapping away about how ours is a christian nation.

--those stupid contests they have in the caps of pop bottles. the ones where you turn the cap over and they tell you what you already knew--that you don't have a million dollars. a certain universally well-known cola beverage has one that says "DRINK [INSERT NAME OF FASCISTIC LITIGIOUS COLA COMPANY WHOSE PRODUCT MAKES HOLES IN YOUR STOMACH LINING *HERE*] PLAY AGAIN"...no, "sorry", no "please...PLAY AGAIN", no "thank you for choosing our product anyway, enjoy it"...nuttin'. attention number one cola company in the world: your cynical attitude towards your own customers is showing. and a lot of us drink your teeth-rotting crap more by habit than by choice.

--potential employers with poor communication skills. what's this 'we'll have your application on file for six months and will contact you IF something comes up' shit? i showed an interest, albeit ostensibly, in flipping your burgers or selling your shoes or mopping your floors, through picking up and putting in an application at your place AND making a follow-up call using MY long-distance time, the least you can do is show some bit of goddamned interest in me as a future employee and LETTING ME KNOW WHETHER YOU WANT ME OR NOT so i can look somewhere else instead of wasting my time waiting for a call from you that never happens? you want me to show you I'm serious about working there? Show me you're serious about wanting someone to do the work. no, mr. boss man, you do NOT hold all the cards in your hand, and your lack of interest in me when trying to work for you could only be a sign of how bad it sucks to work for you in the first place.

i think that's enough for one night. i don't know about you, but i feel better now.
sure, i could pick on horrible top 40 music, politicians, etc., but the human eyes can only take in so much of this stuff. i hope you enjoyed sharing some hate with me, and i'll be back on dd-mm-yyyy with more, hopefully non-hateful but nonetheless cathartic combinations of letters and words for you to gaze upon. and if anything i wrote here pisses you off, write your own 'blog and go off on me. i dare you, you worm.

2002-11-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

the missing link is sleep deprivation

i've been up since 2am...until I'm back at a steady, non-paying-per-assignment job, my awake/asleep schedule is all crazy now like an alice cooper cover. basically i'm forcing myself awake right now until what would be a normal time to go to sleep, most likely a nighttime hour with two digits in it. all of this is in the name of attaining a normal sleep pattern. a mysterious kansan showed me how to do links today, so in return i will immortalize her in link form unless i did it wrong. if so, please don't be mean. that's my first thing i did in html ever. also, earlier i was watching a thing about alien abduction on the sci-fi channel and it gave me the willies. i guess a rant on that whole thing is as good as anything else i could be writing on here, so here goes...

i was watching bits of an interview with a woman who claimed that little people were floating in through her window every night and dragging her out of her house and to some room where they laid her on a table and poked & prodded her with all manner of quasi-medical equipment. now, i was listening to all of this, and one question arose in my head: what the heck would anyone possibly have to gain from making up something like that? the idea that someone would fabricate a story like that just to be on tv is in my opinion easily as interesting as the idea of moon men taking people from their houses and doing things to their butts. if i went on tv and started telling an interviewer something like that, and i thought everybody i knew was watching, i probably wouldn't be able to face about half of 'em again for at least six months, whether it all really happened or not.

the other possibility: these are mentally ill folk claiming all this stuff, and it's all part of a really vivid hallucination. studies have shown that people whose temporal lobes have been electrically stimulated have described states of consciousness comparable to people who claim the abduction experience. the idea of a bunch of people having the same hallucination is pretty interesting too imo. if the whole thing is something going on in the mind, who was the first person ever to see all that stuff?

and then there's possibility #3, the one where there really are beings from the planet arcturus or whatever and they really are coming into people's houses & whisking them away into the night. it's probably the least likely of the three, but the whole thing is pretty crazy from whichever angle you choose to look.

anyway, that's about all i feel like saying right now. hopefully my one link up there works and ushers in a bold new age of bloggage for me, and vicariously, you, the reader. it'll be hugging-the-curves good, i guarantee. maybe i'll even figure out how to put my email address in a little corner of the screen or something & you'll be able to tell me to shut up and stuff.

2002-11-01T16:43:00.000-05:00

HI EVVYBODY and welcome to my humblish little bloggy thing. I'm assuming you're here because you want to have page after page of my writings thrown in your face like some crazy pizza made out of ink and paper (or an invisible one made out of cathode rays) (or even a real one.....mmmm, metaphorical pizza....). Well, look in approximately this spot and before you know it, you'll see lots of little journal entries and poems and stories and things which will serve as a veritable roadmap to this walking enigma, this...puzzle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a sweater that hasn't been washed in a week known as....me. Yes!

Anyway, just to get things started, I'm not going to write a real journal entry today. I don't have to; this *is* my journal entry today. Instead I offer you little greedyheads some haiku:

putting on my coat
cellphone bill was way too high
keypad guard was off.

digging for some change
fritos go for 60 cents
didn't pack a lunch.

checking my email
inbox empty yet again
online dating sucks.

thank you.