it's a good question

And by the way, why is God sending grass fires to Texas?

Update: it's an amusing question, but the column isn't very good. You'll have more fun making up your own witty responses than reading it.

chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time

Those guys that do South Park are seriously going straight to hell. Before this, I thought the most appalling (AKA the funniest) episode was one that X and I watched on Christmas Eve, which contained:

1. Cute talking woodland animals that seemed harmless but which actually were protecting a porcupine pregnant with the spawn of Satan.

2. Stan taking three mountain lion cubs to a clinic so they could learn how to perform abortions.

3. Santa Claus shotgunning said woodland animals into bloody chunks.

4. The three mountain lion cubs performing an anal abortion on Stan after he becomes "impregnated" with the porcupine-born spawn of Satan, which needed a human host to execute its diabolical plan to take over the world.

But no - I guess a statue of the Virgin Mary hailed as a miracle when it starts bleeding from its ass (it turns out to be from the vagina) takes the cake. If by cake you mean a train ticket to hell.

well, the chicken is officially good

This picture didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but with a cell phone camera you can't be too picky.

The license plate on the car is from the federal government - to the left of the license plate number it lists what I think is a civil service classification. Below the license plate it says "for official use only."

So why did I take the photo? Because it was in the drive-through lane at Popeye's. And yes, I will be seriously macking the shit out of that chicken here in a little while.

turns out they didn't just wander off

the gay in gaylord

Well, I hope all six of you are fully recovered from your Christmas activities.

We had a good time here - X was home for a long weekend, starting Thursday night and lasting until yesterday, which is a relatively long holiday break for him.

I went with him to do some of his last-minute Christmas shopping on Friday. While we were out, we stopped at the Gaylord Texan, a hotel/conference center that opened in Grapevine about a year ago. I hadn't seen it before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The place is definitely based on the "bigger is better, and more is more" school of architecture. The hotel's website says, "the magnificent Gaylord Texan pays tribute to everything Texas as only Texas can: on a grand scale," which is true enough, although it would have been more accurate to say "everything Texas as only Sigfried and Roy can."

Translated from Marketingese, this means: a gigantic glass atrium (very Texan in itself, except, you know, NOT AT ALL), enclosing a full-scale facade of the Alamo, a (real) river, real (taxidermied AND animatronic) cattle, and cactus - all festooned with twinkling lights, holiday glitter, and fanny-packed tourists taking pictures.

You know - authentic.

I had an odd love/hate reaction to the whole thing. It was so big and Vegas-y and cruise ship-y that I was completely creeped out. On the other hand, I kind of admired the scale of the thing too. It's like: a Gucci handbag is ugly. But! Painting an entire house in Gucci stripes? Inspired!

on, comet! on cupid! on, donder and rictus!

Merry Christmas, kiddies! Santa brought you a big bag of emotional scarring this year!

Photo from Zug.

the centrist

dV is a Social Liberal (61% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (65% permissive) dV is best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

i do like her dog, though

I went out of town on business last week. As usual, the trip had its upsides and downsides.

Upsides: staying in a beautiful hotel, eating at amazing restaurants, and drinking great wine. (All three, by the way, I'm unlikely to do on my own since I really don't have that kind of money. If the week had been a personal vacation, it would have cost several thousand dollars. Pretty cool to have my company pay for it instead, and I appreciate that part of it.)

Downsides: extremely long days - meetings starting at seven in the morning and ending after the mandatory business dinner around 10. No alone time whatsoever. And the people I work with. My god, the people I work with.

I also got into a fight with my boss. I like her a lot, but sometimes she drives me absolutely crazy. Background: I recently got a promotion, but with the caveat that I would have to continue doing a part of my prior job along with my new one. She and I sat down with a list of my projects and together, we identified several things that someone else would start doing instead.

But on this trip, during a meeting, she blithely announced, with no apparent forethought, that she had changed her mind and that she wanted me to keep two of the more knotty projects after all.

I didn't say anything right away, but instead began to stew. I'm nervous enough about this new gig as it is. If I have to keep doing every goddamned thing I was doing in the old role AND do the new job at the same time, the top of my head will blow off.

So anyway, after the meeting, perhaps noticing the prominent veins now bulging out of my forehead, she asked me if I was OK. This prompted a sarcastic retort on my part, which culminated in the following angry exchange:

Her: Why do you ALWAYS go to the negative?!
Me: Maybe you didn't POSITION it very well! Did you ever think of THAT?


Then she stormed out to go walk her dog, which normally accompanies her on these business trips.

Fortunately (for me) we shortly smoothed things over. She's had screaming matches with every member of the management team at one point or another, but she comes from a hot-tempered Boston Italian family and doesn't hold grudges. Or so I'm told. If I go in tomorrow and find out I'm fired I'll let you know.

the natural conversationalist

I had to go to my grandboss' house last night for a holiday party. I was dreading it for the usual reason: party small talk. But this time I had a secret weapon.

I've been reading a book about introverts. (If you think introversion is the same as shyness or low self-esteem, go read this. After reading it, you will understand me a lot better.)

One of the suggestions in the book to help get through parties painlessly is to prepare notecards with conversational topics. This helps prevent that "too many people" sensation that comes over me when I'm overstimulated. My mind goes blank and I can't think of a single thing to say, so I cover by giving icy stares to everyone and end up with a reputation of being a snob. So I went to Google News right before the party and wrote out a list of topics that I wanted to remember:

1. Tookie Williams - will the Gropenfürher give him clemency or not?
2. Joe Lieberman - principled Democrat or just angling for the SecDef job?
3. Darren Clarke takes the lead in the Target World Challenge. This is golf-related, if you didn't know. I didn't know until yesterday.
4. The Chronicles of Narnia - harmless kid fantasy, or sinister religious wingnut propaganda?
5. La morte de Richard Pryor.

And you know what? It worked! About 10 minutes in to the party, I found myself talking to the husband of a woman I work with.

Me: Have you been keeping up with the Target World Challenge?
Him: A little bit. The last time I checked, [name forgotten] was ahead.
Me: Actually, he was, but today, Darren Clarke shot a 63 and moved into the lead. Which is pretty impressive considering his wife has cancer. (She really does. I know that sounds like a tidbit I would just throw in because I'm evil, but it's true.)

Can you believe it? Me! Talking golf!

don't be a douche, what would jesus do?

I'll tell you what: he'd say "give the Jew girl toys!" Sarah Silverman is a genius.

Best line:
what do you have to do with Jesus?/
you have as much to do with Him/
as you do your mother's penis

may 26, 2006

X should go ahead and request the day off. Just sayin'.

this happens to me all too often

a dick of dust and gas

And here I was, all set to regale you with tales of snake-handling goodness, when the newspaper comes along and distracts my attention with these two shiny baubles:



Is this a typo, or did I just learn a new space term? Does a "dick of dust and gas" go down easier with astroglide?

Ick. I just grossed myself out.

Anyhow, here's the other thing:



This is the kind of statement (circled - you can see it full-size if you click on it - and jeez, after that last gag everything I write sounds dirty; click it to make it grow, hee hee) that makes me crazy. I don't know why, but I'm still surprised when this prissy aunt of a presidency does something like this - so overt in it's relentless busybodying.

"You can always turn the television off and of course block the channels you don't want," says Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman, "but why should you have to?" Does the government think we're so helplessly inert that we can't exercise choices anymore? Or is it that they don't trust our judgement? Put another way: "You could exercise free will, but why should you? Uncle Suck will do it for you!" And naturally, it's all in the name of "children." I am so goddamned tired of children and Uncle Suck fucking up my fun.

Listen: I like obscenity! And profanity! And sex! That's almost the whole reason I watch TV! If the goddamned fucking breeders are too stupid to haul their lazy asses off the couch and turn the channel then they deserve their children turning into zitty, Skittles-crazed, goat-humping Cartmans. Fuck 'em, that's what I say.

Sheesh. Lorne is right. I do need to join Militia Etheridge.

sick! and crazy!

I wasn't going to write about my stepbrother's wedding, but then the Vatican comes out today (oh, the pun was SO intended) and gives me an out by explaining that I'm sick and crazy, so I figure I have an excuse to be bad.

So gay folks can't be priests. Whatever. I think the church should be able to make whatever rules it wants regarding who can be a priest. What worries me is that Ratzinger also said in 1992, via his superfun CDF (Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith - the organization he ran before he was Pope) that "homosexual orientation is an objective disorder" and that although "among other rights, all persons have the right to work, to housing, etc...these rights are not absolute. They can be legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct. This is sometimes not only licit but obligatory. This would obtain moreover not only in the case of culpable behavior but even in the case of actions of the physically or mentally ill. Thus it is accepted that the state may restrict the exercise of rights, for example, in the case of contagious or mentally ill persons, in order to protect the common good." This, by the way, is a direct quote from the equivalent of a voter's guide.

Get that? It's just like we're sick, see! And crazy! And why stop with the priesthood when you can heal the whole society? After all, it's for the common good!

Pah. Tired now. I'll write about the Pentecostal wedding tomorrow.

do you want to go to the funeral or the new harry potter?

Sometimes the algorithm monkeys that run Google News get things a little messed up.

juicebox

X told me that he was in the next Strokes video, but I didn't believe him.

this would be funny if i had made it up

...and even funnier if it weren't true.

a cringing child makes up for a lot

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

like that, only sadder

X and I went with Lorne to see a couple of bands at Hailey's on Saturday. Actually there were four, although we saw only three.

First up: Porcelain, a band you could charitably describe as excreable, unless you're a big fan of Creed and Jars of Clay, in which case you're stupid.

Next was the Lovemakers, a band from Oakland. They were extremely fun - not doing anything especially original, but having a blast playing really good electroclash-y post-punk and new wave.

Finally, Veruca Salt. Poor Veruca. You know, if Kurt Cobain hadn't brushed his teeth with a shotgun, but instead had gotten old and fat, and then disappeared for years, and no one cared, but still made a comeback album and toured tiny venues all over the U.S., playing the exact same grunge that he was playing in 1991, that would have been really sad. Sort of like Veruca Salt was sad, only sadder since Nirvana was great and Veruca Salt sucked.

possum vortex

X emailed the following (true) story to my mother today as a postscript to a heated exchange over whether Florida's new law allowing a person to shoot anyone who looks at them wrong is a good idea. Mom took the view that it's a terrible idea; X's opinion is that it will encourage everyone to be extra polite, like Miss Manners with a .45.

P.S. - Have you heard from dV today? If so, did he tell you about the visitor we had in the house last night about 10?

dV was closing windows back here in the office when Leo starts getting wiggy and excited, sniffing and scratching around behind this little guitar amp, next to the office filing cabinet with the fish tank on top.

Then we hear moaning.

Real steady, soft moaning. From behind the guitar amp.

dV looks, and it's a flipping baby possum. Maybe eight inches from tip of his snout to the beginning of his tail, and maybe 13-14 inches total. He is not happy, probably because the lights are now on and dV's is now shrieking "Possum!" (dV is not happy either.)

So after taking a couple of quick pictures and after locking Leo in another room, I've gathered gear: One fairly large net, normally used to retrieve dead fish from the tank, one shoe-sized Tupperware (TM) storage box, and one large bath towel. The hunt is on.

Naturally, as soon as dV goes after him, the possum squeezes behind the filing cabinet, which was last moved during the Clinton Administration. So I move it. Now he scurries out the other side, but as soon as he spies the net, he's back behind the cabinet. Finally he comes out the other side again, at which time dV nets the the now hissing little bastard, and between the two of us, we get him in the shoebox, snap on a lid, take him out back behind the garage, and release him. But not before he craps in my storage box.

I named him Petey, and I just can't for the life of me figure out how he got in the house. In 11 years here, we've only seen possums twice, both in the past couple of years: one night we surprised one rooting in a bag of garbage as we pulled into the garage, and the other time just the other night, when dV ran across TWO of the things frolicking in the front flower beds. Until he put a flashlight on them - at which point they hissed and charge him - he thought they were just really happy cats.

So, do you or Wayne have any expertise here? Like: A) How *do* possums get in a house, AND B) Is this website correct? Is the only way to get rid of them really just to call professional animal trappers? ("Uh, yes ma'am I realize we live in the city, but I need to hire a rofessional trapper.")

He was a cute little feller though.

For Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, this is...

X

sorry, did i wake you?

Occasionally, I have nightmares. Sometimes, they wake X up. Such as, for instance, when I started screaming my head off at about three in the morning last night. Here's how it went:

Me: Ah! AH! AAAAAUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!
X: Jesus Christ! Wake up!

i am mother nature, and you are not to fuck with me

Last night, when I got home from a (very) late night at work, I changed into the usual shorts, t-shirt, and sandals (mules, as Lorne calls them) and went out onto the front porch with a glass of wine. It was already dark.

After sitting there for a few minutes I heard a rustling coming from the bushes in the flower bed in front of the porch. I should explain that our white-trash neighbors make it a habit of feeding every feral cat in the neighborhood, which is a nice symbiotic relationship for them, what with all the vermin they must harbor - they get pest control and the cats get food. Over the years, the feral cats have bred feral kittens, and now you can hardly pull into my driveway at night without having to slow down (or speed up, in X's case) for the slinking shadows darting around.

So I assumed the rustling was coming from cats busily trying to fill the flowerbed with poop and hairballs, as is their wont. I got up and leaned over the porch and hissed "scat!" and two shapes took off. But instead of running across the street like they usually do, they ran down my driveway and into my back yard.

This pissed me off. It's bad enough that X and I occasionally have to clean up ripped-open garbage bags and frequently have to wipe pawprints off our windshields - no, now the bastards think they can reach safe haven in my garage! It was just too much.

I gave chase, following the cats into the backyard. Suddenly, both of them reversed themselves and came running back at me. I kicked out at one of them, sending my sandal flying deep into some nearby bushes.

Surprisingly, they didn't break and run. Instead, both of them stopped and started emitting a very strange hissing, moaning, snapping noise. And then they started advancing slowly at me.

Just then, the moon came out from behind a cloud and I could see that these creatures I was doing battle with weren't cats at all, but a pair of very large, pissed off opossums. And I'm standing there like an ass, wearing one sandal, standing in a gravel driveway, about to get mauled.

It's funny the way the mind works. I think I read somewhere that when faced with an agressive animal, the best advice is to make yourself look as big as possible and to make a lot of noise. It seems like maybe I read that about bears right before I went to Wyoming a couple of years ago, and it came right back to me, although I only got it half right; I screamed, waved my arms, and ran like a girl.

but i don't want to smell like a black magic woman

And here I was, thinking that Britney Spears' cheetos-and-red-bull inspired perfume was going too far. It turns out that there is, in fact, something even worse. What must this smell like? Is it inspired by his classic A-1 Funk? Or Chunk a Funk?

ACHell

The Dallas Morning News (link, registration required) provided an excellent reminder this morning of why X and I didn't go to ACL this year:

The hot, dry conditions caused a huge cloud of dust to gather in the air every day. It wasn't that noticeable until it got dark, and then it was hard to see anything over 6 feet away. We're still thankful for the wind, but we could have done without the dust.

Yeah. Either dust or, as I preferred to think of it, microscopic particles of hippie stink. Last year it was the same thing. When we got back I developed a wicked sinus infection and spent days sneezing patchouli-tinged pus out of my nose. And there was this:

The Austin City Limits Music Festival ended Sunday with the hottest day in its history. At 104 degrees, it felt like the hottest day ever . Seriously. We should be in the medical tent right now.

Exactly. See, on my best day, I have a low tolerance for being around sixty or seventy thousand of my fellow human beings. If it's 104 degrees outside, it's not my best day. Sooner or later, maybe the ACL organizers will get a clue and move the freaking thing to October, UT football be damned.

punk from O.C. threatens L.A., melbourne

This morning, Drudge had a big headline reading "New Tape Threatens Attacks on Los Angeles." I clicked on the link and was taken to an ABC News story that describes the tape's contents; really, just the usual Al-Qaeda claptrap, written as if they have a terror communique checklist of some kind:

1. Warnings about burning lakes of fire? Check.
2. Gratuitous use of 'infidel?' Check.
3. Scary ay-rab in a turban and identity-cloaking mask? Uh, no.

No, it turns out that this masked muslim is none other than Adam Gadahn of Orange County, California, who until recently was "a southern California teenager with interests in the environment and heavy metal music."

I did a little more research and found his "manifesto" posted on a USC website, in which he says, (ironically, one assumes) that "Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be."

Anyhow, reading his post, I decided not to get all worked up about the threat level. Although I have to say, it is a grim reminder of the dangers that goat farming, home-schooling, and heavy metal pose to our children.

(un)intelligent design

This is why I can't always dislike John Derbyshire: he sometimes talks good sense.

if you had killed yourself

Someone really enjoyed the Killers concert at Stubbs BBQ last night.

quit geezering me

I came home from Grandma's today and asked X a question.

"Do I have a sign on my head?"
"What happened?"
"Or a label on my shirt?"
"Yes," he said, pointing.
"Not that one," I replied. "That one doesn't say 'Hey! Are you eighty thousand years old? Maybe you should hobble over and ask me for help!' "
"So what happened?"

What happened was that when my grandmother and I were in the checkout line at the store, she realized that she had forgotten something. I left her in line and ran back to the frozen vegetables. As I was standing there looking for whatever it was, a quavering voice spoke up next to me.

"Excuse me!"

I ignored her at first. I wasn't trying to be an asshole, I was just hoping she was talking to someone else, even though I knew it would be me she wanted something from.

"Excuse me? Young man?" And this time she started clutching at my sleeve.
Giving up, I turned and said hello and yes.
"Do you see those sugar free fudge pops? I can't reach them. Can you get a box of those for me?"

It only took 10 seconds to help her, but that wasn't the point. The point is that this happens all the time. X says it's because I look trustworthy, but I think that I must carry around a scent like a mixture of rose water, geritol and camphor. That must be how they find me.

magic numbers

Some new music today: The Magic Numbers. From their biography:

Drawing inspiration from many sources, singer songwriters (Cohen, Dylan), 60's harmony groups (Mamas & Papas, Lovin Spoonful), epic rock or such mavericks as David Axelrod. The band craft a sound which like Flaming Lips or Beck, is coming from everywhere but is uniquely theirs.

3.5 stars out of 5 - interesting hippy indie psycho-pop with loose morals.

c.r.i.b.f. will be at rubber gloves this weekend

Props to Cordelia for sending this story from the Associated Press:

CHICAGO - LaChania Govan said she got bounced around by her cable company when she called to complain. She made dozens of calls and was even transferred to a person who spoke Spanish — a language she doesn't understand.

But when she got her August bill from Comcast she had no trouble understanding she'd made somebody mad. It was addressed to "Bitch Dog."

"I was like you got to be freaking kidding me," said Govan, 25. "I was so mad I couldn't even cuss."

Holy cow that's funny. On the other hand, if LaChania ever decides to start a punk rock band she's already got a perfect name. You know, if I ever seriously piss off someone at Cingular, I'll probably get something addressed to Controlling Rigid Icy Bitch Fag, which coincidentally is also X's nickname for me.

their market share among the hell-bound would explode

You know that series of Geico commercials that spoofs other TV commercials? They often run them back to back to lull the viewer into a false sense that the last one was fake, so this one can't be - d'oh! It's fake too! Kinda brilliant, actually.

So last night I was watching TV with X and two Geico commercials came on. First was the fake Hair Club for Men (regrowing hair may help you get the girls, but it won't save you 15% on car insurance!) which was immediately followed by the fake Old Navy (new clothes are fun! but they won't save you 15% on car insurance!).

Right after that, though, came one of those commercials to help save the starving children in Africa. Extreme closeups of doe-eyed kids, trembling with hunger, exhortations that only $0.50 a day can save lives, etc. But all I could think about was how Geico should turn this into one of their gotcha! commercials. I can see it now: Saving a child from starvation sure feels good, but it won't save you 15% on car insurance!

X assures me that I am going straight to hell.

hefty

Can I just quickly share a pet peeve with you?

I hate it when I go to the store for paper towels and then, when I get home, realize that I have purchased the special Brawny Ducks & Bunnies edition. Or, worse, that my paper towels are emblazoned with horrid children with impossibly large eyes, á la Hummel Fucking Figurines. The only thing that makes such an experience worthwhile is that X hates it even more than I do - which, I have to be honest, has occasionally led me to buy some accidentally-on-purpose. As a result, I have gotten into the habit of carefully checking paper towels before putting them into the cart.

However, I have to say that I never even thought about taking the same precautions with ziploc bags - until now.

Behold:



hefty
Originally uploaded by dentonisavortex.

immune to your boobies

In my last post, I talked about a business meeting we had last week. One of my responsibilities at the meeting, aside from being mocked over my midget fetish, was to sit on a judging panel for a competition we'd set up for our employees. (Let me just say here that I have my weaknesses, but if you want me to sit in judgement of someone else, I am the MAN.)

So I was one of three judges on this panel. One of the other judges and I agreed that the winner was this lady from Chicago, although the third judge argued strongly that another contestant, a guy from San Diego, had won. There was some serious cash at stake so we were taking the whole thing pretty seriously.

It turned out to be a controversial decision - we had given the top prize to a relatively inexperienced newcomer over a top-performing veteran - but I didn't really care; listing to San Diego was like sitting though a high-school debate. And not even Lincoln-Douglas, more like Cross-Ex. (Geek alert.)

Anyhow - today at work, I had a meeting with San Diego's manager, who, not surprisingly, felt that we had made the wrong decision. That's understandable - he should be sticking up for his employee. But his explanation for our choice was hilarious: "Admit it - you were mesmerized by her tits."

Er, no, actually. I am totally immune to the siren song of the great rack. Although I admit that if she had competed wearing a yellow catsuit with black racing stripes, wielding a Hattori Hanzo sword, I might have left DNA all over the floor.

technically this is called nanophilia

Like many people, I have a few phobias: clowns, monkeys, spiders, the usual. The only thing I'm afraid of that some people find strange is midgets. Not reasonable, I know, but there you are.

A couple of weeks ago during a staff meeting, we were having a conversation about the new Willy Wonka movie and when talk turned to the Oompa Loompas, I mentioned this fear just in passing. The conversation moved on and I promptly forgot all about it.

I should have known better.

This week, my department was having a national meeting at a swank hotel in town. I had to give a presentation on Thursday to talk about a new piece of technology we just rolled out. Walking into the room, I was all ready to go. But before I could even open my mouth, a guy I call Gomer McTurnip drawled out, "Hey. I hear you have a midget fetish."

He meant "phobia" but it was too late; this is just what I need - a reputation that I like to have sex with wee people.

live 8, the easy way

Here's a handy list of links to every Live 8 performance, if you missed it (and really, who didn't? I mean, debt relief? Yawn.)

i can't think of a single thing to say

What. The. Fuck.

flip your brisket

A couple of weeks ago I found a recipe for a jerk-marinated brisket that sounded really good. (Jerk, in case you're interested, is an intensely spicy Jamaican spice rub.) So I stopped on my way home from work that day and picked up the ingredients, and then when I got home, I made the marinade, added the brisket, and put it into the refridgerator overnight. X happily volunteered to put it in the oven the next afternoon (it takes several hours to cook).

The next day I called him at lunch to review the directions of what he needed to do - nothing complicated, just searing the brisket in a pan and then putting it in the oven at a low temperature. Then I went to a meeting.

I came back from the meeting a couple of hours later to find that X had left two text messages on my phone.

"Call me re: brisket."
"Please call. Need help with brisket."

Let me translate this from X (highly restrained, very manly) into dV (overdramatic):

"Holy fucking shit! GodDAMNit!"

I gave him a call. It turns out that I forgot to mention an important step in the process: scraping off as much of the marinade as possible before searing the meat. This is important, because I added six habanero peppers, the hottest peppers ever, to the jerk. Do you know what happens when you add pureed habaneros to a smoking hot skillet? It turns into tear gas.

Evidently, as soon as the meat hit the skillet, a huge noxious cloud filled the house with choking fumes. X had to evacuate himself and the dogs to escape certain death. He was still coughing hours later when I got home from work.

worst. video. ever.

I hope Nancy Sinatra rips her head off and pours bleach down her neck.

the victim card

There was a story in the Dallas Morning News this morning about all the hubbub surrounding Governor Rick Perry's decision to use a Fort Worth church/school as a venue to sign legislation requiring girls under 18 to obtain written parental consent before obtaining an abortion. While he was there, just for good measure, he also "signed" legislation placing a ban on gay marraige and civil unions on the ballot this fall (no gubernatorial signature is required to put this on the ballot, BTW, he just wanted to make a point).

The left is all up in arms over this, going on about the separation of church and state, but personally, I don't have a problem with it - Democrats can and should do the same thing when they want to draw attention to victories on issues that are important to the left: helping the poor, for instance, is both a traditional Christian value and a Democratic one. My mother, who is somewhere to the left of Edward Kennedy, attends church every Sunday and would absolutely kill anyone who tried to tell her that you can't be a Democrat and a good Christian. Well, maybe not kill. But she would certainly wag her finger quite sternly.

There were a couple of interesting quotes in this piece, however. Governor Perry, defending his choice of venue, said, "We may be on the grounds of a Christian school today, but our message speaks to all who believe in standing up for the unborn, all who cherish strong, traditional families, regardless or party, ethnicity, or creed. We're here because a quiet majority decided to have their voices heard. We could be doing this at a parking lot at Wal-Mart."

Wal-Mart? Really? I doubt that even Wal-Mart would be so stupid as to allow themselves to be used in that way. A major corporation allowing themselves to be used to promote one side of a divisive issue? You've got to be kidding me. It's profits uber alles for those guys. Also - regardless or ethnicity? Sorry, dude: I saw the picture in the paper and it was strictly Wonder Bread in there.

The other quote was even better. Tony Perkins, who runs the Family Research Council, attended the event to "encourage Christians to re-establish a presence in the public sphere. 'The issue here is intolerance against Christians in America who simply want their voices to be heard.' he said."

Are you fucking kidding me?

First of all, there are some parts of the world where intolerance against Christians is real. A Christian in China or Indonesia or Iraq would be able to tell Tony a thing or two about intolerance, involving prison, torture, or worse. Second, you don't simply want your voice to be heard. You want to give discrimination and bigotry the force of law over a group of people you don't like. Finally, "re-establish a presence"? Listen:

YOU ALREADY CONTROL FUCKING EVERYTHING.

Anyone else sick to death of the religious right acting like victims?

your fun sucks

Last night, Lorne and I went to Hailey's to see a couple of bands and a local DJ.

Faux Fox, the opener, sound like a combination of Devo and Interpol. I think it must have been awhile since they played because it took several false starts before they were actually ready. Once they got going, however, they whipped the PDA real good, yo. (That would be a good mash-up, come to think of it.)

Setups and breaks between shows were spun by the Lady of Sixties Psychedelia, DJ Wild in the Streets, who is FABULOUS. She spins all kinds of vintage freaksoulpopbollywood stuff that makes you want to pogo with joy. If I ever have a really awesome party, I hope she provides the music.

The main act was a group called Stereo Total, a French/German disco duo who sound like Puffy Ami Yumi+I Am The World Trade Center, except, you know, en francais. They were amazing - one of those bands who, when they start, you think "yeah, they're alright," except within a few songs you realize that you're grinning from ear to ear and it isn't just the Sierra Nevada talking. I don't think I've ever seen a band performing at Hailey's get such a reception - the crowd demanded, and got, three encores, and then at the end, 20 or 30 people rushed the stage and danced with the band, looking a lot like the scene in the Peanuts Christmas Special, except, you know, disco. Really, really fun.

X is based in Austin this summer, and he's been taking great delight in reminding me, at every opportunity, of how much fun he's having down there - for example, sending me a picture of a Maudie's Straight Plate (two beef enchiladas, covered in chile con carne and queso, topped by two fried eggs - the best thing you'll ever eat, basura blanca or not) from his cell phone camera. Last night, he tried again, calling to tell me that he and the Dark Lady were at the G&S lounge having fun, but this time, I was all like, blah blah blah dude - your fun sucks. Mine rocks.

high school was a vortex

highschool
Originally uploaded by dentonisavortex.

I didn't want to fuck her or anything, okay?

Also, I don't remember what the vomit comment was about. How sad; that seems like something I would have enjoyed.

wow. bold.

bold_offensive
Originally uploaded by dentonisavortex.

It was a banner day for stupid headlines in the Dallas Morning News today. The "bold offensive" amounts to running ads on TV. (I thought at first that if I kept reading, they'd get to something really bold, like mailing postcards to every hippie in Denton telling them that they'd won a years supply of free pot, and then when the poor little patchoulis showed up to collect, shanghaing them straight to Fort Hood. But no - it's just advertising.)

Wow! Advertising! That's the boldest offensive since Coke declared war on thirst!

deliver me from stupid

deliver
Originally uploaded by dentonisavortex.

"Well, we didn't get school finance reform done, or property tax reform done, or fix Robin Hood either, but by hell! We sure socked it to those faggots, didn't we, boys! Yee Haw!"

"Plus, we're still killin' retards! Let's head over to the Chili Parlor and celebrate with a roller-skatin' whore!"

i'll take my chances

At the Cupboard today I noticed a guy setting up a stand next to the cash registers and then icing them down. I wandered over to take a look and they had a special going on this new brand of beef - organic grass-fed steaks from a local farm specializing in free-range happy cows. According to the label, instead of slaughtering them when they get old enough, they just wait for them to die of old age, whereupon a wicca priestess performs a ritual blessing before the carcass is turned into dinner. I started to move on when a woman sidled up next to me.

She was an aging librarian/folk singer type - really long hair done up in a knot on top of her head, huge round bifocal glasses, and a Holly Hobby dress.

"Oh, good!" she exclaimed, fingering a T-bone.

I looked at her, which was all the encouragement she needed.

"I have a friend with mad cow disease! She's lying in a coma right now!"

"Er, is that right? I'm sorry to hear it."

"Yes, it's terrible! She's been in bed for months unable to speak. She ate beef!"

Quod erat demonstrandum, I guess. But she wasn't done:

"And she ate it right here," (dramatic pause) "in Denton! Somewhere!"

And with that, I paid for my groceries and went straight to Kroger, where I picked up some ribeyes. They're marinating right now in a pineapple-chipotle-garlic puree, and in a couple of hours they're going to be awesome.

you're so nice i want to hurt you

I took my grandmother to lunch today at Good Eats, a Black-Eyed Peaish place by the outlet mall. X and I used to go there every once in a while, but then trickled off and stopped for a long time. Anyway, if you're in the mood for chicken fried steak, it's serviceable.

Speaking of which, why is it that chicken fried steak always seems like a better idea than it really is? Like hot fudge sundaes and going to Chili's, It's one of those things where satisfying the craving is nowhere near as good as the craving itself.

Anyhow, our waitress was uber-irritating. You know how some people are so meek and submissive that it makes you want to be extra mean to them? This girl was like that. Every time she came to the table, she started off by apologizing. And not for anything in particular, it was just her verbal tic - the way some people constantly say "you know," you know? Plus she came by to tell us she was sorry/ask if we were doing OK way too much. By the end of the meal I wanted to smack her.

i heart martyrs

Friday morning, X took his life into his own hands by waking me up. (It was only 10:30 A.M., so climb off my ass.) He stood there for a few minutes with the phone in his hand and poked at me. Unresponsive in my blackout mask and earplugs, he finally reached down and pulled my mask off. Bleary, I pulled out one earplug.

"Your grandmother is on the phone, " he said.

"What does she want?"

"I don't know."

I took the phone and said hello.

"I'm sorry to bother you."

"It's OK." I added, somewhat maliciously, "I was just sleeping."

"Oh," she gulped, making me regret the remark instantly.

"What's up?"

"My tooth is bothering me."

"Do you need me to make an appointment with a dentist?"

"Yes, please."

"Okay. Let me find one and I'll call you back in a little while."

My grandmother is excellent at being a martyr, which makes me furious. Let's go back in time two weeks, shall we? That's how long ago it was when she first told me that she had a toothache, and is also when I offered to make an appointment for her. At the time, she said no, because "It's not that bad and besides, it will probably go away."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

So now, instead of taking some time to find a good dentist who had a lot of experience dealing with the elderly, my sole criteria was to find a dentist, any dentist, who would see a patient in the next few hours. In case you're wondering, that means Monarch Dental. At the mall. Which is a lot like Homer scheduling heart bypass surgery at Dr. Nick Riviera's late night clinic on the bad side of town.

I hopped in my rented Ford Freestar minivan (my car was in the shop for the day) and go get her. The dentist's office is awful; in addition to the usual intensely bright fluorescent lights, the exam rooms are filthy and strewn with trash. Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. In the room they put my grandmother in, there was a poster on the wall advertising laser teeth whitening. One of the thumbtacks (!) holding it up had fallen out, so it hung askew at a strange diagonal. There was also a Crest toothpaste ad lying on the floor by the foot of the exam chair. Maybe this seems minor to you, but listen: it would have taken so little effort to pick that shit up, yet they didn't. What else can they not be bothered to do?

Fortunately, the exam was brief. They took a couple of x-rays and a dentist came in to take a look at her mouth. She had an infection and the teeth needed to be pulled, which requires an oral surgeon. "The best thing I can do for you today is to give you a prescription for an antibiotic and a painkiller," said Dr. Toosi. "Then after the infection is clear we'll have you back in to have those teeth out."

Like hell you will, I thought. We'll find something a little less third world, if that's all right with you. But thanks for the pain pills.

Speaking of the pain pills, dude! On the way to the pharmacy, I asked, "Grandma, have you ever taken Vicodin?"

"No, I don't think so."

"You'll love them. They make you ROCK OUT WITH YOUR COCK OUT!"

"What?"

"Nothing."

hell's soundtrack

Do you suppose that there's music playing in hell? You know, while Satan is poking you with his pitchfork and your feet are in a pit of lava? If there is, I think it must sound like this.

the next cracker

I'm not sure if I should worry about this, so I thought I'd run it by you.

At work today, I went into the bathroom to go #1. A guy came in a second later and took the next urinal over. (By the way, can I ask? What is the deal with that? If there are 18 urinals, and all of them are empty but mine, then sure as shit the next cracker in the door will come stand next to me.)

Right away, he starts muttering to himself. I thought at first that maybe he was talking to me, but it soon became clear that he wasn't - he clearly said "Oh, no" a couple of times, and maybe "fuck" although I can't be sure. Then, in the midst of all the crazy flakes, he starts emitting these little gasps of pain every couple of seconds.

Well, that was it for me. I wasn't actually through, but I sealed up like a fist and it was useless to try to continue in that state of affairs. I left as fast as I could.

So anyway - what the hell was wrong with him? It sounded like he was trying to pass a gallstone, or like maybe he had syphills - the bad kind, the kind where shit rots off. I went and mentioned it to his boss, and got a knowing wink - apparently this is some kind of pattern.

do the hustle

X and I saw Kung Fu Hustle last night, and it's great. It's like if you mixed Kill Bill with West Side Story and Who Framed Roger Rabbit - really really fun. It's basically an homage to the genre that also spoofs some big American films, like Spider-Man and The Matrix.

The basic story takes place in a filthy Shanghai slum called Pig Sty Alley. The residents are being menaced by the Axe Gang after they successfully fought off a shakedown attempt. It turns out that Pig Sty is full of retired martial arts legends, including a noodle maker who is an expert pole fighter and a gay tailor who dons iron wristbands to administer a serious ass-whipping.

The best, though, are the Landlady and her hen-pecked husband. The Landlady is a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking harridan with ever-present curlers in her hair. In addition to being a Kung Fu master, she also uses the Lions Roar, a sonic scream that can shatter concrete. Her husband, in a really clever bit on how he has survived his wife's abuse, can evade or deflect almost any blow - and those that connect usually bounce off.

The rest of the plot is mostly senseless - it involves an unexpected savior called "The One" and an insane assassin called "The Beast" in a final showdown. But the whole film is handled with such glee and style that you won't stop grinning the whole time.

In other news, my friend Lorne is about to graduate UNT's art program, and he had several pieces in a watercolor show that we saw last night. In all, something like twelve students had pieces on display. His were, by far, the best. I'm no art critic, but in both subject and technique, there was nothing better. Woo, Lorne!

the one about the car

I bought a new car a few weeks ago, and like all new car owners, I'm a little overprotective. You know how the first time you see a ding in the otherwise immaculate paint and you pee yourself in rage? Yeah, like that.

Anyhow, it was the first week I had it, and I had some new CDs in the car. X got home from a trip and asked if he could go get them out of my car and rip them onto the computer. I said sure.

A little later, we were getting ready to go out to dinner. I drove, because - you know - showing off and all. I get in, he gets in. I stick the key in the ignition, and it won't turn.

I look over at him in the passenger seat. "What did you do to my car?"

"Nothing, why?"

"The key won't turn."

"Is the steering wheel locked?"

"If it is, I didn't lock it." I looked at him suspiciously.

He laughed. "I didn't lock it either."

I start turning the wheel back and forth while trying to turn the ignition. No dice. "Well, clearly you did something. It was working fine an hour ago when I got home from work, and now it isn't, and you're the only person who's been out here screwing around."

"Screwing around?"

"Well, what would you call it? Fuck this. I'm calling Bob." (Bob is the guy at the dealership who sold me the car.) I get out my cell phone and dial.

"Well, hi, how are you liking the new car?" Bob said, after I identified myself.

"It's great, Bob, but I've hit my first hiccup. The key won't turn in the ignition."

"Is the steering wheel locked?"

What is this, fucking Groundhog Day? "No, it isn't."

"Okay, this is probably a stupid question, but do you have the right key?"

That made me mad. "OF COURSE I HAVE THE RI...oh...wait a...minute. I have the wrong key. Goodbye now."

It turns out that each of our key fobs and car keys are the exact same size and shape (the same company makes both cars). X has been mocking me ever since.

the finger

This was on the front page of the Dallas Morning News this morning. I was hoping the two stories were related somehow. But they weren't.


In other news, Harmony called me a couple of nights ago and left a voicemail. In her most adorable peremptory tone, she demanded to know the best way to roast walnuts. Do you think that's a sign of excess gay? I think so too.

ready?

Sorry for the long delay. Among other things, X got into a fight with Verizon DSL that ended with hurt feelings all around. So we've been without internet access for several days. In fact, it was just this morning that the hairy dwarf from the cable company came bearing high-speed goodness. Anyway - there's a lot to catch you up on, and I'll get started later today. First, though, I have to go get a haircut because I'm starting to look like a goddamn hippie.

Toodles,
dV

still nothing

For god's sake, if something interesting doesn't happen soon I'm going to go fucking apeshit.

buttermilk

I took my grandmother to lunch at Guapo's today for some carnitas. ¡Ay, qué bueno gusto!

At one point during the meal, I glanced over at the family at the next table. All of them were heads-down; mom hunkered over the chips basket, dad bent over the queso, and a fat kid of indeterminate gender - before pubery, a fat boy looks a lot like a fat girl, and vice versa - playing one of those new Playstation Portables. At the table. During the meal.

One of the many, many reasons that I wouldn't make a good parent - you know, aside from hating children and all - is that if a kid of mine brought one of those things to the table I'd have whipped him until his nose bled buttermilk. And then immediately after that, CPS would have come and thrown me in the slammer.

excellent band names

X asked me the other day why I hadn't written anything lately. Easy: nothing to say. It's been an ordinary week at work, and current events, which I've been able to mine fairly regularly in the past, have been completely sucked up by L'affaire Schiavo and the Impending Pope Death. And although both of those would make excellent band names, everything that can be said, has been said. Sorry. Maybe something interesting will happen this weekend.

next

R.I.P., Terri.

Okay, who's next for the morbid media deathwatch? You? Or you?

that guy who crapped himself

I normally eat breakfast in the car on the way to work. Usually, it's one of those health food bars made of grubs and tree-bark you can find at The Cupboard. Today's bar, along with the leaves and twigs, had pieces of chocolate in it.

I finished it up and got to work, then parked and got out of the car. I looked down and noticed that there was a big brown smear on the driver's seat.

Oh, fuck. I contorted my neck around to check out my own butt, and there on my light khaki pants, was a matching big brown smear, right in the crack of my ass. It's didn't just look a little like I'd crapped myself; it looked exactly like I'd crapped myself.

I couldn't very well walk around like that all day, so I got back in the car and left. It just so happened that my first couple of meetings were teleconferences, so I could do those from home with no problem. And then I had a couple of hours before my next meeting, so I ended up not missing anything.

X was not sympathethic when I told him this story a few minutes ago. "You went home? " he asked, incredulous.

"Of course I did. Are you kidding me? I'd forever be known as 'that guy who crapped himself.'"

"Oh, please. I once flew a planeload of federal prisoners with a giant gaping hole in the seat of my pants." He loves bringing up this story when he wants to make a point about his stoicism.

"Yes," I agreed, "but also? You were guarded by marshals armed with shotguns to keep the felons away from your junk. Away from your cockpit." Hee.

I love getting the last word with a dirty aviation-related double-entendre.

well, i do

I woke up in a really good mood this morning - X is home, and I bought this new bed accessory - it fits over the matress but under the fitted sheet; like a matress pad but much much thicker - it's like sleeping on a down comforter. So I sprang out of bed feeling all tra-la-la and shit.

I got to work and the feeling continued - just a general blissed-out sense that all was right with the world, so much so that I found myself whistling a jaunty tune as I worked.

A guy in my office walked by at about that time. He continued past me, then stopped and looked at me, a little cockeyed.

"That new Gap commercial is cool, isn't it?"

"What?"

"You know, the new one with Sarah Jessica Parker? Where she dances around her pink penthouse singing about how much she enjoys being a girl?"

I tried to play dumb while fighting a sense of dawning horror. "I guess. I don't know."

"Well," he continued, "I'm pretty sure you were just whistling 'I Enjoy Being A Girl.' "

I overreacted a little. "Naw, man! No way, dude! Let's go watch NASCAR and shit!"

Catchy ads. Damn them and their curly eyelashes.

natalie merchant is a total pussy

Last night I met Lorne, Xander and a hugely pregnant Cordelia at RGRS for a show. The guy taking money and checking IDs at the door looked really familiar, but it took me a second to place him - he was decked out in skinny black pants, a black blazer with Joan Crawford shoulder pads, glamtastic makeup, and more bling that you usually see in the vortex.

Then it hit me - Starck Club, 1988. I mean, seriously dude - it's really really over.

He asked for my ID and looked at it for so long that I started to wonder if I was on some kind of TSA security list, but then he handed it back and asked me for six dollars. He reached into a drawer and pulled out of one of those armbands they give you when you're old enough to drink, then stopped.

"Are you over 21?" he asked.

"21 was several county lines ago." I mean, Jesus.

"What?" He blinked at me a few times.

"Never mind. Yes, I'm over 21."

"Oh," he simpered, "I forgot."

The music was really good last night although I wasn't optimistic after the first band, an L.A. outfit called The Starvations. They sounded like Flogging Molly crossed with Bauhaus, AKA dreadful. Let's not speak of it.

The second act was very good. Asobi Seksu are from New York, and they play a really pretty kind of shoegazer rock. As Lorne said, "If you like Berlin..." which is right, although I would add, "and My Bloody Valentine, and Cibo Matto." The singer is a Japanese-American lady as tiny as panko, and the music is generally fuzzy pop, although somewhere in the midst of each song, there's a bridge of meth-metal accompanied by strobe lights, and then all of a sudden it's very Dueling Seizure Robots. They have a date in Austin at Emo's next month, and are very worth seeing.

The last act was Saturday Looks Good to Me, who are also great. If you gave 10,000 Maniacs some balls and soaked them in nicotine, they would sound a lot like SLGTM, but that will never happen because Natalie Merchant is a total pussy, what with all the second-hand smoke fear and veganism, so save yourself the experimentation and just go see these guys when you get a chance.

Sigh. Good times.

gig-tits, and other austin lessons

Do you know what happens to a girl singer when she wears her guitar too long during a show, with the strap hanging down between her boobs? She gets gig-tits. I'm not kidding; that's one of several things I learned in Austin last weekend.

X and I spent four days there, from Thursday to Sunday, and it was great.

Here are the other lessons:

1. Austin has the most fun homeless people ever. On the way to Waterloo, X and I were stopped at a red light. We had all the windows down because the weather was so nice. A homeless man walked over, rotten teeth akimbo. He was holding up a piece of cardboard like a sign, only there was nothing written on it.

X asked him what was on the other side.

He flipped the cardboard over and the other side was blank too. Then he came closer, so that his head was almost in the car with us. I noticed that his sunglasses were peculiar - one lens was square, and the other round.

He grinned at and said, "The peg doesn't fit the hole."

2. If you talk to a woman of a certain age, wearing a hat, you never know what might come out of her mouth. Later that day, we went into the new Whole Foods on Lamar. After spending a rather fruity amount of time in baked goods, we stopped at the nut counter to buy some cashews. A woman next to us, in her early sixties, was waiting for some Spanish peanuts. Her head was decorated with a large black hat, festooned with pink ribbons and flowers; down below the Mason-Dixon line she had on silver sparkle hose with pink shoes. I told her that I liked her hat.

"Why thank you! I have one of these for every mood. In fact, I might change hats a few times on the way to my car! I love Whole Foods - I've been waiting forever for this place to reopen. That Charlie at Central Market is a good man, known him for years..." (We never learned who Charlie was.) "...but they don't label their food right. They don't always tell you what's in it. Here, they label everything. But the other day, I went to Central Market to buy some nuts, and they had monosodium glutamate in them! My eyes swelled shut!"

She squinted her eyes together to illustrate the effect of the MSG, and then kept going. But I couldn't listen anymore, because her dentures kept slipping slightly with each syllable and the effect was a little too much like the big bad in the Alien movies, and I was afraid she was about to suck out my brain.

3. Julie the Cruise Director does not belong at the Horseshoe Lounge on South Lamar. Our first night there, the Dark Lady took X and I to several of our favorite haunts, including Maudie's Too and the G&S Lounge, where one can enjoy many games of pool, air hockey, and plenty of local ass-crack. At about 1:00, I was ready to go so we hit the road to go back to the hotel. All the way back, the Lady tried and tried to get us to go to the Horseshoe, a place she's been telling us about for years.

I'm generally pretty game to try the occasional grim scene, despite my sometimes princessy tendencies - "This matress pad isn't thick enough! I need a white noise machine or I'll never be able to sleep! Do you hear me? Never!" - but the stories we've heard about this place had soured me. Apparently, however, the hops in Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are really effective at bucking up your courage, because by the time we'd pulled in to the San Jose, we'd agreed to give it a shot.

It actually wasn't that bad. I think the Dark Lady was a little dissapointed that all the parolees and twilight alcoholics had gone somewhere else that night, because it was like every other bar in town - a good blue-collar mix of students and regulars for the most part.

I say "for the most part" because at about 1:30 or so, this guy came in. Let me be clear - this place was not at all scary, but also it was about as far from a gay bar as it gets. Everyone is going to leave everyone else alone, as long as you play by the rules.

The rules do not include sashaying in and attempting to teach that one scary guy's girlfriend to tango.

He was something else - young, and not bad looking, but we decided he had gone off his ritalin. He acted like he knew everyone in the place. Pirouetting - literally - from table to table, drinker to drinker, he talked, smiled, and generally made an ass of himself. I wouldn't have thought twice about him at Mable Peabody's, but at the Horseshoe, it was so out of context - like Karl Rove showing up at a MoveOn.org meeting. We decided to get the hell out of there before all hell broke loose.

We also saw a lot of good music - Slobberbone, The Damnations, Old 97's, The Gourds, James McMurtry, among others. We looked at some real estate, we had a fabulous meal with one of X's cousins - it was a great time. I swear - one of these days I won't come back, and I'll have to think of a new name for this blog. Don't be surprised.

poor baby

It's been awhile since I told a hideously embarassing story about myself, so let's just get back on track, shall we?

I had a complete meltdown in my boss' office the other day.

See, I'm in a new job where I don't yet know what I'm doing. This is very jarring to me because I'd been in my last position for a long time, so I had gotten really comfortable - not to mention very proficient. This is not to toot my own horn - anyone doing a job for that long had better be pretty good at it, or else he's an idiot. My new job is really different and so it seems (for now) much more difficult and out of control.

Speaking of control, did I mention that I'm a freak for it? One of the benefits of being in a job you're comfortable with is that you retain complete control of your own calendar. Now? Tons of meetings that I can't decline. So many that most days I'm not actually at my desk, doing actual work, for more than an hour or two. I've gone from being master of my domain to being everybody's punch.

To sum up: I don't know what I'm doing, and no time to learn anything. For a personality type like mine, that = hell.

So the other day, my boss asked me, as a meeting in her office was ending, whether I was OK. I guess the look on my face was telling; usually I go for a perfectly blank expression or a convincing smile, but I must not have been pulling it off.

I waited for everyone else to leave, then shut the door.

"Are you OK?" she repeated.

"I think I've made a mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"I think I made a mistake taking this job. I don't like what I'm doing." I hadn't planned to have this conversation at this exact moment, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I'd made a mistake; telling your boss you don't like your job is best avoided generally, but if you must do it, it's critical to be rational and prepared. I hadn't rehearsed any kind of cogent explanation of exactly what my complaints were. Instead, my brain short-circuited and I started gasping.

"I! I'm not! in control! of my life! Anymore! I used to be! a manager! but now! I don't! manage anything!"

"Whoa, slow down," she said, but I couldn't.

"This isn't! what I was expecting! It isn't what I wanted to do!"

She got up and handed me a kleenex, which made me realize I was crying. Holy fuck, yes, crying in front of the boss.

Anyhow, after a while I settled down and was able to converse fairly normally. And I have to say she was very cool about it - either she's a great actress, or she really will keep this to herself. And she took me seriously, and wants to work with me to make sure I'm doing the right kind of work, which maybe makes her a better boss than I am. If someone had a psychotic break in my office I think I would have told them to come back when they could act like a grown-up. And then transferred them far far away.

On the other hand, if my career ends here and now, or if people start leaving little gag gifts like Midol at my desk, I'll know I was wrong.

i think you're at the wrong table

"You know that's my truck. You've been naked in it." This is not a pick-up line likely to work on X, especially not if the guy trying it out is over 50 and sitting in Mable Peabody's Chainsaw Repair at one-thirty in the morning.

Much, much earlier, Lorne, X and I had gone to Hailey's to see a show. There were three acts last night - the first a local band playing really good chime-y alt-country rock. I can't remember what they were called (this was several Sierra Nevadas ago, you understand), but I think they must have been very new, since all the guys in the band looked like they were all about 18, and they had all brought their parents, aunts and uncles. This made for an odd mix - at one point, a guy who looked like he was channeling Charles Manson started dancing with someone's mom, a 40-something woman wearing a yarn birdhouse sweatshirt. This same woman later tottered by our table, stopped, and waved blearily at us. "Hiiii," she said, giving us a giant, drunken leer.

"Hi," we said back, afraid enough to poop ourselves a little.

The second band was the one we had come for - The Comas, who last year released one of the best break-up albums of all time. I thought they were the headliners, given the amount of press I found about them. They play this spacey mope-rock that sometimes sounds like The Pixies and sometimes like The Sundays. Really, really good.

Unfortunately, the last band was awful. They're called Vietnam and they play this horribly dated 60's protest rock. They all dress like they just stumbled off Dante's version of the Scooby Van, and sound like Bob Dylan fronting the Velvet Underground. Dancin Charlie Manson was part of the band, of course. God awful. After two songs, we'd had enough. Escaping outside, we decided to demonstrate our lack of judgement by going to Mable's.

You know what's a pretty reliable indicator that the vortex is in full spin, and that maybe that the bar you're about to walk into is going to be a seriously fucked-up scene? It's this: the moon is full, and there's an 18-wheeler parked outside Mable Peabody's.

I said, "Why is there an 18-wheeler parked here? That can't be good."

"Yeah," Lorne replied, "This is going to be great. Let's go in."

Inside, things were about what we expected - if you've never been, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. I'm pretty sure it's the only dive bar in the western hemisphere where you'll hear the Allman Brothers and Dead or Alive three songs apart on the jukebox. If you're caught up on your shots, and if the sheet metal leaning against the wall next to the pool table doesn't collapse on you, you'll probably have a good time.

Toward the end of the night, a guy came over to our table. He looked like the kind of drunk who stays fairly quiet, but will turn into Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher and gut you if you're not careful. Lorne and I later said that we thought we were about to star in CSI: Denton.

"Is this a gay bar?" he asked. A question like that, in a place like Mable's, can make you nervous. It seemed all too likely that this guy had gone into the wrong place and was getting ready to cast some extras for The Cold Case Files.

It emerged that he was just traveling through.

X asked, "Is that your truck?"

but not for the chickens

Let's talk about chicken farming.

Imagine you had a giant barn full of chickens. They're all running around in there, doing their chicken hoodoo; pecking, scratching, clucking and so on. Today's a big day because you need to pack them up and drive them over to Pilgrim's Pride for a special poultry day spa. How do you get thousands of chickens into the soccer van?

Why, that's easy! You use one of these! (Look for the video link under the line "Life Just Got Easier" - an ironic line, considering. Reading it, I snorted and said, out loud, "Yessss. But not for the chickens! BWA-HAHAHAAAAAA!" I swear I am so Monty Burns sometimes.)

You know what else a machine like that would be good for? Capturing packs of testicle-severing chimpanzees. I am terrified of monkeys - and reading a story like this - I have to tell you - except for digging a dead spider out of my ear, I can't thing of anything scarier than having my nuts bitten off by a screaming chimp.

i was hoping for the wonder twins

Do you like Office Space? Do you like the Superfriends? Yes? You'll like this.

may cause male lactation

Yes, I know. But poop is funny. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

You know how drug commercials give the impression that every problem you have can be solved by taking a pill, never mind the ferocious side effects? Fat? Diet and exercise are hard. Take this pill instead! Consumers Union, the folks who produce Consumer Reports, have a very funny and surprisingly raunchy music video on the subject. Check it out -

i guess you eat the corn first

"Can you believe I've already started a grocery list for next week?" my grandmother asked me today on my way home from work.

"Sure, I can believe it," I replied, only half listening.

"Guess what's on it?"

"Toilet paper?" I swear, every weekend it seems like I'm piling another Charmin 24-pack into the shopping cart for her. She must eat that shit or something, or tear it to little shreads and line her bed with it, like a geriatric hamster. Who knows?

"No, not toilet paper. I still have some of it." She paused for a second. "Still, it's better than a corncob, I suppose."

I waited, knowing that the explanation for this odd remark would be forthcoming.

"Or so they say. I was so poor I didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of, but I never used a corncob."

"Wait," I said. "Are you saying - did people use corncobs for that? To wipe with?"

"Well, sure," she said, indignant. "You don't think they had toilet paper 100 years ago, do you?"

I still kind of think she was just fucking with me. She does that sometimes, like the time she said that when she was a little girl she had to bite down on a stick when she had her appendix removed. Or used willow bark to brush her teeth.

i heart condi

I'm pretty sure this is one of Neo's outfits from The Matrix. I'm also pretty sure that this is the start of the 2008 presidential race; that beyotch Hillary only wishes she could pull off an outfit this fierce.

that's a lot of vinyl

Well, the L.A. trip was fun. It was great to escape the warm, sunny climate of Denton to enjoy several days of a fucking monsoon. I swear, that shit was apocalyptic.

My parents didn't let anything merely biblical get us down, though. My mom, who has the metabolism and energy level of a coked-up wallaby, ricocheted us around pretty much non-stop. The best shopping of the weekend was Amoeba, the most amazing music store I've ever seen (sorry, Waterloo). It is vast; more than one million new and used titles in stock, including more vinyl than the red light district in Amsterdam. Here's what I bought:

The Arcade Fire, Funeral: Belle & Sebastian-flavored melodramapop. Needs a few listens, but grows on you.

Cibo Matto, Super Relax: Out-of-print import classic. Super-fun Japanese punk-pop. Standout track: BBQ, which ends in what sounds like an epileptic screaming fit.

Dandy Warhols, 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia: shamelessly derivative of every late-seventies icon (think Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Burt Bacharach).

The Delays, Faded Seaside Glamour: This is good if you're in the right mood; like a slightly rockier Cocteau Twins.

Imperial Teen, Seasick: Another out of print classic! I couldn't find this anywhere before now!

The Sadies, Favourite Colours: I only knew these guys as Neko Case's backing band, but this record is great - somewhere between the Byrds and the Pernice Brothers. Also? Despite the inexplicably pretentious British spelling, they're from North Carolina.

Stars, Heart: an error, for sure. Ick. Very O.C.

The Von Bondies, Pawn Shopppe Heart: Very two years ago, but good. Like White Stripes only with much less sucking.

pooped

I'm back from L.A., but too exhausted to blog tonight. More tomorrow -

he has a point

Drudge has a funny story today about anonymous industry insiders all up in arms about Chris Rock hosting the Oscars. Evidently he made some cracks about the show's demographic:

"I never watched the Oscars. Come on, it's a fashion show," Rock recently declared. "What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars? Show me one!"

He continues: "Nothing against people who aren't straight, but what straight guy that you know cares? Who gives a f---?" Rock explained.

So now the bedwetters are (anonymously, of course) calling for Rock to be replaced. Which begs the question: have you ever seen his stand-up? Come on.

Also? He kind of has a point. And who cares? The Oscars are fabulous - the annual train wreck of high fashion and too much cocaine that no one can get enough of. Especially if you bring your lunch to work in a Madonna lunchbox. Not that I do.

There's also a great story on Defamer today about Arrested Development, the funniest show on TV that's about to be canceled.

According to the article, Jason Bateman hosted this weekend’s SNL, where Lorne Michaels and the gang generously let him turn his monologue into a plea for people to watch the not-yet-canceled-but-probably-canceled Arrested Development...but Bateman has no illusions about the show’s timeslot competition, the juggernaut Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: “Who’s going to watch us when they can watch a hot, shirtless guy build a skate ramp for a kid with no bones?”

Damn, I wish I had written that.

grammy awards in 5 minutes

Gwen Stefani? Yeah, she's OK. But I liked her better 20 years ago when her name was Madonna.

The Grammy Awards show is on, and they're starting with some kind of montage (going for the mashup effect?) by combining 2 or more acts at a time, singing medleys of each other's songs. Interesting concept except that all the acts are bad. And now, for your aural pleasure, Vomit and Diarrhea!

Also? Who the hell is Maroon 5? The singer sounds like Urkel. I hope Pete Doherty attacks him with a dirty syringe.

Ooh! Tifah looks fabulous. Okay - that's all I can take.

that's some gift

X and I are going to L.A. next weekend, and my parents have a gift for him that's going to turn him from his normal square-jawed charmer persona into a simpering girly-man. Hee. He may as well pack his bonnet.

wow, that really is gay

Dear Abby really missed this one by a mile today:

DEAR ABBY: I'm 16 and a junior in high school. For the past year and a half, I have been taking ballroom dancing lessons and was assigned a teenage dance partner. To make a long story short, I fell for him. It was a schoolgirl crush for a while, and I would call him daily.

A few months ago, he finally decided to date me. It didn't last long. After six weeks we broke up. It turned out that he didn't really like me. We have sort of gone back to being friends.

Is there any way I can get over him quicker? I can't pretend he's dead or anything. How can I get the pain to stop so we can just be friends? I have to ballroom dance with him every week, and it hurts to waltz with someone you know doesn't reciprocate your feelings. -- TAKES TWO TO TANGO

DEAR TAKES TWO: The obvious answer would be to ask your teacher to assign you a different partner. However, if the two of you are dancing in competition and it's not practical, then you'll have to readjust the way you think about the young man. When you go to the dance floor, take a mental step backward. Tell yourself he is your business partner, because in a sense that's what he is. I'm not saying it will be easy to do. But it might give you a different perspective -- and that's a "step" in the right direction.

Holy shit, Abby. Is that your idea of 'the obvious answer'? A different partner?

Let's close our eyes and imagine this girl together: she's a little overweight, right? And her hair - ah, yes, I can see it now. She hennas it and wears it in a bob. She's inordinately fond of Siouxsie and the Banshees, and has read Ariel cover to cover. Her name is Margaret.

Margaret, let me tell you something about this guy you met at a ballroom dancing lesson: HE IS AS GAY AS A MADONNA LUNCHBOX. Unless you are planning an exciting life of fag-haggery, you will not, repeat NOT, date the guy you meet at a Tori Amos concert, the guy who cuts your hair, or the guy who sings showtunes, no matter how well-groomed and sensitive he is. If you call every day you might eventually wear him down, and he, like Mr. Cha-Cha, might agree to a date. But at the end of the day, he likes steak, not mackerel.

Sheesh.

and then i will be dead

I think this is goodbye.

My left ear has been ringing and clicking for a couple of weeks now, the way your ears sometimes do after you leave a show, right? Only this was almost all the time, and only on the left side.

So tonight, after I got home from work, I got cleaned up a little before X and I went out to dinner. After I washed my face, I used a q-tip to clean my ears. Right ear? Clean as a whistle.

But when I pulled the q-tip out of my left ear, do you know what came out with it? Well? Do you?!

A fucking spider. A small one, dead and apparently long shriveled.

In other words, for the last two weeks, I have had a goddamn spider in my head biting away and laying eggs. It apparently got so tired of biting my eardrum and laying eggs that it died. My goddamn brain is full of spider. Fucking. Eggs. When they hatch, they will eat little holes all throughout my brain and then I will be dead.

X was not sympathetic to the resulting hysteria. "Oh," he said, "you're so cute when you're full of spider eggs."

paperback believer

Here's a wonderful video mashup of The Monkees and The Beatles. Fun!

my invitation is hereby revoked

Lorne says I should knock off the bathroom-oriented posts, which is a good point, although it means I'll have to shelve the story of my daschund's truly epic bowel movements she's been leaving for me when I get home from work. Holy cow; Homer could write a poem about that shit. The Poopiad.

That also means that for the time being I can't tell you why my grandmother's new nickname is Fartasia McGassy, but something tells me you'll get over it.

Instead, let me tell you about an email I got from Mae today.

The counselors in my school are planning a "college week." They want us to invite guest speakers (friends) into our classroom to talk to our kids about possible careers and what it takes in college to have those careers.

Any takers? Please believe me, my feelings WILL NOT be hurt if you say hell no! I know how a room full of 7th graders can intimidate adults. I do have a crazy bunch of kids, and they can really punk you out sometimes. However, they can be really fun, too.

Hi Kids!

My name is dV. I'm here to tell you what it takes in college to have an exciting job like mine - a vitally important layer of management bullshit in a large corporation here in the good old U.S.A! So listen up, take off your trucker caps, and gather 'round.

Here's the dirty little secret about college and work that your parents and teachers won't tell you: it's very unlikely that your job will require you to actually use what you learned in college. Most of the people in my company are in jobs that have absolutely no relation to what they studied. Soy un ejemplo perfecto, ¿verdad? But don't let that worry you.

The good news is that it really doesn't matter very much what college you go to. It also doesn't matter what you major in. That's because the first job you take out of college is very likely to be entry level, and your employer will teach you everything you need to know. So don't let your parents bully you into the Ivy League. Instead, pick a school you like and a subject you like, and stretch the experience out as long as you can, because college is one hell of a lot more fun than work. You'll hear your parents prattle on about the "best four years of your life," but the truth is that if you play your cards right - meaning, if you change your major a few times because you "finally figured out what inspires you," you can easily turn four years into six. This is especially important if your parents are footing the bill. Score!

overheard

Overheard in the men's room at work today, from one closed stall to another: "This sure is taking a long time."

WTF?!

i piss on you, kenneth cole

I drank more coffee than usual this morning before going to work - there's just something about Mondays that brings out the junkie in me. So by the time I got to work I really had to go. I scampered to the bathroom, but in my haste I didn't have - er - I didn't have things well in hand before I let fly. Immediately I heard a sound like rain hitting an umbrella, and this is how I learned what it sounds like when you pee on your shoe.

I corrected my mistake right away, but not, I'm afraid, fast enough to avoid detection from the other guys bellied up to the bar. I'm sure the story was repeated several times at work today. Fuck.

satan is his father

I did something today I’ve never done before: attended a baby shower. I know, I know, that’s normally something that women do. But listen: Cordelia is not like other people.

When I got there, all the other guys were sort of sheepishly walking around, ducking their heads, and in general looking as if they had been dragged to a lingerie shop.

“You ever been to one of these before?” we asked each other.
“Nope.”

But it was fun nonetheless. Cordelia looked great in this vintage green maternity dress with white polka dots. The buffet table was hilariously inappropriate – the centerpiece was a bouquet of white calla lilies and red glitter devil-tails in a black tulle-wrapped vase. The tablecloth was black, the snack plates were black, and the cake was white chocolate with dark chocolate shavings on top. In the other room, the television displayed a recording of Cordelia’s sonograms mixed with scenes from Rosemary’s Baby. At one point I’m pretty sure I heard Bela Lugosi's Dead on the stereo. There were no ducks, no bunnies, and no pastels anywhere to be seen.

Did I not say that Cordelia is not like other people?