further adventures of the train ....

Lemons and Lemonade

2011-09-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Heidegger never mentioned this in Being and Time. [Photo credit: cpj79]

Well, friends of me, I write this to say that August is the cruelest month. Though it did bring my fair city some welcome relief from our weather, which had resembled that of the planet Venus for the past year, it also brought a lot of sadness and worry at a time when I felt as though I was at my limit for handling both. About the only thing that I think can go wrong at this point would be for a complete stranger to find me on the street and kick me square in the testicles, for no other reason than that the winds of fate had blown me across the path of his testicle-kicking at precisely the right moment to receive the unwelcome gift.

Like my inevitable death, this suffering belongs to me and I understand that it is a part of my destiny as a being in the world. In fact, from its location in my own future it pulses, like a beacon, so that even in the present moment I understand how it will happen. Someday—when exactly is the only detail I cannot determine—I will be walking briskly up a busy sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and panhandlers in a desperate effort to deliver an important parcel to the post office before it closes. My focus will be shattered by a breathless feeling of dread. Even in my coat, a chill is inescapable. I will feel claustrophobic within my own skin. The edges of my vision will darken and converge. I will turn around a split second before the fatal foot plunges deep into my perineum in a parody of childbirth, cleaving and crushing my scrotum. Waves of nausea ripple throughout my midsection. My kidneys explode with the pain of a thousand kidney stones. I don’t know if I am screaming because the blow has momentarily deafened me.

Falling to my knees, I glance upwards and our eyes lock. His glare is steely; determined. He has found his man and together we have each helped the other fulfill his purpose, understanding each other in a way that only antagonists can. In his eyes I see my own agony reflected and it’s there that I watch myself involuntarily expurgate a dinner I ate twelve years prior at a going-away party for a dear friend, pieces of congratulatory words from the cake still clinging to bits of frosting. I am aware of a hollowness, an ambiguous sense of loss seemingly without object yet suffused with an understanding of the universe and my place within it that I could not have attained without taking his boot into my taint. Wordlessly, he will break away from my gaze and walk his path unimpeded. We will never see each other again.

My friends, do not ask for whom the boot kicks. The boot kicks for thee.

Maybe it's supposed to be funny?

2009-11-17T23:19:00.000-08:00

I was never a fanatic about Star Trek: The Next Generation. I've been watching it recently because I only get five channels and it's better than Family Guy and usually it's funnier than Family Guy too. In the intro Picard announces his intention "to go where no one has gone before" (boldly!). That's when the intro shifts from the contemplation of the majesty of space to bold action. Watch as the Enterprise zips by from the left! Now from the right! The names of the cast members appear suddenly as though formed from the engine's wake. This is a great way to advertise the show's font. It's a very action-packed font. The words slant forwards. They are in motion. Do they want to be in the future so badly that they lean towards it from the present moment? No. They just want to get the hell away from this lame intro. They're not even allowed to be in the same frame as something cool like a planet or a nebula. Or even the Enterprise itself. It wants to get out of this intro so bad, it's actually making whooshing sounds in the vacuum of space! Its urge to flee is so great not even the laws of physics shall remain standing!

In space, no one can hear you yawn. But apparently everyone can hear you redline your impulse engines to escape the humiliation of being a shakespearean actor getting a late-career renaissance in the vacuum of syndication.

Swine Flutopia

2009-11-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

All my koosh are belong to swine. [Photo credit: Erin Williamson]

I wanted to get sick because I want my immune system to get stronger and better, but now that I am sick I am not really enjoying myself as much as I thought I would. I really imagined it as some kind of vacation. I am not the kind of person who takes vacations or who enjoys them, but I expected this to be a biologically-necessitated period of cookie-ingestion and daytime-television-consumption. It turns out having the flu actually sucks, and that ice cream doesn’t cure it, no matter how many pints of “H1-PeCan” you eat.

My fever—101.5˚ at the moment—burns from the inside out like it does when Lindsay Lohan pees. I pee about 3 times an hour because of all the water I am drinking. I call it my take-a-sip-leave-a-sip policy. I’m peeing so often there isn’t even water in it anymore, I only pee the sound of peeing. It echoes up out of the bowl to mock me. But with my fever I am more popular with the cat. She seems to like sleeping on me a whole lot more. And every time I line up some Tylenol to try to bring my temp down, the cat knocks them off the table with what looks like glee.

I was worried about getting sick during the school year though because now I’m a teacher and I have students and I have this sense that they need me. This is a delusion brought on by my fever or perhaps by my profession. University professors and their graduate mentees are often delusional. It’s a proud tradition. It’s what gives us the idea that we should be telling people who are nothing like us that they should live their lives exactly like we do. Although my girlfriend told me she needs me. She’s having cramps and she wants me to lay across her belly. She said it’s greener than using the electric heating pad.

I read that if I get a flu this season, it’s probably the swine flu. I have my doubts, though. Sure, I didn’t get vaccinated—who has?—but I do ride public transit. That’s vaccine enough. It’s like giving your lymph system a copy of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.” I for one credit the bus system with vaccinating me against ever quitting flossing.

I still remember how in April, the news started to report on the “deadly” swine flu. Then the study came out that told us that up to 117% of the population was going to get the virus. Now I get emails from the university telling me not to go to the doctor if I have flu-like symptoms and not to get the vaccine because I have no serious health complications. It’s probably better that I not try to get the vaccine, because there’s almost none of it to be had. It’s a chicken-egg problem. Because American companies make the virus for the vaccine by growing it in chicken eggs. According to pharmaceutical companies, newer technologies to make the vaccine faster are not profitable for companies, and it would take government leadership from the highest levels to transform flu-virus production. Which came first? Lack of action on innovations in vaccine-production technology, or lack of leadership from this administration?

While companies struggle to produce the seasonal flu vaccine alongside its porcine counterpart, we’ve known about the actually-deadly avian flu for at least 6 years and, as of February of this year, we only had about 26 million doses stockpiled. I can’t wait to see the lines that form when even the people who are afraid of Guillain-Barré and Autism are desperate enough to get the shot.

Not wanting to wait for the CDC to determine if I have swine flu, and being told that a good citizen does not burden the healthcare system by an unnecessary doctor’s visit, I went on WebMD to do some research on swine flu. I learned that one of the most common sex mistakes women make is not initiating sex with their partner. Sorry, I got distracted by an article called, “6 sex mistakes women make.” Sex mistake number 7: initiating sex with me. Especially in my current condition. Though if you see someone walking the vaccine lines outside of health clinics offering the women “swine jobs,” don’t let on that you know me. I really need the money.

next to godliness

2009-09-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

not piss.

deciding how we will clean the house is a chore in itself. my girlfriend likes to use "natural cleansers." like vinegar and baking soda. she reminds me that vinegar is an acid. i remind her that we're cleaning the house, not douching it. to me, a surface isn't clean unless i've removed a layer of it. when you take a deep breath in a clean home, lingering chemicals in the air should burn the nose and esophagus; it should not smell like a side salad at tgi friday's. the former is the smell of chemical burns on the fingertips and the extinction of a plankton species as substances once used to torment axis soldiers on the hindenburg line race through storm drains to open water; the latter, the smell of a frat boy's last-ditch attempt at conquest. all that's missing is axe body spray, which, as we all know, is the smell of overconfidence and desperation.

on cleaning day, my girlfriend cleans most of the house. she does this and does not ask for a thank you. i clean the bathroom. i do this and then i parade around the house in celebration, and i make my girlfriend take pictures of me with the toilet. i taunt her with my bathroom-cleaning superiority. to some this may sound arrogant, but i'm very good at cleaning bathrooms. i'm so good at cleaning i could probably turn paris hilton's vagina into amy grant's. that would kill off another species of plankton.

Fancy That

2009-08-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

the secret to feline mind control: cuteness. [Photo credit: Paul Mayne]

the people i go to school with would like to get published. they’re writing for the journal of pragmatics or discourse and society or college composition clusterfuck quarterly.

meanwhile, i’m trying to get into cat fancy.

this is perhaps why no one takes me seriously as a scholar. they’re exploring abstract theoretical aspects of meaning-creation and their ramifications for English language learners. their papers have titles like “the genre of the end comment: conventions in teacher response to student writing.”[1] i want to make some jokes about living with a kitty for a magazine with articles such as “pet memorials” and “dogs in disguise.” (kitties—more than meets the eye?) if no one takes me seriously, it’s because i never give them the chance.

so, anyway, yesterday i popped into the bookstore near work to read the latest issue, but it was sold out! cat fancy was sold out! it was the only empty space in the entire magazine section! stacks of news weeklies were still on the shelves. other animal mags, like bArk, were stocked aplenty. there were heaps of those magazines for beadworkers and quiltmakers and scrapbookers and figurepainters.

if the title wasn’t as cutesy i would understand why it was sold out. i can't imagine people buying a magazine called cat fancy with a straight face. i would pay someone to buy it for me or have it delivered anonymously by post.

if it were called feline times or cat review, perhaps it would be different. i would read feline times. i picture a persian kitty in a gray pinstriped business suit with a monocle and a bowler hat. “the global rice shortage: how much more will you pay for kibble? by lord waffles q. fuzzy-bottom.” (take that, t. s. eliot.)

i guess it makes some sense. cats are more popular than dogs if we judge things strictly by the numbers, and, according to steve dale, my town is one of the top 10 cat friendliest cities in the nation.

of course, all of this is in spite of the overall shittiness of the kitty demeanor. there is no better evidence for feline mind control. when dogs bite, they get put down. when cats bite, we assume that we did something to piss them off and we cling to the hope that they’ll stop someday. but they won’t stop. oh sure, kitty might say she can change, but you know that if you want the violence to stop, you have to leave. the classes didn’t work and you’ve got to think of the children.

Notes:

Smith, Summer. “The Genre of the End Comment: Conventions in Teacher Response to Student Writing.” College Composition and Communication 48.2 (May 1997): 249-268.[x]

Non sequitur

2009-07-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

One of the rare cock pics you will see on my site. [Photo credit: hddod]

8/22/04
(in british accent)
take a baby in the womb add 1 chromosome to it and you get a baby-chicken hybride it's great and at the end of the day you check its diaper and you get eggs--pretty soon you'll be saying, I think this tastes like baby--

I found this in one of my old notebooks, all alone on its own page. I think it was supposed to be a joke for a comedy routine. The British accent was gonna sell it.

In Da Club

2009-07-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

In real life, when the Millennium Falcon jumps to hyperdrive, you would catch fire and die. [Photo credit: Network 23 Photography]

February 3, 2006 [1]

belo describes itself as hot and ultra-chic. So what’s chic? Chic, it turns out, is very finely distinguished from not-chic. For instance, I was told that the dress code would be “chic.” Jeans and a t-shirt? Not chic. Add a wallet chain circa the early nineties, and voila. You have done it.[2]

The grand opening of belo went off [3] last Thursday, February 2nd, at the spot that used to be E Street Alley. Jeff James, the club’s owner, wanted to renovate the successful club because he thought it could be better—specifically, he wanted to upgrade the club’s interior. “So many places look like bachelor pads,” he said. “We wanted ours to have a fun atmosphere.”

They certainly accomplished that. My friend described the place as “Austin Powers meets art deco.” I thought it looked like something out of Barbarella. I was therefore not surprised to see the Jane Fonda flick playing on all of the plasma TV’s in the place. Psychedelic would be an appropriate adjective for the interior—even my invisible ink re-entry stamp turned out to be a mushroom.[4]

My friend quickly decided to “roam,” periodically dropping suggestions on how to score with the “lay-deez.” “What you want to do,” he counseled, “is keep looking at them, but don’t talk to them.” My wingman jetted off in hopes of achieving his mission objective—three phone numbers.[5] This left me time to do what I do best—sample the menu.

E Street Alley used to serve sushi. The newly renovated belo features a full kitchen offering appetizers, entrees, and desserts—and, of course, drinks. I had the delicious pumpkin stuffed ravioli with spinach and black pepper butter, reasonably priced given its downtown location. Meanwhile, my friend was sampling the drinks. “How’s the martini?” I asked. “The martini’s fantastic!” Drinks average about 10 dollars. The service staff was excellent: friendly, dedicated, and constantly in motion.

Of course, we weren’t there for the food. We—and here I speak of the collective we—were here for DJ AM. If you don’t know who AM is, you, like me, do not read In Touch Magazine.[6] AM was Crazy Town’s DJ, (remember “Butterfly”?) and his reputation has outpaced theirs considerably.[7] He is now not only DJ to the stars [8] but also for many clubs across the country, and belo got him to come out to San Diego. You could tell it was him spinning from the way they announced it. And, of course, from the camera crew and the screaming women. Once AM began his set the crowd stopped dancing to watch the master do relatively little, since his set up is all digital and he doesn’t even spin records. Thank God some dancing girls showed up to give us something to stare at properly. However, some of his mash-ups were truly inspired (“Under Pressure” versus “Smoosh It,” for instance, or my favorite, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” meets “Float On”[9]).

Getting bored, I stepped into the biggest of the clubs three rooms. Unlike the other booths, tables, and small rooms, this one was not reserved, so I decided to sit on everything in it. Note: I sat on everything. Tables, chairs, the carpet. Everything. I paid good money to be at this club. I was going to get what I could get. Like most of the furnishings in the place, the couches and chairs were all rounded and plastic, as if they had been excreted rather than constructed. The room was bookended by two wall paintings; the first, a psychedelic piece dominated by reds and yellows and a repeating flower motif featuring the words, “It’s love that makes the world go round.” The other piece was a series of orange, yellow, and brown lines emanating from a single point that reminded me of what the Millennium Falcon looks like when it hits warp speed. If the Millennium Falcon were made of Reese’s Pieces.[10]

This place clearly did not look like a bachelor pad. It looked like Timothy Leary’s high school bedroom.

It was getting late. My friend had told me, “I can’t feel my bottom lip.” But he had reached his goal. Three numbers. Some girl darted over to us and threw her arms around him in that way that girls do not do with me. Perhaps you are familiar with it. They shared an embrace and she left. He laughed. “I don’t even know who that girl is!”[11].

On a Friday night, you can expect to pay $25 at the door; on a Saturday night, $30.[12]. Tonight, at the door, $50. I hope you bought your tickets in advance.

Notes:

No, that’s not a mistake. Recently, I’ve been going back over old notebooks to finally develop ideas I had to put off while I prepared for the general exams for my PhD. This is an article I wrote for San Diego Citybeat that was rejected—see if you can figure out why. Anyway, I thought it was funny enough to post, and my additional comments will be found here, in the endnotes. [x]

As for what elevates one to ultra-chic: pomade. [x]

In response to your question: no. I could not be whiter, as I was unable to work “off the hizzy” into the article. Also, I prefer to be referred to as “ivory,” not “white,” since the former calls to mind my colonialist roots. [x]

Being Italian, I immediately thought of plumbers. I suspect this was not the allusion they had in mind when they had the stamps made up. [x]

Given his advice, one would expect that three restraining orders was a more realistic objective. [x]

But I occasionally browse whilst at the checkout counter… [x]

Of course, in the four years since this was written, DJ AM has become notable only for surviving plane crashes. Meanwhile, Crazy Town is scheduled to release a comeback album in 2009, titled “Crazy Town is Back.” That he left the band in 2001 suggests that AM is also good at surviving train wrecks. [x]

Almost DJ in the stars. [x]

My favorite version of this song—maybe even over the original—is the Kidz Bop version, which you can find on Kidz Bop volume 7. [x]

Note: Reese’s Pieces would melt. [x]

Club belo. Making dreams come true. One anonymous drunk girl at a time. [x]

Anonymous drunk girls: priceless. Proving that there are some things in life money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s booze. [x]

Finally TV gets it right

2009-07-15T17:37:00.001-07:00

Courtesy Fox Broadcasting

The show's concept challenges the familiar sitcom representation of a petite, attractive woman married to an unattractive man by removing the petite, attractive woman. The result is a dating show where fat people only mate with fat people.

Once again, TV gives us the world, as it should be.

It will air alongside another Fox dating show where a black bachelor gets to choose from a bevy of black women. It will be called, "The Blacker the Berry."

No other races will be represented.

More to Love: Official Website
More to Love at The Live Feed

Lost my nerve

2008-12-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

Teeth. Not mine. [Photo credit: gillicious]

My first clue that something was wrong was the extreme pain on the right side of my face. Not being one to jump to conclusions, I waited a day while the pain intensified and spread to my right ear and the right side of my neck. Once the pain had gotten worse, I decided that something had to be done. But being a chicken shit, I waited one extra day to see if I could tough it out until the tooth died and the pain subsided on its own.

Since I am in San Diego at the moment, I wondered if I could make it long enough to get back to Seattle and have the work done there. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be in agony for the next several days, plus do a two-day train ride ingesting fist-fulls of anti-inflammatories every four hours. Now that it’s all done, I’m in a better position to see the irony. Before the procedure, your jaw hurts and you can’t chew on one side. Afterwards, your jaw hurts and you still can’t chew on one side. But for a different reason. I think that’s the essence of modern medicine: in exchange for money, you get a nice-sounding reason for your pain.

Of course, there really was no alternative but to see the dentist. I did consider acupuncture, but I don’t like needles, and if I’m going to get stuck with one, it’s going to have drugs in it. When he got me in the chair, I told him about the pain all over the right side of my face. He started poking me with iron spikes. Then he told me to open my mouth. This is not uncommon in people who are meeting me for the first time.

Once he isolated the tooth that was in pain he banged on it with a metal rod. This was to confirm that I was in pain. I was pretty sure about being in pain, and I thought I had conveyed that with sincerity, but I guess we disagreed. Now he was sure, so he left. His assistant pressed an x-ray camera against my cheek, put a playing card in my mouth, and laid a lead apron over my torso. She said it made quite the statement. I thought so too. It said, “I’m in the kitchen, but don’t eat what I’m cooking.”

The dentist came back in shortly thereafter with the results. The x-rays confirmed it. “We’ll need to go into the living tissue and remove the decayed parts. So we’ll need to do root canal treatment.”

I enjoyed that the dentist called it root canal “treatment.” Root canal treatment is like a spa treatment, only with comically-oversized needles and drills instead of hot towels and Swedes.

(Grammar fans: did I mean “hot [towels and Swedes]” or “[hot towels] and Swedes?”)

A root canal, for those who don’t know, is a dental procedure that dentists recommend when tooth decay gets into the roots of the tooth, where nerves and tiny blood vessels are. To save the tooth, the dentist drills away all the rotten stuff and pretty much everything else and opens up enough space to put in some new condominiums.

Once the tooth is completely hollowed out, they fill it in and put a crown on it. It’s called a crown because by the time you have one, your tooth is a shell that’s dead inside, which is a perfect metaphor for most royal families in the West. Thus I have proven that I can make toothless remarks about systems of government whilst writing about my toothless teeth. Somebody get me a Pulitzer.

With the confirmation that a root canal was necessary, I was directed to an endodontist, and was fortunate enough to be seen the very same day, depending upon your definition of the word “fortunate.”

I was quite nervous about this procedure because, when I was younger, people would speak of root canals the same way they would speak of jumping into a vat of cactii or voiding roses out your urethra or dating my first girlfriend. I imagined it to be an ordeal. It was the Biblical plague God would have rained upon the Egyptians had the deaths of every firstborn Egyptian boy not put the exclamation point on the sentence.

Maybe during the Reagan years, it lived up to the hype. Advances in technology have rendered it merely boring. In fact, I think I may have fallen asleep during the procedure. When I woke up there were Risk pieces all over my face and the assistant was struggling mightily to take Russia. So there you have it. Root canal treatment is boring for everyone involved. So boring that it makes Risk seem fun.

I was conscious for the root canal except for the parts when I wasn’t. But I was also numb as shit, a comparison I cannot begin to comprehend but somehow conveys my meaning. I was numb to my right ear and my right eye. I couldn’t blink it but I squinted periodically and out-of-sync with my other eye. In my head I imagined my eye rooming free, unmoored by a liter of novocaine. To someone looking at me I must have looked like that picture of Sarte--the one where his right eye is looking straight at you, but his left one is doing its best but just can’t help looking in a direction absolutely perpendicular to the picture plane. He was French so I bet there was some hot chick over there he wanted to tap but had to take a minute to have his picture snapped before he spit his existentialist game at her. If I could will my eyes to do that I would do it in every picture.

I would also spit existentialist game at every opportunity. I would tell the ladies, “It’s quantity, not quality.” I haven’t crunched the numbers, but when calculated as a function of quality, you’d have to fuck me an awful lot of times to make it worthwhile. I’m sure there’s a theoretical point at which the time investment renders the whole endeavor unethical from a Camusian perspective. Thankfully my girlfriend hasn’t read The Myth of Sisyphus. Apparently many other women before her did—I’m looking at you, Eva Mendes. Perpendicularly. But I digress.

So, before injecting the contents of Noriega’s evidence locker into my face, the doctor had to confirm the dentist’s diagnosis. This involved a series of ludicrous tests designed to amuse his friends at the New Year’s party.

He wanted to test the other teeth in the area to make sure they were okay, which required a chew test. I thought perhaps I would get to chew something tasty but it turned out to be cotton-flavored cotton. This was to confirm that I would be in horrible pain if I bit down hard on something with my bad tooth.

Then he said, now we’re going to try some cold air. I had to laugh, which is all you can do when kicked in the face by the absurd. What’s next, I wondered--ice?

At which point he did, in fact, find some ice--to test, he said, my cold sensitivity. This is when I formed the opinion that Gary Larson was right and the doctor was just putting things in my mouth because he could. And that I would probably believe even the most absurd justifications when they came out of a mouth affixed to a face sitting on a neck emerging from a smock.

The ice he used, I was told, was tetrafluoroethylene, a refrigerant also used to make teflon. I advised his assistant that I didn’t know about the tetra but I could taste the fluoro. And I could. It tasted like toothpaste. I asked the doctor why he couldn’t have given me some ice cream instead of giving me the stuff we use to keep it frozen. He did not respond in any way that a human responds to another human. I got the impression he was not interested in my suggestions and in general did not think I was terribly funny. This could be because I was still white-knuckle-clenching the armrests from when he stabbed my jaw with a needle once used by NASA to land men on the moon. I think it offended him.

The rest of it was no big deal. I’ve had cavities filled and I’m used to the drill, though I didn’t know that drills came in a variety of sizes and textures. They make a drill that hums. They make one that grinds. Another one buzzes. I can imagine dentists staying up very late at night drooling over the next drill bit they want to add to their collection. “This one drills wide, shallow holes. And this one smells like Hawaiian Punch when you use it!”

After a while I got bored by all the drilling and asked for some headphones, which they graciously supply to their patients. That was nice because I could hear the drilling from the inside instead of through the outside of my head, which was okay because my ear was so numb I’m not sure it was working properly anyway. Is it possible to hear perpendicularly?

And they put a giant piece of rubber around my tooth. The doctor called it a dental dam. He actually called it that. A dental dam. I foresaw a future in which prostitution and health care are both entitlements provided by the federal government. A technician sterilizes everything and everyone by coating them with prophylactics to prevent either an outbreak or a lawsuit or an orgasm. The rubber sheet was intended to isolate the tooth and keep it sterile. It’s a green sheet stretched over a yellow plastic rectangle, and it turns the area into a verdant patch that sprouts rotten teeth, like a garden in Hell.

The doc also stuck a bunch of metal rods into the tooth, which I think was to improve radio reception on my headphones and may have had some other purposes too. Maybe it delivered DirecTV to the condos in my mouth. On an x-ray snapped during the procedure my molar looked like a Transformer from that godawful Michael Bay flick--you know, all angles bent on no purpose.

Anyway, as I said, the rest of the procedure is very dull. After it was over I genuinely thanked the doctor and his assistant for putting up with me. Then I paid them. That’s usually how I get people to put up with me. It’s never on a volunteer basis.

It won’t surprise you to know that I am now at home. As of this writing, it’s been ninety minutes since I got out of the chair. The novocaine was injected four hours ago. I also had four injections of lidocaine during the procedure. When I touch my face, it feels like the marshmallow coating on the outside of a Hostess snowball. I haven’t looked in a mirror yet, so perhaps part of the treatment involved affixing shelf-stable pastry to my face as a punishment for that ice cream remark. I can only imagine what it would feel like if I’d seen a proctologist. In my mind I imagine Twinkie wrappers everywhere. I’m sure he would give me an acceptable-sounding reason for doing it, too. “That keeps the patient in a festive mood once the novocaine wears off and it starts to ache” or something like that. And I’m sure I would believe it.

Winter stinks

2008-11-28T02:13:00.001-08:00

Seattle skyline as seen from the Bainbridge Island ferry. [Photo Credit: shadowstorm]

The weather in Seattle has turned cold. I welcome this, for two reasons. The first reason I welcome this is because there is something wonderful about wintery weather—at least until New Years, anyway. I was not enthusiastic about Seattle’s especially Winter-like Spring this year, and I guess the Southern Californian in me couldn’t handle the short Summer that followed it. In spite of this, I welcome the onset of Winter. I enjoy the wool coats and woodsmoke in the evening. As wonderful as Summer days are, are Winter nights. And I sincerely believe that the downtown Seattle skyline shines more majestically once the mercury drops—and more majestic still once the holiday lights are hung.

I welcome the wintery weather for another reason. It gives me a chance to explore a mystery that I’ve pondered for at least the last 4 years.

If you fart in cold weather, does it make fog?

I feel like, if there was a definitive answer to this question, it would put a stop to things like people farting at bus stops on beautiful Winter mornings while I am waiting for the next bus.

This happened to me just two mornings ago, prompting this blog post. I was pacing, which is how I wile away the time when a bus is running late, and it’s too cold outside for me to keep my hands outside of my pockets long enough to read a book. I had been wearing quite the groove into the sidewalk when an older woman, wearing a heavy three-quarter length coat, showed up at the stop and stood, sentry-like, at the far end of my route.

She turned her back to me, as I pivoted round my other endpoint and began pacing off the distance between us. I had almost reached her when I heard them.

A few pops.

From under her coat.

I whipped around and reversed course in a desperate effort to avoid walking into what I imagined was a rapidly expanding mushroom fart-cloud.

But the universe was not about to let me escape my destiny! For, upon farting, she turned round and began chasing after me!

I was frightened that she would drag the fart towards me, and I became certain that I could see its vapor trail slithering after her caboose like the poltergeist of a meal forgot!

So, I increased my speed to stay ahead of her wake, and just like that, we were locked in a desperate struggle! Racing—to escape her gas!

And yes, I did win. She eventually hard-lefted and carried the stink into the bus shelter, making liars of the people who long ago gave it the name—“shelter.”

Of course, if Ingmar Bergman taught us anything, it’s that destiny can be postponed if you know how to play chess, and also that after you die, Death makes you hike all the way to the shore.

Now that I think about it, that's particularly unfair. If there’s any upside to dying, it’s that we can finally stop working out. Not so, apparently. It seems that Death has a whole VH1 celebrity boot camp laid out for us on a rocky beach somewhere in the Netherlands.

Sartre said that hell is other people. If he were alive today, I’m pretty sure he’d agree that it’s having to work out next to Dustin Diamond and Da Brat for eternity.

But I digress. As I was saying: you can postpone destiny, but not forever. And indeed, after mere moments, I resumed pacing and absent-mindedly traced a path back into the cooling embrace of her lingering filth-mist.

If only she had left a visible trail. I might have been able to save myself.

(Also, to answer the question I posed above, I did some research. In theory, you should be able to see farts in cold weather because they contain water vapor. Just like when you exhale in the cold, the low temperature causes the water vapor in your farts to condense into a mist. I guess clothing gets in the way, though, so sometimes you can, and sometimes you can’t. Either way, you shouldn’t fart at bus stops. That’s just cruel. Especially since you can’t count on the bus to smell any better, you should let people enjoy the fresh air while they can.)

the pleasure principle

2008-11-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

little. yellow. different. deadly in sufficient quantities. [photo credit: The Train!]

two days ago, a former staff member of the university where i teach-slash-study killed himself very violently and, worse, very, very publicly. i found this out from my students, who had all received text alerts from friends who had either witnessed it or saw it on the news. i received a text message from verizon telling me about all the minutes i hadn't used up, because i have no friends.

we all thought, at the time, that it had been a student who had died. later, we found out it was actually a 61 year old man, so we pretty much stopped caring after that.

it did make us wonder, though. why all the attention? dude was 61. but before we found that out, we had other questions. wasn't there anyone in this kid's life who could have stopped him? and was it an act of protest or a cry for help?

if i were to use suicide as a cry for help (and i had already ruled out actually crying for help), i would write a very long note in which i would complain bitterly about how expensive premium ice cream is and how i never learned to play "just like heaven" on the piano. then i would find a bottle of pills and empty its contents into the trash. finally, i would lay down and go to sleep, empty bottle in hand.

when one of my myspace or facebook friends found me (and i know they're my friends because i can keep track of their picture uploads and changes in status), i would tell them how i didn't want to be saved, and how if they really cared about me they would get me some ben and jerry's phish phood.

when i got to the hospital, the tox screens would come back clean, and the doctor would ask me if i had overdosed on anything, and i would answer, malaise, because i am a grad student in an english department and whoever is the malaisiest wins. in this way, graduate students in english departments are very much like the members of high school drama clubs. if i did it all wearing vampire fangs i would probably be enshrined in high school cafetoriums across the country.

now, i wouldn't actually take the pills. i mean, you'd have to be someone who felt utterly alone, someone in utter desperation, to do a thing like that. in the age of social networking and internet dating, that's just not possible.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2008-06-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr. [photo credit: Greymouser]

In a dream last night, I was hanging out with a good friend—someone I’ve known since grade school—and there’s a group of random people there as well, people whom I’ve never met. In the dream, I say:

I saw the strangest thing in the paper, there were these ratings. And the ratings were, “murder,” +1, and then some movie, +5. And I thought, first, that’s odd that you’re reviewing a murder. But also, is that really fair? Did anyone really see the murder?

At which point, a big laugh ensures. Feel free to laugh at home if you desire. Laughs occur in odd places in my dreams. They occur in odd places in my waking life as well. Seldom where I intend them, as many of my students would not attest to since they were the ones not laughing in the places where I intended laughter to, as they say, ensue.

In the dream, my friend says to the group of random strangers: “He’s not very funny when he’s working, but if you talk to him outside of school—like one time, he said to me, ‘when I’m a university professor, I’m going to live in the university district—it’s like a red herring. Nobody will expect it.’”

It’s not just that the creative process continues while we sleep that astounds me, it’s the complexity of what results from that process—that the brain can produce intricate narratives, solve complicated problems, or, in my case, write new material (some of it’s even funny).

The other thing that astounds me is that, even in my dreams, my friends have to explain to strangers that I am funny.

Tales of a Whipped Boyfriend

2008-06-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

"I need to get into the case--I need to get some razor blades."
"What'll it be? Mach 3s?"
"Umm--Venus Breeze."

"It's okay. It's o-kay."

some thoughts about the gym

2007-02-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

this picture not taken at my gym. [photo credit: yuan2003]

i've been meaning to discuss with all of you my feelings about going to the gym for a long time, but i've never been able to find the words. and, i've never been able to assemble all of my divergent thoughts about this locus of desperate masculinity within the constraints of a single narrative. too many things happen there, too many stupid, stupid things. and though i believed that i had seen many stupid things going to a gym frequented by professional adults and their idiot offspring, my experiences there in no way prepared me for the palpable cloud that suffuses every nook and cranny of the university gym where i work out now, generated, i can only assume, by a congenital deficiency of chromosomes shared by the majority of men under the age of 23.

though, please understand, this does not mean that my old arch-nemesis, the elderly, are not known to stalk the sweat-stained halls of the intramurals building. in fact, it is with a mixture of sadness and pride that i report that i have now seen more nude, old man ass than a proctologist in the urgent care facility of a retirement community in dade county. i do not know if such a place or position does, in fact, exist, but if they do, i believe i am qualified to perform those duties. this is perhaps why i have been approached to help with the casting of "retired rectum 7," the only series of homosexual grandpa porn to have ever made it to a seventh volume, mainly due to the commitment on the part of its manufacturers rather than any support from consumers.

nevertheless, young men, mostly guys in their late teens and early twenties, work out here as well, though by "work out," i mean, try hard to convince others that they are manly.

men, for instance, do not flush toilets. did you know that? it's true. it's made me have to go back to all those tired rants from the likes of elaine boosler about men and toilets and admit, she was right. that's when i'm not too busy adding to the multiple gallons of piss threatening to spill over onto the floor. this, by the way, is why there is an additional drain on the floor of a men's restroom. having given up on our ability to use a toilet, they've turned the entire bathroom into one. this is known as "male ingenuity." it's why we've had the power over the women since the dawn of time.

other indications of the brilliance of these future statesmen and men of industry abound once one enters the weight room. here one is treated to stimulating conversation; for instance, this comment that i heard earlier in the year: "the trojans aren't a good mascot, if you look at their history. i mean, the trojans got fucked. they only had, like, one guy. they should have been spartans." i wondered if he knew that the spartans got fucked, too, or if he knew how they got fucked. it might have changed his mind about the spartans as a mascot for a sports franchise. i didn't ask, and now i regret it. i also wondered who the one guy was the trojans had; the word being plural, and the general prohibition on women fighting in combat, suggests that they had, like, more than one guy. in fact, i am so confident, that i will go on the record to suggest that they had, like, way more than one guy. that's my hunch, anyway.

it's not uncommon to hear these conversations, because guys tend to work out in packs, but because they tend towards ignorance of proper lifting technique and have no knowledge of exercises that differ from the ones they were taught by, "like, that really buff dude that one time," they rove the gym like hungry animals, waiting with pained expressions for the machines or weights they need to become available, unable to improvise or vary their workouts. this gives them ample opportunity to tactically dilute the collective i.q. by speaking.

though, in their defense, i will say that it is difficult to get to use the machine you need to use when the person who is "on" the machine is never actually using it. when you ask, he says he has "one more set," but all he ever does is stand beside the machine with his arms across his chest, breathing intently, as though his performance-enhancing gel went down the wrong pipe and is now making every breath an agonizing fight for survival (which, by the way, if it did happen, wouldn't surprise me in the least). he's frequently staring, not at anything in particular, but simply to indicate to others that "i just moved a lot of weight, because i'm a man." no one has actually witnessed his feats of strength, hence, in lieu of having done anything impressive, he has to look like he just finished doing something impressive, and you missed it. and no—you cannot work in.

and there's always one guy working out who is the absolute fittest person in the entire gym. this person never does anything. every time you see him, he's getting a drink of water, while managing to stare aimlessly, to suggest that the burn was so intense, just the act of drinking water is almost too much pain for him to bear. occasionally, he does five crunches. never four, never six. always five. then he gets more water. this takes him 10 minutes—20 seconds for the water, and 580 for the breathing.

once, out of curiosity, i stopped one of these guys and asked him what kind of a diet he was on, and he put his hands on his hips like an apollo 13 astronaut, threw his head back, projected a bellowing laugh that echoed throughout the weight floor, and disappeared in a plume of white smoke that smelled vaguely of cinnamon and creatine.

when i got home, my refrigerator was filled with met-rx bars and vitamin water. i'm not even kidding about that. i think he was an angel.

and before i forget, i want to clear something up. you do not have a right to arrive at the gym with a funky odor. before you comment, pay attention to the wording. when you work out, you sweat, and when you sweat, you stink—granted. but this does not mean that you can import a foreign stink from home and pass it off as the reek of hard work. once, a guy hopped on to the elliptical machine next to mine, and though he was barely in his 40's, he had that distinctive "old person smell." i could only conclude that he had slept inside of one the night before for warmth after being badly injured by a snow creature on hoth. worse, every time he exhaled, it was as though he had launched a salvo of funk directly at me, also smelling distinctly of unwashed grandfather. i immediately cast him in "retired rectum 8," soon to be in production, as the activities director of a retirement home in dade county.

about the only population attending the gym i have any praise for would be those future stateswomen and women of industry, the girls. i do not mean to suggest that all guys are like the men i have described above, nor do i want to suggest that all girls lift with proper technique, put their weights back when they aren't using them, and always flush the toilets. just the ones i have seen, from a hidden vantage point somewhere in between the men's and women's locker rooms, and from various points within the ductwork above the weight room floor. where the guys seem to be more concerned with looking manly, the girls are actually focused on the workout itself, because they know that being healthier, when combined with binge drinking, is the best way to score multiple times in a single weekend. boys, you could learn from their example.

now, if you'll excuse me, i've still got one more set to do on the bench press. and for the last time, no, you cannot work in.

new year's, part 1

2007-01-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

i have had only two great "new year’s eve" experiences, and they both took place on the eve of 2004. that was the year that my then-girlfriend was out of town, so while my vcr taped the dick clark’s rockin’ eve special, i spent the evening with my friend tony, watching the sci-fi network’s twilight zone marathon—switching back to abc as midnight drew near, of course. my apologies to the other networks, but the association between dick clark and new year's eve has been written into my dna; were the man actually to die, i’m convinced we would have to create new months to prolong the year.

nevertheless. i’ve been a fan of the twilight zone since i was a kid, and spending the night with one of my best friends, without the expectation that something wild and crazy had to happen for the night to be a success, made for a satisfying end to 2003.

however, when i try to remember how i spent my new year’s eve that year, watching twilight zone with tony isn’t what pops into my head, despite the fact that it’s the truth. for me, the new year started when my girlfriend returned, one week into 2004, and we watched the doubly pre-recorded dick clark ring in the new year from times square. we even made sure to start the tape so that the ball would drop at midnight. it’s my happiest memory from that relationship; it was one of the few times i really felt a connection with her, that i felt like we were truly together and that our togetherness made sense. that closeness never returned.

as i write this, i’m in sacramento, where the train has parked in order to exchange passengers with the station here. i’m sure that somewhere in the capital city, there must be some kind of state-sponsored revelry, but hell if i can see it from where i’m sitting; the only lights i see are the sodium lights of parking lots and street corners. amtrak, perhaps in keeping with its policy to provide no entertainment of any kind for free, has refused the opportunity to announce the new year, but that hasn’t stopped the passengers in the observation car upstairs, who have been steadily getting inebriated all evening on expensive bottles of alcohol that look like they were stolen from hotel mini-bars and overpriced domestic beer, from loudly marking off each second as it drops out the bottom of 2006 and into the gaping maw of 2007.

downstairs, i sit alone, and listen, and write.

this is a fitting way to spend this night, i think—in between my old home and my new home, the moss gathered from the old one not quite gone, the moss from the new one not having had the chance to take hold; in between the old year and the new year; and travelling within what is tantamount to a habitat in (relatively) constant motion. the train never stops for long, and even then, it’s only for the smoke break and the shuffling of feet, and then it’s off again for the next stop along the way. for some people, this kind of existence is tolerable, desirable even. me, however, i’ve always wanted to be a part of a place; i’ve always wanted to put down roots. ironically, that’s the one thing i refused to do the entire time i lived in san diego. for four years, i seemed to leave and return to san diego as though i was taking part in a ritual, and when i wasn’t leaving or returning, i was preparing to. i never hung pictures on the walls, i kept all of my boxes, i never tried to take on a job that could be mistaken for a career, and all of my romantic relationships bloomed like weeds in loose soil, if not as frequently. i did the best i could to be ephemeral, a ghost in the flesh. and tonight is no different.

yet despite one’s best, if unconscious, efforts, communities form. now it’s morning, and the train is stuck between klamath falls and chemult; there’s a broken rail somewhere up ahead and we’re waiting for a crew to repair it so we can go on. delays are so frequent when riding by rail that i’m surprised they don’t just add three extra hours into the schedule. i’ve met an extraordinary woman through absolutely no effort on my part and we’ve spent the better part of an hour talking about ridiculous nonsense. i’m thrilled because this means i have a chance to realize one of my goals for this trip: to have a relationship, from start to finish, within the duration of a single trip from one city to the other. it didn’t happen for me on the way down, but it looks good for the trip up. in my head, it's really funny: it would start with the honeymoon phase, when you’re always witty and smart, giddy and goofy, never picking your nose or your ear or your teeth or… anything, really, since society has a thing against picking; soon, i’d ask her to move into my seating area with me, but then we’d start fighting a lot, and ultimately i’d find out she had been sleeping with some other guy who had a reservation on the sleeper car. we’d have a massive fight just in time to disembark, at which time i could call the people over at guinness. quite unexpectedly, i almost got my wish.

[to be continued]

new year's, part 2

2007-01-07T02:27:00.000-08:00

as before, i wish to begin with two moments. moment number one, rutger hauer’s final monologue from the movie blade runner.

“i’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he says. “attack ships on fire off the shoulder of orion. i watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhaüser gate. all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. time to die.”

it is difficult to determine if the dove that flies heavenward upon his demise is meant to be an ironic statement that underscores the plight of the replicants in the movie, or a sincere indication that replicants actually possess souls and will have a share in the western promise of the afterlife. this lack is what inspires their revolt; for them, there is no promise of eternal life, and hence the urge for intimacy. i interpret hauer’s decision to save harrison ford’s life at the end of the film as one motivated by the need for an other person to validate his existence in his final moments. hauer realizes that someone has to hear his story. sadly, words are incapable of doing his memories any justice, and the full richness of his history will die with him, leaving behind fragments, at best.

though the film explicitly compares hauer to jesus, this comparison underscores not only what is missing for the replicants, but also what is missing from our culture after the death of judeo-christianity as a master narrative governing our understanding of our world and our place in it. that harrison ford’s character may be a replicant should be no surprise; we’re all replicants by now. gone—long gone—are the days when one could take for granted the existence of the soul. this is not to say that there are no longer those who believe in it, simply that this belief sits alongside many other beliefs which are considered acceptable if not correct.

moment number two, the ending of virginia woolf’s book, mrs dalloway, an extended meditation on the urge for and possibility of communication in the fullest sense—being completely understood by, and therefore revealed to, the other. dalloway’s obsession with communication is linked with her obsession with death, evident from the following:

“All the same, that one day should follow another: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitebread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!—that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all” (122).

like hauer in blade runner, dalloway laments that all the words in the world will never be enough to share her experience of this life; worse, she worries that she will never be able to get as close to the present moment as she wishes, generating fantasies in which she inhabits the present fully:

“Each still remained almost whole, and, as if to catch the falling drop, Clarissa (crossing to the dressing-table) plunged into the very heart of the moment, transfixed it, there—the moment of this June morning on which was the pressure of all the other mornings” (36-7).

both moments reveal a transcendent reality that tantalizes dalloway, and the gaps that prevent her from reaching them. unlike a good post-modernist, however, i take the final words of the novel at face value: “For there she was” (194).

is this ending ironic, or sincere? how complete is this final revelation of her self? the beauty of ending the novel this way is that it presents the reader with the same difficulty dalloway herself is perpetually faced with: is she only surface, or is she something more than that? has she presented us with but a material body, or has she somehow managed, by the end of the novel, to reveal herself fully to us?

a good post-modernist would probably say that there is no transcendent knowledge available to us, and that the fact that we believe it exists is nothing more than the by-product of escapist fantasies in which we imagine ourselves whole or complete. though i believe that people can connect beyond and outside of language, implying a whole host of assumptions that would give a post-modernist hives, i agree with this assessment. i believe it is possible to connect with another human being in a way that bypasses language, but it isn’t easy and it will not unlock that person to you like some kind of apocalyptic revelation of the human soul.

consider romance, for instance. most of us, myself included, are looking for “the one.” carrie bradshaw: “i’m looking for love. real love. ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” the whole point behind this kind of love is that it never goes away, it promises eternal happiness, and it’s easy. ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming love promises to unlock a part of the universe/your self you always knew was there but couldn’t get to; it promises to unite you with another person in a way that is absolute, so that the two become one person. the gap that exists between you and everyone else dissipates between you and the object of your love. most of us realize that what we’re looking for is, well, ridiculous, but the desire for it probably continues to damage marriages nonetheless.

in short, we’re all looking for something to sweeten up this existence of ours, but i don’t know why. from my examples it looks like i’m leaning towards two unavoidable realities: my inevitable death, and my limited connection with both the other and the “nowness” of the present moment (i.e., my inability to ever use every moment to its full potential). what was a joke—to experience a relationship from start to finish while on the train—is both an expression of the urge to connect, that is, to put roots down (pun intended), but at the same time, the desire to avoid that connection. it’s “for me” that i wanted it, and furthermore, it would have been entered into with the expectation that it would end. it was escape and not commitment i was looking for, and in that sense, i almost got my wish. but communities form despite our best efforts, as i said.

so, why all of this talk of transcendence, limitation, and love? in between klamuth falls and chemult, i ruminate on loneliness; i see myself putting distance between myself and others, remaining aloof. i see the train as a metaphor for this kind of existence, and i interpret the fact that i haven’t gotten to know any of my fellow passengers as evidence of this. i even imagine including detours into film or literary analysis, and see them delaying the inevitable moment when i reveal something true about myself....

[to be continued]

new year's, part 3

2007-01-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

unlike the abstract cityscape from the night before, of sacramento submerged in darkness, save the orange beacons signaling that, yes, there is something out here, the twelve hour difference and the change in latitude delivers us unto the pine-studded snowscape of the pacific northwest. i would love, at this point, to spin this into yet another indication of my isolation (“oh, i get it—the snow is cold, like the cavity where his heart should be”), but i’m prohibited from doing so by the fact that this was easily the most sublime scenery since santa barbara, the last time any of us would see the pacific for the duration of the trip. as such, many of us were drawn together around the windows, to remark upon the beauty of the snow as much as to bitch about how much longer this god damned trip was going to take.

if i am to believe her, the reason she chose to sit with me was not so much the snow but because i asked her to. she came down the stairs and into the café car looking comfortably disshelved (as opposed to me, rocking the “hobo-chic” look at the time) in pajama pants and a white tee-shirt and got in the line that had formed to enter the concession cubicle; seeing me scribbling my little melancholy notes, she asked what i was writing. “come back when you’re done and i’ll tell you.” she held up her end of the bargain, so i gave her the capsule summary of a paper i’m working on for school. next she tells me about her boat, that she taught herself to sail; about teaching the piano to young kids and how she loved children; about her decision to go start college, at almost-30, because she was passionate enough about what she was studying to dedicate herself to the subject and not just to the grades.

fast forward to eight hours later. we’re in washington state now, near vancouver. the decision to name a city in washington “vancouver” was impish at the very least; the confusion between vancouver, washington, and vancouver, british columbia, can be alarming, as when a conductor says, on a train, for instance, “in five minutes, we’ll be in vancouver.” have i been asleep? no, that’s impossible—because i’m on a train, silly. among the great questions of our age—will we ever be able to organize ourselves in order to feed everyone on the planet; is there an energy source cleaner and more abundant than petroleum or nuclear power; and how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop—is the question, how many continuous hours can a person sleep while riding on a train?

and the answer to that question is, none. trains are engineered so that you can in no way be comfortable. trying to sleep on a train is like wetting yourself without an available change of clothes—at first, it’s warm, even pleasant. suddenly you’re cold—your legs try to shrink away from your jeans, but there’s nowhere to go, and ultimately you can only reconcile yourself to the discomfort.

then the burning starts.

i digress. where was i? right—vancouver, washington. i’ve spent the last eight hours hanging out at various places on the train—my seat, her seat, a crawl space formed by the back wall of our car and the backs of a couple of seats occupied by a mellow older man and his bitchy wife—and to be honest, i really don’t remember what we’ve been talking about. i remember discussing knitting. and math. and music, and teaching, and welding. did i mention that she welds? she welds. pours bronze. and i will be honest with you—very few people actually impress me. and no, not because i’m so goddam great—my friends would attest to the fact that i really don’t impress me very much, either. but i will say this for her: she is one of those remarkable people who wants to do something, and does it, and that is quality that i respect.

and then, things take a turn.

looking back on it now, i can’t say for sure why things turned out the way they did, but i know that the alcohol did not help. over the course of eight hours, i watched her drink one bottle of wine, 15 ounces of vodka and orange juice, and eat exactly nothing. the rise and fall of her inebriation had the elegance of a parabola; she ascended into the heavens like a bird catching a thermal, and she rode it joyously for miles of track, until, at last, the currents changed and nothing was left to prop her wings, and she descended as quickly back towards the earth. her descent was smooth and steady but heartbreaking, all at once, and the grace with which she slipped from those heights distracted me from what was happening until she had touched ground.

but they never just touch the ground, do they? it’s as though the landscape is entirely different for them when they return, as though they touch down at a darker, colder place, and their whole being suffers because of it. she mixes up my name with that of a guy she had dated a month ago, and that apology becomes multiple apologies—apologizing for the mistake, apologizing for drinking so much, apologizing for taking me for granted. i ask her about the guy and emotions overtake her, which begins a new round of apologies. i’m sorry to burden you with this, she says. this isn’t me, she says. of course it isn’t, i tell her; it’s the alcohol. it’s like feeding a child pixie sticks and caffeine and then accusing him of being hyperactive, all the way down in his very soul.

i’m doing what i can to help—i’m asking everything i know how to ask, i’m listening for any detail that might shed light on what else is going on, that could illuminate another source for the pain she’s feeling. i’m so used to thinking in terms of rules and theories, and i’m trying to figure out how they apply to this situation, how they can help me help her, but it’s not working—there’s just nothing, i think, to explain this, besides the alcohol maybe, and then, three times in a row she repeats, i don’t want to be alone, through streaming tears. i don’t want to be alone—i don’t want to be alone—i don’t want to be alone.

you can take comfort in those things you do for yourself, i suggest, weakly, but she bats it down. i’m strong, she tells me, but who do i have to give it to?

i don’t know why people need other people. i don’t know what drives us to seek out companionship and love. there are cynics who believe that what we’re seeking doesn’t exist—that the feeling of a connection with another person is nothing more than lust, a variation on the argument that it’s the biological imperative to mate. or maybe it’s the feeling of worthiness we get when someone else sees us the way we want to be seen? or perhaps it goes back to dalloway’s wish to get beyond this world, to transcend its limitations and feel connected to the universe in ways impossible to imagine. maybe it’s all of these things, maybe none. as i said, i don’t know.

being human is both beautiful and tragic, because we will never be able to know enough to avoid the heartbreaks that follow the miscommunications, the missteps, the mishaps; and these heartbreaks will be minor for some, while they will incapacitate others. we will always exceed explanation, and that is magical when so much of this world has submitted itself to totalizing comprehension. for those who wish to theorize the human, i submit that humanity exceeds formulae and material practice, just as the richness of human experience exceeds language, and the possibilities for connecting with others exceeds rational analysis. the connections we seek, always exceeding our ability but worth pursuing nevertheless, require sensitivity, subtlety, and most importantly, commitment. community can exist wherever there are people, but if the commitment isn’t there, what you get is more loneliness per capita. as for theory, it’s useful in that it gets us close, but our willingness to commit ourselves to others, and to listen to them without trying to frame their sentences inside of theoretical constructs, gets us closer.

looking back, i see that the rules and strategies i have engineered as a means of navigating my daily life are useful but also detrimental, for they serve as a means of creating distance, both from others, and from the present itself. to be without my rules and regulations is to approach the world without guidance; it is to be exposed to it, to be vulnerable. it requires me to accept my limitations, my flaws, my self. it is to become comfortable with fear in hopes of eventually becoming less afraid. it is the hope that ultimately, i can trust myself to handle situations as they unfold, without a list of directives, and without subjecting every moment of my past to ruthless analysis. and by moving through this fear, there is the possibility of giving oneself to a person, to a group of friends, to a place, even if it won’t be your home forever. being rooted means being affected; it means giving up the ability to be in complete control of yourself. and for all of this, i know i'm still afraid.

back in 2004, celebrating new years one week into january, we sidestepped the calendar’s stranglehold on time, and for an evening, i sidestepped my vicious inquiries into the why’s of our relationship—i was there, which is where i wasn’t, three years later, when i was sitting by myself in a car on a train in sacramento. but it was where i had to be, eight hours later, as the train left vancouver washington in the dust.

for, you see, there she was. and there was nothing beyond this simple, yet monumental statement: i don’t want to be alone—and what theory can respond to that? what reply can there be? every reply fails to alleviate that pain, no matter how well it is understood.

we hugged, and she cried.

the sorrows of young miss usa

2006-12-23T00:03:00.000-08:00

uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. [Photo credit: Jennifer Donley]

it’s been a very turbulent week, but it looks like the threat has been contained—miss usa will not be able to corrupt our young women any more; her reign of bikini-clad, charity-aware, lesbian-kissing terror is over.

and not a moment too soon; had TMZ.com not bothered to dig into miss usa’s personal life and display the artifacts on the internet for the population of lonely bloggers to comment upon, most of us would have remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that this woman, without any thought of the teenagers who do not care as it is, flagrantly performed acts in bars and clubs that you can only see if you spend any time at all partying with 20-year-old girls in bars and clubs—or, well, pretty much with anyone who doesn’t have babies, anywhere. i mean, isn’t that what people mean by “partying” anyway?

but now tara conner, the “reigning” miss usa, is going to rehab, and thank god. this sends the right message to young girls, who, as we all know, will pattern their behavior after any woman under the age of 25 who wears a tiara or other shiny piece of scalp-adornment. in a pinch, even a high schooler with a particularly well-polished orthodontic prosthetic will do. it’s not their fault; they can’t help it—it’s genetic, by way of a decadent culture. it’s why so many women married plumbers after playing super mario brothers. had donald trump—nay, had society—ignored conner’s flagrant demonstration of everything guys want to believe women do for fun, and of everything many women actually will do for fun (if we are to believe what we see on myspace), girls could have gotten the idea that mainstream culture values only good looks, youth, and the pursuit of immediate gratification. we’re just lucky for the counter-influence of magazines aimed directly at this demographic, which regularly feature the faces of the airbrushed, anorexic, amphetamine-amped, and ageless; instructing women on how to get a man, keep a man, sexually please a man, or get over a man; while informing them of all the latest celebrity break-ups, lock-ups, make-ups, or knock-ups.

and while i am on the subject of tiaras gone wild, i would like to congratulate the entire miss usa enterprise for making sure to sufficiently punish that other sinner in your flock, the former miss nevada, katie rees. miss rees, the fact that those pictures of you taking your top off and kissing girls at that party were taken five years ago, when you were 17, is no excuse. don’t you realize that once breasts are exposed to oxygen, they can no longer be used to make the world care about poor children who can’t afford basic school supplies, or disabled children trying to raise money to get to the special olympics? now, the poor and disabled will only get sick off of your rancid, wannabe-philanthropic boobies—how does that help anyone?

in fact, the only way you can redeem yourself now would be to star in a public service announcement that shows how displaying your breasts in public supports suicide bombers and ultimately kills babies. this sends an unambiguous message to today’s youth: having breasts means you support terror.

that’s right—just having breasts, even ones no one wants to see, means the terrorists win. those bastards; even biology is on their side.

and seriously, miss nevada. kissing girls? if there’s anything that straight men who read maxim do not dream of seeing or being in the middle of, it’s two girls engaged in luscious, passionate, sloppy kissing, while they fondle each others’ baby killers—especially if one of those girls is 20, and the other is 18, as was the case when miss usa totally face-humped the shit out of miss teen usa. i can’t think of just one thing that’s right about that. not—just—one.

it’s a good thing that the collective powers of cable news were summoned to sufficiently chastise these young people for behaving as you would expect a young person to behave; Fox News, CNN, and the Associated Press quickly discerned that the story of a woman with a smoking hot body engaging in promiscuous sex, underage lesbian loving, and wild, drug-fueled partying, contained all of the attributes commonly associated with newsworthiness, as taught to them by the adam smith school of journalism. if not for them, who would be our reliable source for gossip and rumor? whose outrage and petty vindictiveness would signal to the world, and to americans themselves, the truth of our niggling, jealous, and hypocritical morality? perhaps that is why to be a hypocrite in america is the greatest sin of all. and if we couldn’t rely on news organizations to spank those individuals, the tales of whose immoral behavior promise to titillate viewers during dinner—viewers, let’s be clear, who would never dream of escaping the boredom of their lives and partying right alongside the accused—well, then how could we entrust billionaires with the ability to anoint role models by placing shiny objects atop the heads of 20-year-olds?

and though one could say that perhaps the best thing would have been to leave it all alone; that we should have allowed the miss usa organization to deal with its employees, aka tara conner, the reigning miss usa, and the former miss nevada, katie rees, if they believed the women were performing their duties poorly, i’m sure many americans are very happy to see that both of them have been publicly shamed. the feeling of moral vindictiveness makes me almost as happy as the blow job i never had a chance of receiving from either one of them, even if i had cut witney houston herself into lines and served her up on a glass countertop for both of them to enjoy (though, for the record, the former miss nevada was not known to indulge). and i do hope that sean hannity is successful in his efforts to get the letter S tattooed across their perfect chests, so that no one ever forgets their sins; in fact, he may be only one freedom concert away from raising the money to pay for the inking.

because, don’t you see, tara conner makes it difficult for us to convince kids that they will be eaten alive by goats under the light of the next full moon if they decide to sleep around, experiment with drugs, or do any number of things we are afraid they will do on their way to adulthood. and we should know what dangers lurk in the wilderness of adolescence—after all, most of us have chosen to remain in those wilds, courting them. raising children in this world is a frightening prospect, so when my children are born, i will have them rushed into cryogenic storage, where they will remain frozen in a perpetual state of innocence. i cannot trust myself to demonstrate, through my actions, positive or healthy values; nor can i trust my future children to become curious, insightful adults, who are capable of creating their own moral vision, and who realize that the very same humans whose actions are beautiful and magnanimous also act in ways that are ugly and disgraceful. no; i can't trust them to become adults like that, because i know very few adults like that as it is. and besides, you just don’t grow out of worshipping young, beautiful people with a whole lotta money, now do you?

hopefully you realize now why this is so important. it is mainstream american culture—movies, television, cable and network media outlets—and not women like tara conner, that must take responsibility for the moral education of our children. children must be taught to value sex above anything else—even their own emotional and physical well-being—if only so that advertisers have a tool to entice them into spending money on movies, music, cars, food, pills, surgery, or gym memberships.

every young girl must understand, just like we had to make miss usa understand, that the hot body she may ultimately attain at great monetary, caloric, emotional, or physical cost is not supposed to please her—that body, like tara conner’s body, is for us to gawk at, for us to use to market some charity case, for us to enjoy.

so, teenage girls of america, now do you understand? all your boobs are belong to us.

2006-12-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

In this photo provided by University of California at Berkeley, a blindfolded student participates in research for a study Dec. 6, 2006, at UC Berkeley. What he does not know is that he is about to be fucked in the ass by a giant gorilla named Cinnamon.

Johnson conscious after brain surgery
"You did what? No, I heard you, I just... I can't understand the words."

Penguins offer evidence of global warming - scientist
"Penguins are excellent researchers, as are all of the flightless birds."

NASA Launches Google Collaboration
Hopes Google can finally find the Mars Rover

kramer fucked me

2006-11-27T23:05:00.000-08:00

no doubt because of michael richards' outburst, my local cw station is not running "seinfeld" at 10 and 10:30. instead, they're running "girlfriends"—a show about four black women.

gloria allred is representing a couple of the "victims" of michael richards' verbal tirade. they believe a monetary settlement should help ease the pain.

jaime masada, who owns the laugh factory, is banning all comedians from using the word nigger, aka "the n-word" (i refuse to say "the n-word" because i am one of the few people left who believes in free speech). he's suggesting that money be deducted from a comic's check for each time that comic uses the word nigger on stage.

this is like the second coming of janet jackson's nipple.

i am certain that the way we're going to help race relations is not to substitute crappy programming for good programming; i doubt a monetary settlement ever really helps heal the scars of racial trauma; and i know that censoring comedians—censoring anyone—only serves to cover things up, where they can fester. what our reaction to this whole incident demonstrates is that we are not willing to confront each other and the reality of racism. we'd rather pretend it doesn't exist.

i just discovered that "the cw" has also stopped airing the two episodes of "south park" that ran from 11 to midnight--and replaced them with "the game," another "urban" sitcom. you programmers are a wily bunch! there's no way the blacks will see through that! hats off to you, tv!

all this makes me realize that we're handling the war on terror all wrong. what we need are more ethnic-muslim sitcoms! if we hurry, we can get some into production before the iran-iraq-syria axis has a chance to coalesce.

on a lighter note, at least shows like "girlfriends" and "the game" have the decency to exploit the female protagonists for their hot bodies. ah, gender inequality; when racism is long gone, it's on your pillowy bosom that america will rest its weary head.

the return of--headlines!

2006-11-02T13:49:00.000-08:00

sadly, the pumpkin drowned to death after being dragged into the river. "you can't just carve a mask onto something's face and expect it to be able to breathe underwater," said a gourd farmer, thursday.

Hundreds Pitch Tents Outside Restaurant Opening
when asked to stand up, hundreds replied, "no, i think i'll just stay like this for a little bit."

Fire destroys high school, plans for year uncertain
"i hear it's nice in california," said the fire.

Underwater Pumpkin Carvers Vie for Top Honors
The first place winner received 60 seconds of life-giving oxygen before being dragged back into the watery deep to prepare for the underwater turkey carving contest, now less than a month away. It was reported later that there were no survivors.

... your riffs on these headlines and photo welcome, of course.

Pope’s Remarks at University Still Controversial Despite Apology

2006-10-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

pope benedict at richmond raaf base in australia, 2008 [photo credit: sam herd]

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict apologized Sunday for his caustic remarks delivered at a Catholic university in Rome the day before.

“I am deeply sorry if any members of the scientific community, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or otherwise, were offended by my statements yesterday,” Pope Benedict said earlier today. “It was never my intention to suggest that space travel should end.”

Despite his remarks, protests continued to rage throughout the Middle East and Europe.

While speaking to an audience of scholars and students on Saturday, the Pope recounted the mythical tale of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun on wings of wax and ultimately fell to his demise.

"Letting yourself be seduced by discovery without paying attention to the criteria of a deeper vision could lead to the drama the myth speaks of,” he told the Pontifical Lateranense University at the inauguration of a new academic year.

His allusion to the myth was misunderstood as a warning to the scientific community to focus its attentions on earthbound pursuits—to literally stay away from the sun.

Violent Response to Remarks

Physicists and astronomers worldwide were quick to register their outrage, the form of which has ranged from statements of protest to violent rioting and looting.

In one incident, rogue astronomers seized the Gemini Science Center and, inspired by Archimedes, transformed the two large telescopes there into massive heat rays, setting fire to the historic Missions along the coast of California.

Elsewhere, protests turned deadly. French astronomers from the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) beat and killed a Catholic nun, and then resurrected her using stem cells and a stick of wintermint gum. Later, they were joined by colleagues working in other areas of science, who ostentatiously turned water into wine and back again using newly developed bacterial agents and then flaunted their ability to clone fish and loaves of bread.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) immediately convened an emergency assembly to pass a special resolution condemning the Pope’s comments. “His statements are offensive and hurt the sentiments of astronomers and physicists,” the resolution said.

“This body demands that the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony between our faiths. Believing that nothing exists save the uncaring mechanisms of pure determinism, and committing ourselves to hunting those mechanisms down and exposing them to the masses who rely on mystery to give them reason to hope to change their world by enacting their individual wills, is our God-given right.”

Meanwhile, in a joint statement, the American Astronomer’s Society (AAS), NASA, Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL), and the European Space Agency (ESA) condemned the violence, but expressed hope that the Pope would reconsider his comments.

“While we strongly condemn his remarks, we know that he has misunderstood our aims and intentions,” the statement said. “We have never expressed a desire to visit the sun. Far from it. In fact, our doctrine in no way endorses any travel to the sun or any other solar body, anywhere. Nor do we wish to remove the role that faith plays in human life.”

“All we want to do is diminish that role, little by little, over time, the way water slowly erodes a mountain, leaving a tiny nub of rock. A process, by the way, that we can explain.”

Muslim World Reacts to Pope

Pressure on the Vatican to rescind the Pope’s remarks increased early Monday morning as reports flooded out of the Middle East of vandalism and arson.

A spokesperson for the Sunni militias in Iraq rejected the Pope’s apology, stating that his Sunday address “does not amount to an apology because he said that scientists had misunderstood his speech.”

Acts of vandalism were condoned by a joint statement issued by the Iranian Space Agency (ISA), out of Tehran, and the Supreme Leader of Iran the Ayatolla Ali Khamenei, who warned Muslims that this was the “latest chain of the crusade against Islam started by America’s Bush.”

"By referencing the mythology of the Greeks, the Pope of the Vatican has invoked the bloody conquests of Alexander, the infidel who waged war on our people centuries ago,” the ISA Khamenei said. “He was the forefather of the forefathers of the new Zionist-American crusade, the bloody evil streaming forth from America’s Bush. Our people once commanded unparalleled knowledge of the cosmos of Allah, and now these forces have allied again to blind us, to drape a cloth across our faces so that we cannot speak, or learn, or fulfill our hopes and dreams, as Allah commands us to do to our women.”

“Wipe up your evil, America’s Bush; it is unholy.”

The ISA is feverishly developing technologies of space flight in order to become a player on the world stage and fears that the Pope’s statements are part of the United Nation’s efforts to stymie its nuclear ambitions. Iran insists that its ambitions to build and launch its own satellites are driven by the need to monitor natural disasters like earthquakes and troop movements, two disasters to which it is already, or will soon be, prone.

Last year, Iran signed a $132 million deal with a Russian company to build a telecommunications satellite; China also has a deal with Iran, and Thailand, to develop a satellite.

Roskosmos (the Russian Space Agency) and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) responded to the ISA Khamenei’s words later on Monday. “People of Planet Earth,” they said in a joint statement, “remember that anything the followers of Islam do in response to something you said or did is your fault. If nuns get killed, remember that Allah wills it, and besides, you brought it upon yourselves; if places of worship or learning are destroyed, remember that the days when your governments would protect your freedom to say or to publish your opinions will soon be in the past.”

Meanwhile, the majority of the world’s population, including notable physicists, chemists, Christians, and Muslims, were shocked and confused by the outrage over what seemed to be nothing.

“People who act in the name of science should try to respect the mysteries of our universe," said an average person Monday.

“Some of them are so caught up in the effort to uncover the mechanisms that drive the motions of the natural world, that they can't see the beauty of the human soul.”

“We’re working on seeing it,” said a spokesperson for the Human Genome Project. “We expect to be able to see the human soul in about two years, then we figure we’ll be able to take it apart and put it back together, maybe learn how to make it power a small electric motor by 2015.”

“If we can dismantle it, replicate it, make a pill out of it, and sell it back to you for 50 times what it costs us to make it, then by god, we’re gonna it.”

* * *

Iran Plans to Boost Space Program
Muslims deplore Pope speech
Militants vow war in Pope row
Pope warns scientists not to risk fate of Icarus

don't look now--it's headlines!

2006-10-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

Relative: Slain Fla. family had no foes
correction: slain fla. family had at least one foe.

Iraqi police force facing shake-up
iraqi police now encouraged to patrol streets and fight crime.

Mexican archeologists find largest Aztec figure
the 12.4 tonne slab depicts the aztec figure mowing the lawn of a spaniard's 200 tonne mansion.

in the news: the cutest infestation ever

2006-10-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Scientists to test koala contraceptive

The tastiest species of eucalyptus on the island are groaning under the weight of an estimated 28,000 koalas that are chomping themselves out of habitat at a rate of almost one pound of leaves each day during the few hours they spend awake.

i suppose we could just... let the koalas eat until there aren't enough leaves to support the population. if that were to happen, wouldn't koalas just... die? when i crunch the numbers, it appears that death will significantly help to shrink the population.

any animal that is this easy to catch shouldn't be allowed to survive for too long anyway:

The researchers work with state government wildlife officers who scale the trees using ropes and pulleys until they're high enough to wave flags on long poles above the koalas' heads. The koalas usually slowly retreat down the trees away from the flags and are easily bundled into bags when they reach the ground.

the flag: nature's deadliest predator.

here are some other objects, in no particular order, that frighten the koala:

spheres
pi
cumulonimbus clouds
the word "periwinkle"
diet coke
teddy ruxpin

that last one's not a mistake; you'd be surprised at how frightening that talking bear is when he's got a pole up his ass and he's being waved above your head. amnesty international is up in arms over rumors that the defense department is testing out a militarized version at gitmo.

until i read this article, i had never heard of an animal so lazy, it wouldn't defend itself against a flag. the koala bear may be the only animal that captures itself. if they weren't covered in fur, they'd probably hang out in bath robes all day, carrying six packs of pabst blue ribbon, like the college freshmen who idolize them.

but why can't we simply let the animal die? because they're too damn cute. we all know that no matter how bad things get, the general public couldn't allow the killing, or "culling," of any animal that looks like a teddy bear. ("culled" is, cleverly, one phonic step away from the word "killed," so as to disguise the fact that it means the very same thing.)

nevermind the fact that we don't really know what might happen when we start implanting contraceptives into wild animals. i refer you to "EPA chided over 'intersex' fish concerns." according to the article, the reaction causing male fish to grow female sex organs

could be triggered by estrogen from birth control pills and human waste that makes its way into the waterways from sewage treatment plants, or manmade chemicals in pesticides and cosmetics.

it's possible that years of fertility control in humans has led to mutations in fish; if we can't eliminate birth control as a cause here, do we want to start spreading this technology to animals?

the other problem with birth control is that it isn't a technology capable of responding to changes in the environment. this is a problem australia is currently experiencing with kangaroos (see "Birth Control for Kangaroos: Scientists' Population Control Plan" for more on this). a severe drought struck the country, reducing the amount of food available to support that population.

it isn't practical, from an economic perspective, to engineer a method of birth control that would cycle out of the koala's body quickly, so let's say you create a birth control pill that supresses the animal's fertility for three years (a number i made up). what happens if the habitat's carrying capacity takes a dive in the interim? the koala population might swing radically in the opposite direction, and no amount of eating will increase their numbers.

the drought has driven starving kangaroos into cities and towns; in one instance, they apparently attacked and killed a dog (see "Australia drought puts kangaroo war in cross-hairs"). so it's clear that something has to be done for the koalas. i hope we can avoid this chilling scenario: koalas, starved for eucalyptus, slowly--very slowly--moving into towns, raiding farms, and organizing into packs to kill small children and the occasional elderly couple. it would take them roughly two years to crawl into the city, retreating from any building with a flag or box of crayons with more than 24 colors, but they're determined. hopefully, we can assemble a coalition of the willing-to-hold-bags-open to protect civilized society.

in closing, i'd like to leave you with this thought: natural processes are not humane. while not apparent to those of us lucky enough to live in developed nations, life is filled with wonder and beauty and spilt blood and the gnashing of teeth on bone. i find it inherently contradictory, and therefore humorous, that people pity the animals dying of hunger, then reach for guns to put sharp pieces of metal in their heads in the name of "being humane." i wish we lived in better harmony with the rest of nature, but until then, we could start by not meddling. it's a simple equation: if koalas eat too much, they die.

in the news

2006-10-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

Food may be like a drug for some, study shows

The volunteers were all genuinely hungry -- they had been fasting for 16 or 17 hours when the PET scans were run. The stimulator succeeded in making them feel less hungry, Wang said.

But the surprise was in which brain circuits it used in doing so.

"It was very similar to a study on when cocaine abusers, when they think of cocaine, they have a craving for cocaine," he said.

that's right, food is like a drug. food versus cocaine--go!

unless you're dj am, cocaine will make you thin; overeating will make you fat. edge: cocaine.

cocaine increases your risk for heart attack 24-fold within the first hour of use and one of the effects of long-term use is impotence, but your heart attack risk goes up four-fold after a large meal, and the obese are at greater risk for heart disease and diabetes--one of the side effects of which is impotence. the journey takes longer if you're using food, but the destination is the same. this one's kind of a draw.

taking cocaine in through the nose can produce an unpleasant post-nasal drip down the back of the throat, but when i eat too fast my nose runs anyway. draw.

crack, like food, is cheap and widely available, but you can't go into a hard rock cafe and get an "8-balls of fire." not yet, anyway. and if anyone finds out that you can, i want royalties. edge: food.

no food-fueled orgies or works of artistic brilliance--sorry, folks, the fat boys don't count. edge: cocaine.

artists, rockstars, the rich, and the douchebags who idolize them use cocaine; food is not only abused by just about everyone, but abusing food has become a national pastime celebrated in popular culture and encouraged by the corporations who stand to profit from our unnecessary super-consumption. while people in other countries barely have enough food for one meal, taco bell encourages us to have a fourth one. edge: food.

while all of us will have to decide for ourselves which gets the title of best addiction, one thing is clear: we're going to have to change the way we look upon the morbidly obese. from now on, popular culture needs to celebrate them the same way it celebrates other drug addicts. if they're famous, anyway. definitely a defeat for condescension and self-satisfaction. thank god we've still got the catholics to kick around.

and remember, everyone. the thrill can kill.